Kate Sheppard asks if the passage of health care legislation will hurt or hinder progress on climate legislation.   But the underlying question is whether or not Senator Graham is looking for an excuse to bail on climate negotiations.  The answer to that question might just be yes.  His rhetoric hints at the possibility, and he’s willing to distort the truth about reconciliation without hesitation while huffing and puffing that it leaves him no choice but to bail on unrelated legislation.  If Senator Graham does end up using the passage of health care reform as an excuse to give up on climate talks, his lack of integrity will be readily apparent for all to witness.

First, some back story.

Last week this National Journal article ($) made me worry:

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, the lone Republican working with Democrats on both immigration and climate change legislation, might walk away from talks on those issues if Senate Democrats use budget reconciliation to pass changes to their healthcare bill in a deal with the House, according to Graham and a leadership aide….

A Senate GOP aide said it was too early to begin worrying that a deal will be struck on a climate bill that would put a price on industrial carbon emissions. But at the same time, aides said stakeholders should consider the impact reconciliation will have on climate legislation and the possibility that the midterm elections could yield more business-friendly Republicans in Congress.

“They should definitely realize there’s not a lot of good reasons to cut a rash deal at this point,” a Republican aide said. “I think they’re going to have a very hard time convincing any Republicans, particularly with reconciliation hanging over their head. It seems like, to me, from a business perspective, they should consider that.”

But since it was National Journal quoting an anonymous Republican aide, I didn’t place much weight in it. Was that a mistake? Could Senator Graham really take such offense to reconciliation that he would scuttle climate talks over it?

Senator Graham emerged last fall as a leading Republican in negotiations on clean energy and climate legislation. While he wasn’t ready to support the Boxer-Kerry bill on the table, he expressed confidence in “a pathway forward … that makes us more energy independent, creates sound environmental policy, promotes job creation and frees our nation from dependency on foreign oil.” In the months that followed, as he was attacked by South Carolina Republicans over and over again, he continued making the case for clean energy. In early January, responding to being censured by a local county Republican party, he shot back: “I do believe in finding common ground to solve hard problems.” As recently as the end of January he was still “committed to finding a new path forward.”

But in late February, the rhetoric took a turn for the worse:

In a private meeting with several environmental leaders on Wednesday, according to participants, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), declared, “Cap-and-trade is dead.”

Then on the March 7th edition of Face the Nation, Graham said (PDF):

We’ve had reconciliation votes but all of them had received bipartisan support, the least was twelve when we did reconciliation with tax cuts. So it is taking a partisan product and making it law.

It isn’t clear whether he was being disingenuous or was just mistaken, but his statement was factually incorrect. Graham was apparently referring to the 2001 tax cuts. But as the Sunlight Foundation has documented, Bush’s 2003 tax cuts were passed through reconciliation on a hyperpartisan 50-50 vote. Whether he was being disingenuous or not, those were harsh words, and they are not encouraging for those of us who have worried all along about the Senator’s ability to negotiate in good-faith.

Graham’s most disturbing comments about reconciliation came on Sunday on ABC’s This Week:

“If they do this, it’s going to poison the well for anything else they would like to achieve this year or thereafter.”

He continued:

“I’ve been working with Lieberman and Kerry, we’ve come a long way on the climate and energy issue,” Graham said. “This is one issue where the president has been great. He’s saying all the right things to give us a chance to become energy independent, clean up the air and create jobs. But when it comes to health care, he’s been tone deaf, he’s been arrogant, and they’re pushing a legislative proposal and a way to do that legislative proposal that’s going to destroy the ability of this country to work together for a very long time. And that’s not necessary.”

Jeromy Symons gets this exactly right:

“Senators shouldn’t squander this opportunity for real energy reform because they are angry on other topics,” he said. “Think where our nation would be if Congress called it quits every time parties fight over one issue. Nothing would ever get done.”

Senator Kerry remains confident in Senator Graham’s interest in proceeding, citing earlier statements the Republican Senator has made. But Senator Graham says a lot of things.

Ezra calls it an empty threat, quipping that “if Graham doesn’t think the well is already poisoned, then I dare him to take a sip from it.” But it isn’t clear to me that Senator Graham is above using this as an excuse to back out of climate negotiations. While talking a relatively good talk most of the time, he’s been working behind the scenes to weaken the legislation as much as possible. And by the looks of things he’s had significant success on that front.

I can’t help but note that Senator Graham initially became interested in climate legislation because of his mentor John McCain. McCain, of course, has long since bailed on climate discussions for plainly political reasons.

Bailing now offers Senator Graham an easy opportunity to accommodate his increasingly anti-science base by pulling the football on the gullible democrats once again.

