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Climate change battles engulf everyone
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All sorts of energy and environmental interest groups, as well as government agencies, are becoming embroiled in the conflicts over proposed climate change legislation. The American Petroleum Institute has hired lobbyist Martin Durbin away from the American Chemistry Council to head API’s lobbying efforts on the Senate climate change bill. America’s Natural Gas Alliance has hired lobbyist Regina Hooper away from the United States Telecom Association to manage its $80 million climate change lobbying effort. The Natural Resources Defense Council has hired lobbyist Scott Slesinger away from the Environmental Technology Council to be NRDC’s legislative director.
Meanwhile, over at USEPA, a team of husband a d wife EPA lawyers has been ordered to take down a You Tube video they posted criticizing the proposed cap and trade bill as ineffective, or face discipline. They took down the video, but of course someone else had already copied off the internet, and promptly reposted it. EPA officials say they are not censoring employee statements of opinion on the legislation, rather the agency prohibits all employees from making political commentary public if the statement refers to their EPA employment, as a matter of ethics. Huh? This might be believable if the threat of discipline had not been accompanied by a demand for prior approval of any future public comments to be released by the couple.
EPA action against greenhouse gas emission strikes such fear into the hearts of certain utility executives that they would rather let Congress act than face EPA proposed regulations of the power industry. Fearing EPA rules which could be even more expensive and less effective than the cap and trade law working its way through Senate committees, Exelon Corporation’s John Rowe says his utility needs certainty over rules governing carbon emissions in order to plan for billions of dollars of investment in plants and equipment. According to Rowe, EPA regulation would be “more arbitrary, more expensive, and more uncertain for investors and the industry than a reasonable, market based solution like cap and trade.” Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss agrees. “The actions the EPA has taken, and its plans to regulate greenhouse gasses are a serious concern,” Chambliss said. “However, EPA’s actions should not scare Congress into passing bad legislation.”
Committee hearings are scheduled this week on climate change proposals in the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The International Energy Agency expects climate change legislation in Congress, coupled with UN agreements on climate change currently being negotiated next month in Copenhagen, or later if those discussions do not arrive at a treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, to put strong curbs on the worldwide growth of oil consumption, and oil prices as well. Military veteran groups in the U.S. are joining the push for climate change legislation along with more traditional environmental groups, acknowledging that reduced oil consumption will reduce the need for extended and growing projection of U.S. military forces in the Middle East.
Meanwhile, Senators John Kerry, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman are crisscrossing the interior corridors of the Senate side of the Capitol, seeking support for an alternative to the Kerry/Boxer cap and trade bill which could include greater support for nuclear power construction and offshore oil drilling in the U.S. Senate Finance Committee ranking member Charles Grassley of Iowa complains of the cap and trade formula in the Kerry/Boxer bill that it “is in effect a transfer of wealth to the East and West Coasts at the expense of other regions, like the Midwest.”
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