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CLIMATE: Senate Dems open to tackling energy in 'chunks' Senate Democrats are willing to take piecemeal action on climate and energy issues next year, when prospects for the sweeping legislation that failed to pass this session are likely to get even worse. "How we do it, how we achieve it, I'm open to," Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said today. "If there's a way to do this in smaller pieces with bipartisan cooperation, which we will definitely need, then I want to do it. At the end of the day, I want it done." President Obama said in a recent interview with Rolling Stone magazine that energy and climate will be among his top priorities next year, even though the issue may be tackled in "chunks" rather than in one comprehensive bill (E&ENews PM, Sept. 28). With Republicans all but certain to pick up seats in both the House and Senate in the November election, Congress' appetite for broad climate and energy bills is not expected to improve next year. Durbin and other top Senate Democrats today said they are willing to move smaller energy bills if that is what it takes to get them through the chamber, where sweeping energy legislation failed to attract the needed 60 votes this year. "We're going to get it done one way or the other -- chunks or big chunks," said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the lead author of several Senate climate bills that stalled this year, said it is important for the Senate to make progress however possible, but he warned that scaled-back legislation may not be sufficient. "There's a scientific urgency in this. And that scientific urgency doesn't do well with piecemeal," he said. "I'm not going to be satisfied if all we do is make people feel good by doing just something. We've got to do something that actually begins to address the challenge." Kerry said the prospects for climate legislation will depend largely on the outcome of the November election. "So I'm not going to make predictions, except to say we're going to have to fight," he said. "I guarantee you we're going to have to fight, and we're going to put a major proposal on the table." Several Senate Democrats today said they were not sure whether smaller pieces of energy legislation would have a better shot at passing the Senate than bulkier bills. "We just don't know until we see who's in the Senate the next two years," said Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. "We tend not to be very good at chunks," said Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.). "But then, you could argue that we tend not to be very good at big things, either." Source: E&E News |
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