On Monday Graham warned reporters that the draft legislation he is developing with Senators Kerry and Lieberman may not be public until mid-April. If all goes according to plan, health care reform will be the law of the land by then.

When Democrats pass health care legislation in the next few days, Senator Graham will have a potentially career-defining decision to make. He can take the easy route, the predictable path, by joining Republicans in an orchestrated tantrum and an attempt to completely shut down the government.  Or he can do what he knows is right and continue working for clean energy legislation that will create jobs, reduce pollution and improve our national security. We’re going to find out what Senator Graham is made of very soon.

A few polls I hadn’t yet gotten around to writing about:

Via Framing Science, this Stanford study (PDF) shows that the decline in concern regarding global warming some polls are finding is not entirely accurate.

Here is a video of Professor Krosnick discussing the survey:

Separately, an international survey of 9,000 people in 22 countries had the following findings:

• 83 per cent are concerned by climate change and 80 percent by the level of local air pollution.
• 77 percent are concerned or very concerned about their country’s reliance on other countries providing oil and gas.
• 89 percent think it important or very important to reduce their country’s reliance on fossil fuels.

About 16% of the respondents were from the United States.

And yet another Gallup poll shows Republicans as outliers in terms of understanding environmental issues. While Democrats and Independents think the quality of the environment has improved since Barack Obama took office, Republicans aren’t so sure:

Union of Concerned Scientists:

Nobel Prize-winning economists and scientists will deliver a letter to the U.S. Senate today, urging lawmakers to require immediate cuts in global warming emissions. The letter was signed by more than 2,000 prominent U.S. economists and climate scientists, including eight Nobel laureates, 32 National Academy of Sciences members, 11 MacArthur “genius award” winners, and three National Medal of Science recipients.

“The nation’s leading scientists and economists have joined together to tell policymakers we agree about the urgency of addressing climate change now,” said James McCarthy, one of the letter’s organizers and a biological oceanography professor at Harvard University. “The bad news is the science of climate change is indisputable. The good news is we can cost-effectively cut the emissions that are causing it.”

Here is the letter:

scientists-and-economists-10

The letter is below:

Read the rest of this entry »

The whole editorial is strong but I especially like the last few paragraphs:

Industrial emissions account for a third of this country’s greenhouses gases, and freezing the government’s ability to regulate them makes no sense. There is no guarantee that Congress will produce a broad bill. And even if it does, what is the harm in requiring power plants and other industrial facilities to make near-term improvements in efficiency, or switch to less-polluting fuels?

These senators seem to have bought the hype, spun by industry, that the E.P.A. will run amok. This is not the way we read the intentions of the E.P.A. administrator, Lisa Jackson, who has promised that whatever regulations she proposes will be gradual, cost-effective and affect only the largest facilities.

Nor is it the way we read Congress’s responsibility to the country. That is to address the very real danger of climate change, not deny the government the tools it needs — and legally has — to fight it.

The fact that the thinking behind Murkowski and Rockefeller’s efforts comes directly from polluting industries is an important point, and one that can’t be repeated enough as far as I’m concerned.

Here is the National Association of Manufacturers:

The EPA needs to slow down and let Congress handle this issue.

Here is Senator Rockefeller on the day he introduced the Stationary Sources Regulations Delay Act:

This legislation will issue a two year suspension on EPA regulation of greenhouse gases from stationary sources—giving Congress the time it needs to address an issue as complicated and expansive as our energy future. Congress, not the EPA, must be the ideal decision-maker on such a challenging issue.

The Times piece is worth reading in full.

A terrific guest post from Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, CEO of Green For All. — Josh

Originally published on The Root.com

Today the Senate Energy Committee will begin debating a weatherization bill known as Home Star that aims to make American homes more energy efficient, while creating thousands of American jobs in the process. Home Star has the potential to significantly reduce residential energy consumption, saving consumers almost $10 billion over the next ten years, while cutting greenhouse gas emissions by an amount equivalent to the removal of more than 600,000 cars from American highways.

Even more importantly given the state of our economy, the legislation is projected to create 168,000 local jobs in communities all across the country.  That, more than anything else, is what Americans urgent want, particularly the people who have been hardest hit by the tough economic times – poor people and people of color.

While job creation is the consensus number one national priority at the moment, global climate change threatens not only the long-term health of the planet but our economic viability as well. We believe that the solution to both these crucial problems is a clean energy economy that creates million of green jobs that do not harm the planet. Home Star moves us in the right direction. And it is exactly the kind of innovative thinking and leadership that the American people want.

That was evident this week in the results of a survey by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies which found that African Americans — who as a group were disproportionately impacted by the recession — said they were willing to pay more for clean energy in order to combat global warming.

