From the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, Mike Tidwell, director
Compiled and edited by Ted Glick, CCAN Policy Director
May 24, 2010

The Chesapeake Climate Action Network has launched a weekly policy update about efforts to advance “cap and dividend” legislation in the U.S. Congress. The fight for this climate policy is currently being led on Capitol Hill by Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Susan Collins (R-ME), S. 2877. Last December these Senators introduced the Carbon Limits and Energy for America’s Renewal Act, or CLEAR Act. Learn more at http://www.supportclearact.org.

Week of May 17-23: In This Issue

Senators and environmental and climate groups have been assessing the American Power Act introduced two weeks ago by Senators Kerry and Lieberman. Majority Leader Senator Harry Reid has said that in June the Senate Democrats will gather for in-depth discussion about climate/energy legislation to see if they can agree on a path forward. Articles in Capitol Hill-based publications and elsewhere report on and analyze the options.

1. Climate Wire: Senate emissions bill in search of a few good leaders
2. The Billings (Mt.) Gazette: No one fond of Senate’s global-warming bill
   
3. Huffington Post article: K-L climate bill victimized by “stall, water-down and ditch” 
4. The Hill:  Green coalition blasts Senate climate bill
5. Huffington Post: Rabbi cries out, “Let’s believe in ourselves and make it happen.”

#1  Climate Wire: Senate emissions bill in search of a few good leaders 

In a Climate Wire article reviewing the possibilities and prospects for the Kerry-Lieberman American Power Act, Senator Cantwell is quoted expressing concern about how the process of trying to adopt legislation will proceed: “Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), co-author with Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) of a competing plan for pricing carbon emissions, said yesterday she would prefer that committee leaders get a bigger say in the overall legislation. ’I think there’s so much of a process issue here,’ Cantwell said. ‘People really want process. They just get so concerned when you don’t follow a process. I guess, the chairs, et al, will have to figure out one.’”

For the full article go to:  http://www.chesapeakeclimate.org/detail/news.cfm?news_id=1264

#2  The Billings (Mt.) Gazette: No one fond of Senate’s global-warming bill

An article about Senate climate legislation in the Billings Gazette in Montana quoted extensively from a leader of the Montana Environmental Information Center in support of  the CLEAR Act:  “MEIC favors a ‘cap and dividend’ approach, in which the government would sell emissions credits to polluters and rebate the revenue to consumers. [Kyla] Weins said cap and dividend might still have a chance despite Kerry and Lieberman’s rollout of the American Power Act. The American Power Act is 900 pages long [actually 987] and lacks Republican support since co-author Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., pulled his endorsement last month.”

For the full article go to: http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/article_883a7f2e-6305-11df-afd4-001cc4c002e0.html

#3  Huffington Post article: K-L climate bill victimized by “stall, water-down and ditch”

An article on the Huffington Post by Mike Sandler, co-founder of the Climate Protection Campaign in Sonoma County, California, analyzed the prospects for federal legislation after the introduction of the APA:  “Considering that K-L lacks any known Republican support, is it still the only ‘real’ climate bill? As Yoda once told Luke Skywalker in Empire Strikes Back, ‘There is another’: the Cantwell-Collins CLEAR Act. The CLEAR Act has been around since December, but in all the anticipation for KGL, remained a runner up… until now. Now it is the last bill with Republican support standing (thank you, Susan Collins!). Besides being bipartisan, it reduces emissions, gives most of the permit auction revenues back to consumers, invests the rest in clean technologies, and lacks the free allocations, subsidies, and offsets to coal, oil, and nuclear contained in K-L.”

For the full article go to: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-sandler/k-l-climate-bill-victimiz_b_579542.html

#4  The Hill:  Green coalition blasts Senate climate bill

An article published on May 17^th on The Hill website reported on a coalition of 15 organizations, some of which have come out publicly in support of the CLEAR Act, which released a statement strongly criticizing the American Power Act: “Fifteen organizations, including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Friends Committee on National Legislation, which is a Quaker lobbying group, have formed the Climate Reality Check coalition to oppose the legislation, released last week by Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.). ‘The well-being of our nation and the world are being sacrificed for the interests of big polluters, which continue to rake in record profits at the expense of the environment and the public,’ the group said in a statement.

For the full article go to: http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/98243-green-coalition-blasts-senate-climate-bill

To see the full statement go to:  http://www.climaterealitycheck.org.

#5  Huffington Post: Rabbi cries out, “Let’s believe in ourselves and make it happen.”

In an article posted on the Huffington Post, Rabbi Joshua Levine Grater of Pasadena, Ca. calls for urgent action on the climate crisis: “This BP oil disaster, sadly, as it kills birds, plants, ocean life, and destroys the livelihood of our fellow citizens along the Gulf, is a reminder, perhaps of Biblical proportions, that now is the time to support, demand and execute the major changes needed in these darkening and challenging days and months ahead. . . Find out more for yourselves and hopefully you too will support [the CLEAR Act], and help enact meaningful and sustainable change, not just political rhetoric with more of the same self-destructive decisions based on lobbyist contributions and corporate power.”

For the full article go to: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-joshua-levine-grater/starting-oils-retirement_b_586725.html

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CCAN encourages readers of the Cap and Dividend Policy Update to distribute it to others who might be interested. We welcome input on the contents of this publication and ideas for what could be included. Send to Ted Glick at ted@chesapeakeclimate.org. To find out more about CCAN go to http://www.chesapeakeclimate.org.