Press release via Senator John Kerry:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator John Kerry (D – Mass.), Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, today delivered an address at George Washington University discussing the national and global security threats of climate change.

“Worldwide, climate change risks making the most volatile places even more combustible,” said the Chairman. “Climate change injects a major new source of chaos, tension, and human insecurity into an already volatile world. It threatens to bring more famine and drought, worse pandemics, more natural disasters, more resource scarcity, and human displacement on a staggering scale. We risk fanning the flames of failed-statism and offering glaring opportunities to the worst actors in our international system. In an interconnected world, that endangers all of us.”

The full speech is available below.

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Via Climate Progress:

The Kerry-Boxer bill is moving along well and we are looking forward to introducing legislation that will create millions of clean energy jobs, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and ensure American leadership in the clean energy economy.Because of Senator Kennedy’s recent passing, Senator Kerry’s August hip surgery, and the intensive work on health care legislation particularly on the Finance Committee where Sen. Kerry serves, Majority Leader Reid has agreed to provide some additional time to work on the final details of our bill, and to reach out to colleagues and important stakeholders. We have told the Majority Leader that our goal is to introduce our bill later in September.

Update: Majority Leader Reid’s statement, also via Climate Progress:

“Senator Reid appreciates the leadership of Senators Boxer and Kerry as they shepherd this important legislation through their respective committees. They are working diligently to craft a well-balanced bill and Senator Reid fully expects the Senate to have ample time to consider this comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation before the end of the year.”

A group of more than 300 organizations sent a letter (below) this morning to Senator Barbara Boxer urging her to introduce a stronger climate bill in the Senate than what the House of Representatives was able to pass on June 26th. Boxer, who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, will be introducing legislation with Senator Kerry in the coming weeks. This development comes in stark opposition to a spate of recent fraudulent letters in opposition to climate legislation, paid for by the coal industry.

Here is the letter:

300+GrpLetter-1 -

Here is the press release:

BoxerLetterRelease –

Transcript from ABC’s This Week:

STEPHANOPOULOS: You’ve also pledged to help – to work with the president on preserving our national parks. You’re here with Secretary Salazar. And one of the things you’re having a hearing on this weekend is the threat of climate change to our national parks.

I was in Glacier National Park a couple years ago with Governor Schweitzer. You talked about the problem there. Glaciers just evaporating, could be completely gone by 2025, 2035. What’s the threat here?

MCCAIN: I think the threat is serious here. We’ve seen increased temperatures, which has had impact on the wildlife, on the flora and fauna, on the Colorado River itself, which we are seeing less and less of.

We are in serious drought conditions, our parks have very fragile ecology here and, frankly, when you’re in this driest area anyway, then they’re even more fragile.

So I think that part of the impact of climate change on our national parks is – well, you know, they’re going to have to change the name of Glacier National Park because the glaciers are going away.

STEPHANOPOULOS: In the past, you’ve been supportive of legislation to deal with greenhouse gas emissions, cap and trade. What about the current legislation that’s coming out of the House now, moving to the Senate? They’ve met a lot of your objections about not giving away the allowances. Is this something that you can support?

MCCAIN: Well, to support a 1,400 page piece of legislation to start with is always difficult for me, but I believe that the only way we’re going to truly reduce greenhouse gas emissions effectively is through nuclear power.

We have got to build 100 nuclear power plants in the next 20 years. We can do that. Right now, the administration’s position is against storage and they’re against recycling of spent nuclear fuel. I can’t support a genuine reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, unless nuclear power is a key part of it.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But you’ve been for it in past.

MCCAIN: I’ve been for – and nuclear – assuming that nuclear power would be a key part of it. I mean, you can’t get there from here. The only country that’s really making its Kyoto goals is France, where 80 percent of their electricity is generated by nuclear power.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But you’d be willing to go along with cap and trade, if it were part of a comprehensive deal that included more …

MCCAIN: Well, that would have to be part of it. And second of all, in any 1,400 page piece of legislation, you put in a lot of special deals for a lot of special interests. We know what happened there. The bazaar was open in the House of Representatives, so obviously I would have to want to do away with a whole lot of that.

But I think climate change is real and I would be glad to sit down and try to work, as I have in the past, across the aisle on this issue. Senator Lieberman is great on this issue…

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Kerry is putting a group together as well; have you been part of that?

MCCAIN: I have not yet, no.

Washington Post:

The Post asked politicians, academics and others whether the health-care debate has made it unlikely that climate change legislation will be passed in the near future. Below are contributions from Steven F. Hayward, Kenneth P. Green, James M. Inhofe, Geoff Garin, Tony Fratto, Steve Seidel, David G. Hawkins, Harold Ford Jr., Kay Baily Hutchison.

Here is Senator Boxer’s statement:

SEN. BARBARA BOXER (D-Calif.)

Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee

As we are moving to address some of our nation’s great challenges — revitalizing our economy, putting Americans back to work and passing health insurance reform — scientists are telling us we have a short window to take the steps that are needed to avoid the ravages of global warming. We must also act quickly to ensure America leads the world in clean energy technology. We need to confront all of these issues; we don’t have the luxury of picking and choosing. By creating powerful incentives for clean energy, the bill that Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and I will introduce in September will restore our economy and create jobs at home while reducing carbon pollution and making us less dependent on foreign oil. John Doerr — one of the nation’s leading venture capitalists, who helped launch Google and Amazon.com — has predicted that the investment capital that will flow into clean energy will dwarf the amount invested in high-tech and biotech combined. It will create millions of jobs in America — building wind turbines, installing solar panels on homes and producing a new fleet of electric and hybrid vehicles.

We can successfully address all of these challenges. Our forebears have set the pace ever since our nation was founded. President Obama has reminded us that America built the transcontinental railroad and established the National Academy of Sciences in the midst of the Civil War. In the 1960s, we passed historic civil rights legislation even as we took on the challenge of going to the moon. At the end of the day, leaders have to lead when action is needed.

A burst of developments Monday considerably raised the profile of the latest attempt by polluting industries to thwart environmental legislation. This story has been moving quickly, so here is a quick timeline of how things have unfolded over the past few days. If I missed anything major, please let me know:

Friday

• The Charlottesville Daily Progress reported on a series of forged letters from community organizations, fraudulently sent by lobbyists to Congressman Tom Perriello of Virginia. The letters, written in opposition to the American Clean Energy and Security Act, failed to dissuade Congressman Perriello, who voted for the legislation.
• Representative Ed Markey immediately announced his plans to launch an investigation, calling the letters an “appalling abuse.”
• Senator John Kerry posted a rapid response diary on Daily Kos.
• The lobbying firm responsible for sending the letters, Bonner and Associates, blamed the incident on a temporary employee and tried to downplay the situation.
• Think Progress outlined Bonner and Associates’ long history of shady tactics.
• Avaaz.org took to K Street in protest of the naked fraud.

Over the weekend, more traditional outlets took notice, with stories from NYT, WaPO, WSJ, Politico and AP.

Monday

• Sierra Club announced a major beltway ad buy, and fired off a letter to Attorney General Holder urging investigations.
• Move On launched a position asking the DOJ to conduct “an investigation into whether the firm, Bonner & Associates, committed fraud, and how often they’ve done this.”
• Credo Mobile sent an email to their list petitioning A.G. Holder to “investigate and prosecute” dirty coal’s fraudulent tactics.”
• The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a front group for the coal industry, was exposed as the client Bonner and Associates sent the letters for.
• ACCCE released a statement, feigning ‘outrage’ and the ‘deception’. A. Siegel is outraged too.
• Sierra Club continued ratcheting up the pressure, again urging the DOJ to act.
• Pete Altman at NRDC reminded us of the difficulty ACCCE had getting all of their lobbying expenditures right last quarter.
• Representative Markey sent a harshly worded letter to Jack Bonner with 14 poignant questions. TPM notes that Markey’s Subcommittee has subpoena powers.

An ACCCE-produced Bonner and Associates Background Document, obtained late Monday by EnviroKnow, sheds additional new light on the extent of the fraud (emphasis mine):

Due to reported misconduct by a Bonner and Associates employee (who the firm states was subsequently fired), it appears that a total of twelve falsified letters were sent by that firm to the offices of Congresswoman Kathy Dahlkemper, Congressman Christopher Carney and Congressman Tom Perriello.

Six forged letters, all sent to Congressman Perriello, had been acknowledged previously. While Congressman Perriello remained unswayed by the letters, and voted in support of the legislation, Reps. Dahlkemper and Carney both did not. This raises the very real possibility that Members of Congress were influenced by fraudulent letters paid for by the coal industry, and voted against environmental regulation as a result of this influence. Given the razor thin margin and last-minute negotiations surrounding the House vote, this was a clear attempt by both Bonner and Associates and ACCCE to subvert the Democratic process. Now, we can’t say for with 100% certainty that fraudulent letters persuaded any particular Member of Congress to oppose the legislation, but that was certainly the intent. To make matters worse, the background document includes ACCCE’s less-than-inspiring “belief” that the fraudulent letters were limited to the three congressional districts mentioned previously:

Due to assurances that Bonner and Associates provided to Hawthorn, and Hawthorn subsequently communicated to ACCCE, we believe this matter to be limited to the three congressional districts mentioned above. However, we are in the process of verifying all contacts made by Bonner and Associates with respect to this project.

The folks who lied their way into this mess are not going to get to the bottom of it on their own. Chairman Markey has generously given Mr. Bonner nine days to respond to his questions. The Department of Justice should move forward in the meantime with separate investigations.

The Hill characterizes today’s climate hearings as Gingrich vs. Gore. Anyone who is paying attention can see that it is actually more like Gingrich vs. Reality.

Target Global Warming is Liveblogging the hearing at Daily Kos.

Update: John Kerry reframes the discussion:

Today in the House there was a dramatic contrast between a Republican Party embracing the urgent need to take serious action about global climate change and one wedded to ideology.

Consider it a “tale of Two Testimonies.”

…

As a country, we need to move quickly and boldly to confront these challenges, and we need the Republican Party to take a different and honest path on the answers – to sound more like John Warner and less like Newt Gingrich did today.