During the last three weeks of November 2009, The Joint Center, a Washington think tank focused on African American issues, surveyed 500 black adults in each of four states — Arkansas, Indiana, Missouri and South Carolina. By considerable majorities in each state [See Table 6 of Survey], they said global warming was a major or moderate problem and that they were willing to pay an extra $10 each month on their electric bill if it would help fight global warming.

All we need now is leadership. Home Star is a small but significant step in the right direction.

Washington these days is spending a lot of time obsessing over its own gridlock, with each party blaming the other for the lack of action on issues critical to the American people. The completely broken process on health care reform stands as the prime example.

Outside of Washington however, the only concern is the ragged state of the job market and what is being done to fix it. Congress needs to pass a comprehensive jobs bill in order to further stimulate the economy, and that bill needs to include provisions that direct both investments and hiring to the people and communities where they are most needed. As we continue to debate the size and shape of such a jobs bill, Home Star is a good first step that can quickly generate jobs, many of them in low-income neighborhoods, and boost appliance sales.

Home Star, and the larger question of job creation, gives Washington a chance to break out of the current cycle of gridlock, recrimination and failure and do something for the American people at a time when we urgently need the government to be aggressively working on our most urgent interests.

Home Star will help three million American families retrofit their homes to make them more energy efficient, and will save those consumers as much as $9.5 billion over ten years. The program dedicates $200 million to provide access to low-interest financing for homeowners to weatherize their homes or buy new, more energy efficient appliances.

In addition, the majority of the goods used for home weatherization are made in the U.S., and as a result the program will also boost domestic production in the building materials manufacturing sector. This sector is operating at less than 60 percent of capacity today, with an unemployment rate of almost 25 percent.

The country needs the economic jolt that Home Star can provide and Congress needs to rise to the occasion and pass it as soon as possible. If it gets to the President’s desk he is sure to sign it. Last week in Georgia he laid out the stakes around Home Star: “We know it will make our economy less dependent on fossil fuels, helping to protect the planet for future generations,” he said. “But I want to emphasize that Home Star will also create business and spur hiring up and down the economy.”

We are for that.

Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins is the CEO of Green For All

Late update — Joseph Romm has much more on this here.

Multiple updates at bottom of post.

Newly released Gallup polling seems to show a sharp drop in the percentage of Americans who know about, are concerned about and understand the threat of global warming.

The piece leads with a graph showing a sharp increase in the percentage of Americans who think the seriousness of global warming is generally exaggerated:

When I saw this I immediately assumed the increase was due to the changing opinions of Republicans, and did not reflect a general trend within the broader population. As Joseph Romm has demonstrated, the GOP’s understanding of climate science has been on a steady decline for years. More evidence of this here and here.

In the piece, Gallup notes that “evidence from last year showed that the issue of global warming was becoming heavily partisan in nature, and it may be that the continuing doubts about global warming put forth by conservatives and others are having an effect.” I’ll say.

Gallup has provided EnviroKnow with the full cross-tabs, which are available below. To illustrate the fact that the shifts shown in the poll are largely partisan in nature, I’ve produced a series of graphs based on the cross-tabs.

The fact that an equal number of Republicans (31%) believe that the effects of climate change have already begun as believe the effects will never happen is an excellent display of the schizophrenia of the Republican position on the issue.

Reasonable people can disagree on policy solutions for dealing with problems we face as a society. But the Republican party is playing a different game entirely. Republicans and conservative thought-leaders — at the behest of the corporate polluters who bankroll their campaigns — have made a conscious decision to deny the science in order to advance their political agenda. Put simply, they seem to think they are entitled to their own facts. Unfortunately for them, and ultimately for the rest of us as well, physics doesn’t give a damn about politics.

Here are the full cross-tabs:

Read the rest of this entry »

The Hill:

A mostly Republican group of 20 state and territorial governors is urging Congress to block EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

A letter Wednesday from the governors – 18 Republicans and two Democrats – to House and Senate leaders alleges that planned EPA rules to limit heat-trapping emissions would harm their state economies.

“We feel compelled to guard against a regulatory approach that would increase the cost of electricity and gasoline prices, manufactured products, and ultimately harm the competitiveness of the U.S. economy,” states the letter to Democratic and GOP leadership.

The letter is below:

Read the rest of this entry »

National Journal:

“I might. I’m looking at it. I think it’s a reasonable thing to do,” the North Dakota Democrat told reporters this morning after speaking at an energy efficiency conference on the Hill.

Senator Rockefeller’s legislation can be viewed here.

Brad Johnson makes a great catch:

The target of this ad is the Obama administration’s effort to remove $36 billion in loopholes and subsidies for the oil industry. As it turns out, the “Americans” presented in the ad are stock photos from Getty Images

The ad is below, and you can see the stock images Brad pulled from Getty at The Wonk Room.