On Climate Policy, Very Different Conditions For Dems Compared To 2009 Cap-And-Trade Failure
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The reconciliation measure is far from a certainty, as lawmakers battle over various provisions, including the environmental ones. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committe Chair Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), for one, wants a much smaller spending package (E&E Daily, Oct. 1). Most moderates, however, are on board with various provisions, including massive new spending on clean energy and electric vehicles, and a Clean Electricity Performance Program that would incentivize electric utilities to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
“Climate change is, besides COVID, frankly, the biggest threat to Americans and the world at this point in time,” Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.) told E&E News. “That’s the one thing I probably could support, for sure, in a reconciliation bill,” he said of the climate-related provisions. Schrader has issues with some of the bill’s specifics, like the particular structure of the CEPP. He opposed it in the Energy and Commerce Committee and has proposed an alternative clean energy standard. “But it does call for billions of dollars in innovation and technology, and I think that’s the key to bringing the country together,” he said of the full bill.
Other centrists who’ve shown support for at least part of the climate spending include Reps. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) and Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.), all of whom belong to the moderate Blue Dog Coalition. They wrote to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) last month, saying climate spending in the bill does not have to be offset because official cost estimates for the legislation “do not adequately account for the future costs associated with inaction on the climate crisis.”
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It was a very different picture in 2009, when Pelosi had the House vote on the American Clean Energy and Security Act, sponsored by then-Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.). The cap-and-trade bill scared off numerous moderate Democrats, who felt that it was inappropriate at a time when the economy was still recovering from the Great Recession. Democrats representing fossil-fuel-heavy areas objected even more strongly. The bill passed the House, but with 44 Democrats voting against it. The initiative died the next year when the Senate gave up on trying to formulate its own cap-and-trade legislation.
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https://www.eenews.net/articles/moderates-love-dems-climate-agenda-what-changed-from-2009/
