1. POLITICS: Bolstered by House win, Obama prods Senate to act on cap-and-trade bill (ClimateWire, 06/29/2009)

Darren Samuelsohn, E&E senior reporter

President Obama called this weekend for the Senate to get to work in passing comprehensive energy and global warming legislation now that they have a blueprint in Friday's House-passed measure.

Using his weekly radio and internet address as a bully pulpit, Obama emphasized the economic incentives and national security implications that he said would come if he were to sign into law a new U.S. energy and climate policy.

But the four-and-a-half-minute speech also highlighted the difficult political challenges ahead, especially with more than a dozen Democrats and nearly all Republicans in the Senate still pushing back against such sweeping changes.

"Now my call to every senator, as well as to every American, is this: We cannot be afraid of the future," Obama said. "And we must not be prisoners of the past. Don't believe the misinformation out there that suggests there is somehow a contradiction between investing in clean energy and economic growth. It's just not true."

Obama taped the radio address in the White House library late Friday following the 219-212 House vote that was the first time ever for the chamber to approve a bill establishing a cap-and-trade system to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Underscoring the nervousness surrounding that roll call, the president actually had already recorded a speech on health care reform that the White House quickly scrapped in favor of the news of the day.

Yesterday, however, he sounded a cautionary note to a small group of reporters, saying he was unhappy about a provision tucked into the House vote on Friday that would punish countries that do not accept greenhouse gas limits with trade sanctions. "I think there may be other ways of doing it than with a tariff approach," he said, according to the New York Times.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held the whip hand on Friday.

David Axelrod, Obama's top political adviser, acknowledged on NBC's "Meet the Press" yesterday that Democrats do not yet have the 60 votes needed in the Senate to overcome a filibuster. But he also insisted that Obama would not let the momentum from the House win fade.

"The vote is not tomorrow," Axelrod said. "The vote will come some time in the fall. I think we will fashion an energy package that will move this country forward and carry the day."

If Obama and the Democrats are going to win on the issue, they are going to have to do it against a hungry Republican opposition that has long been characterizing the climate legislation as an expensive new tax that would pinch Americans' pocketbooks during the worst recession in decades.

"Today, House Democrats made the decision to stand with left-wing special interests rather than with families and small businesses in their districts that will lose so much because of this national energy tax," House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio said Friday. "The American people will not forget this vote."

Pelosi everywhere

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was everywhere last week trying to round up the votes, from late-night meetings in her office next to the Capitol Rotunda to the floor, where the California Democrat was seen moving from member to member during a series of roll call votes on other pieces of legislation.

"Nancy Pelosi was the whip on this," said Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, who actually has the title of Democratic majority whip. "I was pleased to take a back seat to her and watch her and learn from her."

Indeed, Pelosi spent a few minutes early Friday afternoon persuading Rep. Rush Holt of New Jersey to stay onboard, talking to the six-term congressman as he sat on one of the couches set up in a hallway just off the House floor.

The San Francisco-based lawmaker a few minutes later plopped down next to Rep. Joe Donnelly of Indiana, though she would not end up winning his vote. Earlier in the week, Pelosi approached nine-term Rep. Sanford Bishop of Georgia right in front of a large scrum of reporters in the Speaker's Lobby. Bishop ended up voting "aye."

House Democratic leaders gave different answers when asked after the vote exactly when they knew they would win. But sources close to the effort said the moment came around 1 p.m. as the climate bill floor debate was just getting started. A few minutes before then, Pelosi had brought all of the other members of her leadership team together with about a dozen aides in a huddle on the floor as the House voted for passage of the fiscal 2010 Interior Department and U.S. EPA spending bill.

After about 10 minutes, the group dispersed with smiles on their faces.

"We weren't there then," Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the head of the House Democrats' 2010 campaign operation, recalled later. "But we were closing in."

So why the smiling? "Well, we'd gotten some more," he replied.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland said Democrats did not know for sure they would pull off the victory until "about 18 or 19 minutes after the vote began."

