Climate Action in Congress

The 111th Congress opened with the prospects for climate legislation dramatically improved.

President Obama is the first occupant of the White House to call for a mandatory, economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In his address to a joint session of Congress on February 24, 2009, President Obama asked lawmakers to send him “legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution,” and has set targets for reducing US GHG emissions of 14% below 2005 levels by 2020, and approximately 83% below 2005 levels by 2050. He has also included revenues from a cap-and-trade system in his budget projections for 2010 and beyond.

The President has a number of well-placed advocates for climate legislation in Congress to work with him towards his goal. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) is the chairman of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over GHG regulations, and Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) chairs the committee’s Subcommittee on Energy and Environment.  Waxman and Markey have long been strong advocates for mandatory climate measures and released the discussion draft of The American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACESA) on March 31, 2009.  Key moderates on the committee include Representatives John Dingell (D-MI) and Rick Boucher (D-VA).  Dingell and Boucher, as chairmen of the committee and subcommittee in the last Congress, devoted considerable committee time and resources to climate change legislation in the 110th Congress, and produced a very thoughtful draft cap-and-trade bill in October 2008.  A collaboration between Waxman, Markey, Dingell and Boucher may prove the key to moving the bill out of committee and through the House.

On the Senate side, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) is the chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which last Congress reported out the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, the first GHG cap-and-trade bill to make it through the committee process and onto the Senate floor. Lieberman-Warner died in a procedural motion by a vote of 48-36, well short of the 60 votes needed to push the bill further through the legislative process.

In both the House and the Senate, party lines are not a wholly accurate predictor of support for a climate bill.  Ten Democratic Senators, representing coal- and manufacturing-heavy states, have signed a letter outlining principles that set a high bar for any cap-and-trade bill they might support.  At least six other Democrats are believed to be in much the same place as these ten.  At the same time, nine Republican Senators have signaled a willingness to support some form of cap-and-trade legislation, either through previous votes, bill cosponsorships or public statements.  A large majority of these moderates will be indispensable to passing cap-and-trade legislation.

When the Lieberman-Warner debate ended last year, it was the opinion of the Pew Center that sufficient support existed in Congress to pass a cap-and-trade bill, as long as it was the right cap-and-trade bill. This remains the case, and both the House and the Senate have gained members who are in favor of mandatory measures to reduce U.S. GHG emissions. However, the fundamental calculus remains that members of Congress representing traditional industries hold the key to passing a climate bill out of Congress. The great difference in this Congress is the man who just left it. President Obama has made his commitment to cap-and-trade legislation clear, and he has asked Congress to put this historic measure on his desk. What remains to be seen is whether Congress can get it there.