November 2009 Archives

Updated at 9:18 a.m. on Nov. 30.

The White House has signaled its intention to offer a short-term greenhouse gas emissions reduction target at the upcoming U.N. climate change negotiations in Copenhagen. The target will be in the range of 17 percent below 2005 levels and would take effect in 2020, the outline laid out in the House-passed climate change bill.

Could such a proposal bolster President Obama's position in Copenhagen? How would an administration target affect the congressional climate change debate? With domestic legislation stalled, do you think the administration should be offering a hard target at all? Will Obama's presence at the talks help strengthen the United States' position? China offered a near-term concrete emissions target of its own last week -- as much as 45 percent by 2020. How could these announcements taken together influence the climate talks?

9 responses: David Parker, Larry Schweiger, Thomas Gibson, Donna Harman, Paul Sullivan, Bob Bendick, Rob Stavins, Bill Snape, William O'Keefe

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., on Tuesday announced that Democrats will wait until spring to debate climate change legislation on the Senate floor. He suggested that the bill could be part of a larger effort to address the economy. Does this help or hurt ongoing efforts to reach compromises on oil drilling and nuclear power? Could the added time help senators find consensus on such critical issues as agriculture, coal, natural gas and trade protection? Or could it prompt lawmakers to leave the climate change negotiating table to focus on other issues? Could the postponement make climate change a campaign issue in the 2010 congressional elections?

14 responses: Paul Sullivan, Kevin Knobloch, Maggie L. Fox, William O'Keefe, Richard Revesz, Bill Snape, Gene Karpinski, Michael C. Formica, Robert C. Sisson, Thomas J. Pyle, Dirk Forrister, William O'Keefe, Larry Schweiger, Cal Dooley

A recent series of energy reports offered mixed news on the near future of the world oil market. According to studies by the International Energy Agency and the U.S. Energy Information Administration, world oil demand will rise as national economies recover. However, recent oil price spikes could imperil the global economic recovery. Meanwhile, the low energy prices that have predominated during the recession mean less money for oil and gas drillers to invest in new projects.

In the face of such uncertainty, should Congress give the U.S. oil industry a boost? Should the Senate climate change legislation include provisions to encourage domestic oil development -- as recommended by Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass., and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.? If so, what kind of language would you like to see included? Would oil drilling provisions help the Senate reach the 60 votes necessary to pass a global warming bill?

6 responses: David Parker, Bill Meadows, Carl Pope, William O'Keefe, Jack Gerard, Charles Drevna

Despite a partisan standoff, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee last week advanced the Kerry-Boxer climate change bill. Now a trio of senators -- John Kerry, D-Mass., Joe Lieberman, I/D-Conn., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. -- are hoping to forge compromise legislation that can secure 60 votes. However, the path to the finish line is steep -- Senate Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., recently suggested that the Senate might wait until after the 2010 midterm elections to tackle climate change.

Should the Senate stop trying to pass an all-encompassing bill and instead concentrate on enacting the bipartisan energy package that the Energy and Natural Resources Committee approved earlier this year? What would be the ramifications -- both for the political landscape and the nation's energy mix -- of splitting the cap-and-trade bill from the energy measure? Can efforts by Kerry, Lieberman and Graham save climate change legislation?

13 responses: Kevin Knobloch, Paul Sullivan, Thomas J. Pyle, David Parker, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Randall Swisher, Carl Pope, Denise Bode, Larry Schweiger, William O'Keefe, Robert J. Shapiro, Bill Snape, Jon A. Anda

Editor's Note: This week, Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., chairman of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources and a contributor to this blog, is providing the question.

Last week, the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources held a hearing to examine the increased supply estimates for domestic natural gas from shale formations, and the contribution that those projected supplies could make to our energy security and climate protection objectives. One of the witnesses put forward a proposal to replace the least-efficient coal-fired electricity generators with newly built natural gas plants. He testified that replacing about 8-10 of these old coal plants per year in this manner would account for about 10 percent of the cumulative 2020 domestic emissions reduction contemplated by pending climate bills, and that these reductions would come at a cost equivalent to about $13 per ton of CO2 reduced.

What would be the pluses and minuses of such an initiative? If we greatly expand our use of natural gas in the utility sector, how would that affect the manufacturing sector, which also has a growing need for natural gas? How likely is it that utility fuel will switch to natural gas in any case, independent of the passage of climate legislation or specific initiatives?

12 responses: David Parker, Paul Sullivan, Paul N. Cicio, Rich Wells, Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., Cal Dooley, Don Santa, Hal Quinn, Lee DeHihns, William O'Keefe, Frank O'Brien-Bernini, Skip Horvath