WASHINGTON — Democratic House leaders, President Barack Obama and environmental heavyweights scrambled Thursday to find the support needed to pass an ambitious global-warming bill, one of the administration’s chief environmental initiatives.
Obama and former Vice President Al Gore worked the phones to try to land support from moderate Republicans and undecided or wavering Democrats from conservative districts, such as Reps. John Salazar and Betsy Markey of Colorado.
Salazar opposed the bill early on, particularly the impact its central component, restrictions on emissions of greenhouse gases, could have on energy costs. His spokesman said this week that Salazar has not decided whether recent compromises to the bill are enough to change his mind.
But the vote is an especially dicey one for Markey, who has yet to take a public position. A first-term Democrat in a moderate district, Markey is likely to be one of the GOP’s biggest targets in 2010, and they would love nothing more than to see her vote “yes.”
Environmental groups also hope Markey supports the bill. Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund poured $1.5 million into her campaign — the group’s biggest push for any House candidate in the country — and they expected her to be a key supporter in the push for a global warming bill.
But as late as Thursday afternoon, Markey spokesman Ben Marter said his boss was still pondering the vote.
“She’s looking at it through an economic lens,” he said.
Big changes
Even in the watered-down version that landed on the floor after weeks of negotiations, the energy bill has the potential to change the way Americans produce and consume energy. It would require a 17 percent reduction in emissions of greenhouse gases by 2020 and mandate that 15 percent of the nation’s electricity come from renewable energy by that deadline.
The legislation would likely lurch the nation’s electrical generation from coal toward wind and solar. Meanwhile, provisions that allow companies to buy greenhouse gas offsets or create incentives for biomass production could reshape everything from manufacturing to agriculture, as farmers start growing carbon-gobbling trees or elephant grass to burn for renewable electricity.
And it would certainly raise energy prices. The question is how much.
Labeling it a massive energy tax, Republicans have claimed the average family would pay $3,100 more for their electricity once the bill’s most stringent measures kick in. A recent study by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found the increase would be $173 per family per year.
While environmental groups are watching nervously to see whether Markey and other swing votes land on their side — the League of Conservation Voters announced this week that it wouldn’t support any Democrat in the next election who voted against it — Republicans are drooling at the prospect that they do exactly that.
House minority leader Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, called the bill “one of the defining debates of the 2010 cycle.” Colorado GOP chairman Dick Wadhams said that if Markey votes for the bill, “it will seal her fate, in my opinion.”
Republicans appear to be gambling that in a down economy, voters will care less about the long-term question of global warming than short-term impacts of the bill on jobs and utility bills — despite the fact that the toughest provisions don’t kick for several years.
Experts say it’s not a bad bet.
“People are concerned about global warming in the abstract sense,” said Colorado State University political science professor Robert Duffy. “But if you ask people spontaneously what is it that really matters to them, climate change is way down the list next to lint in dryers.”
Called a “jobs bill”
The strange result is that as the debate over the nation’s most significant attempt to reduce greenhouse gases comes down to the wire, Democrats rarely mention global warming.
Obama on Thursday called the legislation a “jobs bill” and warned that “misinformation” will result in a close vote.
Similarly, as Marter ran down the list of things Markey was weighing, global warming wasn’t among them.
“The overarching concern is we need to break our dependence on foreign oil,” he said. “The congresswoman is focused on reducing energy costs, and she needs to see that addressed.”
He added that Markey “feels that we need to protect farmers and ranchers. That includes ethanol producers, beef farmers, rural electric associations” — each an important constituent in her district, which besides Fort Collins, includes most of state’s eastern plains.
That might not leave room for the environmental groups and their members who were perhaps her candidacy’s biggest backers. But Marter said his boss would “ultimately make a decision in the best interest of her district, the state and the country, not for any one group.”
It might be the safe political bet, experts said.
“If she doesn’t support it, she’s going to have a lot of her environmental supporters very unhappy,” said Jon Straayer, another CSU political scientist, “but that then raises the question of ‘where do they go?’ “
