Democrats Hopeful for Narrow Victory on Climate Bill

By Paul Kane, Ben Pershing and David A. Fahrenthold
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, June 26, 2009 2:22 PM

The House headed for a cliffhanger vote today on behemoth legislation aiming to limit greenhouse gas emissions, with Democrats still hopeful they would eke out a narrow victory on a critical piece of President Obama's agenda.

With last-minute changes inserted into the bill last night, it now weighs in at more than 1,300 pages of complex new rules for the energy markets and carbon emissions. Still trying to round up all the votes possible, Democratic leaders used a series of morning and early afternoon votes on unrelated legislation to buttonhole the last few dozen holdouts on the legislation, aiming for final passage of the bill in time for evening network newscasts.

"We're getting there. We're better off today than we were yesterday," House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) said of his vote-counting efforts.

At the heart of the bill is a plan to reduce emissions to 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. To do that, it would create a cap-and-trade system, in which polluters would be required to accrue buyable, sellable credits for all the greenhouse gases they produce.

But the bill also contains a system of caveats, safety valves and rule changes meant to satisfy unhappy Democrats. The result is legislation that could transform the U.S. energy industry -- and allow both Wall Street and the Iowa corn belt to build a side business in carbon.

Debate on the so-called cap-and-trade legislation began just before 1 p.m. "This bill, when enacted into law, will break our dependence on foreign oil. . . . We will create millions of clean-energy jobs," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the key architect of the bill.

In addition to being a major cornerstone of Obama's agenda, the legislation is shaping up as a critical test of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's power over the chamber and her ability to deliver the toughest legislation for the new president. Last November, after Obama's victory, Pelosi stood back and allowed Waxman to oust Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) as chairman of the commerce committee, an upset victory that was driven by Waxman's pledge to vigorously pursue climate change legislation in a way that Dingell, a close ally of the auto industry, had not done.

Republicans continued to ratchet up the pressure on Democrats from Rust Belt and farm states, warning they will face political consequences back home for legislation the GOP has labeled "cap-and-tax."

"Speaker Pelosi's national energy tax is going to raise electricity prices, increase gasoline prices, and ship American jobs overseas to countries like China and India," according to a memo from House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).

GOP members privately suggested that the Democratic decision to put off the climate change debate until after approving an unrelated appropriations bill was a sign that they lacked the votes to move to the day's main event. Democrats, however, said the legislative lineup switch was just a way to get a little more time to talk with their members.

In the parliamentary vote to set up the debate, 30 Democrats voted against the rule governing the climate change debate, a sign of the minimum number of Democrats who would oppose the legislation on final passage later this afternoon.

Any talk of confidence is a sign of a remarkable turnabout for Democrats.

Since this bill passed the House Energy and Commerce committee last month, they have been bogged down in an internal feud between coastal liberals, who supported a hard cap, and legislators from the Rust Belt and farm states. Those representatives were worried the bill would add a crushing new cost to electric power and gasoline.

They worked out a compromise this week, the second time that Democratic leaders have given ground on the bill.

The bill now gives some free emissions credits to rural electric cooperatives, so they can sell them and use the money to cushion consumers. And it gives the Agriculture Department, not the Environmental Protection Agency, oversight over a key program. That would allow farmers to sell "offsets" for carbon dioxide that their crops soak up from the air or for reducing greenhouse gases from animal waste.

"The bottom-line problem is that EPA doesn't trust Agriculture, and Agriculture doesn't trust EPA," said Rep. Collin C. Peterson (D-Minn.), the Agriculture Committee chairman, who has been a spokesman for Democrats unhappy with the bill.

Even Peterson, though, said he was not sure what the offset program would look like: "The truth is, nobody knows for sure how this is going to work."

President Obama yesterday pushed for passage in a speech from the White House Rose Garden. Though he mentioned the threat of global warming, Obama mostly emphasized non-environmental benefits, such as new jobs in clean energy and reduced reliance on foreign oil. The issue came up today during his news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who visited the White House today.

"I'm the first one to acknowledge that the United States over the last several years has not been where we need to be," Obama said of the climate issue. "We're not going to get there all in one fell swoop. But I'm very proud of the progress that's being made, and I think that the energy bill that's being debated in the House is an example of that progress. If we can get that framework in place, I'm confident the United States can be an important partner in this process."

Democrats still expect a large number of their colleagues to oppose the legislation, but with 256 members of their caucus, Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (Md.) can spare almost 40 defections and still pass the bill. A few environmental groups have said the bill is now fatally flawed, but most still seem to support the bill, though with hopes that it might become more stringent in the Senate.

Recent government reports have played down the bill's cost: An EPA study said it might cost an average family between $80 and $111 per year. The Congressional Budget Office's estimate was $175 per household.

But Keith McCoy, of the National Association of Manufacturers, said his group opposes the bill because so much is still unknown about how it would work. He said he is particularly concerned about the concessions made to win over Peterson, which introduced new provisions just days before the vote.

"This has happened very quickly. There are many new concepts, new programs, new schemes that could potentially cost a lot of money," McCoy said. "That, we're not comfortable with."

If the bill passes the House, the cap-and-trade system faces an uphill fight in the Senate, where it will need a 60-vote super-majority for passage. Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said a bill could be on the floor sometime this fall.

The GOP's campaign arm vowed to hold Democrats accountable in the 2010 elections for the votes they cast on the measure.

Staff writer Steven Mufson contributed to this report.