Still, Hoyer also explained that Pelosi knew she would win. "I think we were pretty confident," he told E&E. "I don't think we would have brought the bill to the floor if we weren't pretty confident. But as you can see, it was close."

Building up from a base of 150 votes

Democrats built their winning coalition around more than 150 lawmakers who had been pushing for significant action on climate change dating back to the George W. Bush administration.

The major dealmaking started in the Energy and Commerce Committee, as newly installed Chairman Henry Waxman of California and Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, the leader of a key energy subcommittee, circled the Memorial Day recess as the goal for them to move climate legislation out of their powerful panel.

Critical regional interests helped to keep the momentum going, spearheaded by 14-term Rep. Rick Boucher from the coal fields of southwestern Virginia, Rep. Mike Doyle from Pittsburgh and Rep. Jay Inslee of Seattle. The three helped craft compromises that got the bill out of the Energy and Commerce Committee, 33-25, just in time to meet Waxman and Markey's deadline.

Returning from the recess earlier this month, the Democratic committee members got help from Pelosi and the party's leadership with an eye on a floor debate either right before or after the July Fourth recess.

One by one, the lawmakers worked over a number of reluctant regional interests, including the powerful chairman of the Agriculture Committee, Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota. Peterson won concessions from Waxman on ethanol, biofuels and rural electric cooperatives, explaining Friday that he probably helped Democratic leaders pick up the votes of about 20 to 25 other farm state Democrats.

Yet even with Peterson's help, Pelosi remained short of the all-important 218-vote threshold. To get there, she still needed to convince a cross section of her own caucus, including members who held onto their cards until right up to the vote.

Among the lawmakers Pelosi won over include a number of Democrats who won their seats in recent elections with comfortable margins, including Armed Services Chairman Ike Skelton of western Missouri; seven-term Rep. Vic Snyder from Little Rock, Ark.; seven-term Rep. Bob Etheridge of North Carolina; four-term Rep. David Scott of Atlanta; and Bishop, from southwestern Georgia.

Pelosi also captured the votes of eight Republicans, including a pair of longtime champions on environmental issues, 15-term Rep. Chris Smith of Rahway, N.J., and nine-term upstate New Yorker John McHugh. The other GOP votes come from lawmakers where politics are very much at play.

Two possible Senate candidates in 2010, Mike Castle of Delaware and Mark Kirk of Illinois, voted for the climate bill. The others also represent areas where environmental issues run strong: Reps. Mary Bono Mack of Palm Springs, Calif.; freshman Leonard Lance and Frank LoBiondo of New Jersey, and David Reichert from the Seattle suburbs.

"We wished we'd had more Republicans working with us, but their leader didn't believe in the science of global warming, didn't believe in the problem of global warming and didn't see there was a need for a solution," Waxman said, referring to Energy and Commerce Committee ranking member Joe Barton of Texas.

Leaning on doubters and preparing backups, if needed

Back on the Democratic side of the aisle, Pelosi had to coax back into the fold a number of lawmakers who environmental groups have long relied on, including Reps. Lloyd Doggett of Austin, Texas; Ron Kind and Steve Kagen of Wisconsin; and New Jersey's Holt. All had raised red flags about the bill, both for its environmental stringency and because they did not have a full grip on the implications for their districts.

The Democratic coalition included freshmen who represent districts long held by Republicans, including John Adler of New Jersey, Scott Murphy and Dan Maffei from New York, and Alan Grayson from Orlando.

"For some of them, it was a very difficult vote," Pelosi told reporters. "Because the entrenched agents of the status quo were out there full force, jamming the lines in their districts and here. And they withstood that and we're very proud of that."

Pelosi also had some backup votes that would have switched their opposition to the measure if the possibility of failure loomed.

"I don't have an exact count, but there were a number of members who understood this was an issue of national importance to the president and to the House, and said they'd not allow this bill to fail," Van Hollen said.

