Monday, November 2, 2009

Lieberman: Climate Bill's Time Has Come

By Margaret Kriz Hobson  

Sen. Joe Lieberman, I/D-Conn.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, I/D-Conn., has become the Senate's roving ambassador on climate change legislation, reaching out to moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats who are still on the fence on whether to vote to restrict U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Lieberman has a long history of working on climate change legislation; he co-sponsored Congress' first climate change bill in 2003 with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

During this year's debate, Lieberman is negotiating provisions designed to encourage the construction of new nuclear power plants. Although Lieberman acknowledges that some Senate liberals might resist his nuclear proposals, he argues that the issue is key to gaining the 60 votes that Senate leaders need to override an expected Republican filibuster.

National Journal reporter Margaret Kriz Hobson interviewed Lieberman on Oct. 23.

NJ: Will this Congress be able to pass climate change legislation?

Lieberman: This should be -- and I believe, with hard work, will be -- the year we finally get it done. For two reasons. One, the problem is getting worse every day. Second, we have for the first time in eight years a president, an administration, really committed to doing something about global warming. And we've got some movement internationally, including by the two big developing countries, China and India, to be part of a solution.

The conventional wisdom was: the more Democrats in both chambers of Congress, the more likely it is that it passes. I think that's the net effect. But it's not that simple because a lot of the reactions to the changes that are necessary are not just partisan. They're regional. Like if you're from a coal state or an agriculture state.

And if there's one thing that makes it a little harder than it has been in earlier years that I was working on this, it's simply the economy, the recession. People are anxious about their economic future. The economic recovery is their number one priority. So things like climate change and the environment go down among their priorities. We've got to convince them as part of this debate that a good climate change, energy independence bill, which is what this will be -- it'll be two bills blended -- will be a very good thing for the economy.

Those are the factors at work. To me, the question is how do we get to 60. I've been working at this for a long time, pretty much since I came into the Senate in 1989 and I started working with Al Gore and John Kerry and others on this. The problem, it seems to me, is getting more urgent as a consequence of doing nothing.

I started this session wanting to try to negotiate agreements, even ones that may result in parts of the bill that would not be my preference, just to get something going here. To create the framework; the national architecture for dealing with climate change and making America energy-independent. And the fact is, this is a problem that we'll be solving for 50 to 100 years. Future congresses will come back and change this based on experience, over and over. So therefore it seems to me that it's just important to get it started. Get something going.

I'm trying to work with the group in the middle. And it seems to me that one of the big issues, concerns that were holding people back, was nuclear energy, and more particularly the nuclear section of the House-backed bill, which a lot of people in the Senate believe is not strong enough.... So I've been working with a significant number of people to strengthen that title. We're making progress. It's a bipartisan group.

There are two or three other key components here. If we can get all these groups together, we'll pass the bill and get to 60. One is clearly coal -- people from coal-producing and high-coal-burning states. Sen. [Thomas] Carper has been active in a group. I've worked with him on that. They're making a lot of progress. Another is agriculture. Sen. [Debbie] Stabenow is taking the lead on that, and that's all about who oversees the agriculture part of this. Of course the agriculture community wants the USDA to do it. And it's about offsets -- to what extent can American agriculture benefit from this and be part of the solution to global warming. And then the fourth group has some overlap with the first group -- it's the high-manufacturing states. Sherry Brown is playing an active role in that.

And of course the chairmen. Jeff Bingaman because he's the chair of energy; Max Baucus once he liberates himself from health care. Kerry and [Barbara] Boxer.

NJ: Do you think you gain votes by adding a stronger nuclear provision?

Lieberman: I do. I support nuclear on its own. But I think it's one of the key bridges that I can help build to bring people across the bridge to support global warming legislation. I think we are making progress on that.

NJ: Can the Congress pass legislation in this calendar year?

Lieberman: I don't know. I'd like us to at least start it before Copenhagen. That would put our negotiators in a stronger position from an American point of view. But I understand that as the schedule for health care gets delayed, it's less likely that will happen. So it will be significant if Senator Boxer can bring the bill out of the committee before Copenhagen. That would be a sign of momentum.

But if it doesn't happen this year because health care reform is taking longer than everybody thought, that's OK. This is a problem of generations, not one session of Congress. But it is time to get going on a solution.

NJ: Can the Senate pass a bill in the first quarter of next year?

Lieberman: Oh yeah. I'd be shocked if we don't take it up in the first quarter of next year. Now it's up to us. If we can bring those four pieces together -- nuclear, coal, agriculture and manufacturing -- I think we can get to 60. That takes a lot of work.

NJ: You and the other negotiators sound like a group of shadow negotiators.

Lieberman: What's interesting -- while the public attention is all on health care reform legislation, there is an enormous amount of activity happening quietly on climate change. And who knows -- if we feel as we go ahead that we actually are making enough progress to give us some confidence that we're in range of 60, it's not impossible that Senator [Harry] Reid would decide to take this to the floor before the end of this year.

There's a lot happening in the shadows here and so far I would say it's very constructive and in most cases it's bipartisan, which is interesting. Certainly our nuclear group is bipartisan. So far the support and opposition to climate change legislation has been much too partisan. I hope we can overcome that with these focused groups.