In all, 44 Democrats voted with 178 Republicans against the climate bill. Opponents included a handful of Democratic freshmen who won their 2008 races with tight margins, including Parker Griffith of northern Alabama, Pennsylvania's Kathy Dahlkemper, Virginia Beach's Glenn Nye, North Carolina's Larry Kissel, Michael Arcuri of New York and Ann Kirkpatrick of northeastern Arizona.

Pelosi also lost support from Rep. Fortney Stark of California who long ago advocated for a carbon tax, and Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, the 2004 and 2008 presidential candidate who said the legislation had gotten too weak.

Senate majority leader sets September deadline

Senate action on the climate bill is expected to begin early next month as six different committees begin preparing their own version of a comprehensive measure that can be matched up with the House bill.

Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has given the panels until Sept. 18 to get their legislation ready. The core of the bill will come out of the Environment and Public Works Committee, where Chairwoman Barbara Boxer of California says she is planning legislative hearings and a markup next month.

"We have a lot to do," Boxer told E&E on Saturday. "We'll be doing it all in July."

Environmental groups are hopeful they will see the legislation improve as it moves through Boxer's committee, and also during a potential conference negotiation with the House.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid prepares for floor action after Sept. 18. The prospect of a filibuster makes his job tougher.

"We certainly think there are opportunities to make it stronger and that is what we are going to try to do," Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters, said Friday. "There are many steps along the way."

But some key House Democrats do not expect the bill to get any more aggressive, especially considering the deals that it took to pass off the floor.

"This bill represents a tremendous compromise on the part of many members and to make any adjustments at this point would ensure its defeat," said Rep. G.K. Butterfield of North Carolina, a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee and a top Democratic vote counter.

Asked if the House bill was as strong as the chamber can go, Butterfield replied, "In my opinion, yes."

Instead, many see the Senate watering down the legislation in order to get the bill passed there. And Hoyer said that scenario could help prospects for the overall legislation as the debate moves forward.

"The reason I'm not [worried], if it changes, my perspective is, there may be some members who didn't feel comfortable now, who because of Senate amendments may feel more comfortable," Hoyer said. "I don't think the opposite will be the case."

Republicans hope for a repeat of 1993

For their part, Republicans smell political red meat with the House vote. Several members chanted "Btu, Btu" during the final floor tally -- a reminder of the House's 1993 passage of a Clinton administration initiative on energy that some say helped contribute to the landslide 1994 election where Republicans took over the House after more than a half century of Democratic rule.

Following Friday's vote, the National Republican Congressional Committee blanketed the Democratic swing districts with press releases describing the similar circumstances, which include the 1993 roll call of 219-213 (with 38 Democrats voting against the bill and no Republican support). The Senate never passed the 1993 House energy bill.

"I think many of us think this is the beginning of the end of their majority," said GOP Rep. John Shadegg of Arizona. "I think it's that far over the top."

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee ranking member James Inhofe (R-Okla.) predicted the climate legislation was going nowhere on his end of Capitol Hill.

"Today's razor thin vote in the House spells doom in the Senate," Inhofe, a prominent climate science skeptic, said in a press release. "Despite a large Democratic majority in the House, and the fact that this is one of the President's top priorities, the Democratic leadership was forced to do everything possible to get a bill passed. Their slim victory could come at a high price -- this is the BTU tax all over again."

Democratic leaders countered that Obama's election mandate is the difference maker this time around. Hoyer said the Btu (British thermal unit) vote "has sort of gotten mythic proportions" -- especially if one considers the push that Democratic leaders now plan to make in the Senate.

"Nobody's going to be running away from this vote," added Van Hollen. "I think people are going to be boldly going out and talking about how this is important for this country's clean energy future. They're going to be carrying this vote proudly and talking about it. They're going to be on offense on this."

Reporters Ben Geman, Noelle Straub, Allison Winter, Christa Marshall and Annie Jia contributed.

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