The climate change legislation, and the protracted arguments surrounding it, puts at stake promises the US made the world at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen to reduce its own emissions by 17 percent by 2020. Though those numbers from the world’s second largest emitter are far lower than would be hoped by the European Union and poorer nations, codifying Obama’s prmie in the form of legislation is crucial to giving the United States clout in the international arena.

The next multinational climate summit is to take place in Cancun, Mexico in December of 2011, with nations aiming for a legally binding treaty by 2012.

The US climate legislation would put a price on greenhouse gas emissions – something a Congressional struggling with health care, record high unemployment and partisan friction is unlikely to do. Lawmakers who took part in this week’s talks with Obama said they were pleased with Obama’s personal foray into the process – his first since Copenhagen – which they said he had previously kept at staff-level discussions, one White House climate staffer told  Bellona Web Thursday.

Will gridlock break before month’s end?

Partisan gridlock, coupled with other pressing domestic issues,  has largely kept the Senate climate and energy bill stuck in the mud.

Senators John Kerry, a democrat from Massachusetts and co-author of the bill, South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, and Joe Lieberman, an Independent from Connecticut, are trying to find a enticements in plan that would limit carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and other major industrial sectors.

The Senate trio is trying to get a draft bill out before the end of the
month, but they face resistance from moderate Democrats and Republicans who are urging a slower, “energy only” approach, said the White House source.

This “energy only” approach is likely to feature items that please some environmentalists, and others that are likely to appease moderate democrats and republicans at the expense of ecological wrath.

One such item under consideration is a US nuclear build out, largely condemned by the American and international environmental groups, including Bellona, and one that is likely to divide the American public; a February poll conducted by Angus Reid Public Opinion – a practice of Canada-based Vision Critical – revealed that 48 percent of US residents polled are in favour of new nuclear power plants, World Nuclear News, an industry website reported. The poll also revealed across the board concerns about nuclear waste management.

Obama tabled in February $8.2 billion (to increase to $54 billion) of federal loan guarantees to build nuclear power plants on the premise that the stations do not emit carbon dioxide.

“Replacing CO₂ emitting energy sources with nuclear power is tantamount to trying to cure the plague with cholera,” Bellona physicist and director Nils Bøhmer shot back quickly when the announcement was made.

“The United States should focus on developing carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, renewable technology, in addition to an increased focus on energy conservation,” he said.

Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club was also not pleased.

“We need to prioritise the cleanest, cheapest and fastest ways to reduce emissions, and nuclear power is neither clean, cheap, nor fast nor safe,” he told reporters last month.

“The loan guarantees announced today may ease the politics around comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation,” said Pope, “but we do not believe that they are the best policy.”

Denunciations of ‘clean coal’

The legislation also pushes for “clean coal” – a US term for CCS, one of Bellona’s signature climate abatement strategies. But, while clean coal is embraced by coal producing and dependent states, it is also the target of withering criticism from some of the world’s most powerful environmental groups like the National Resources Defence Council (NRDC).

“NRDC knows there is no such thing as ‘clean coal.’ Said NRDC President Frances Beinecke in an email interview with Bellona Web on Thursday.  “Every single step in the coal power cycle is dirty, from the profoundly destructive mountaintop removal mining to the smokestack emissions, which are responsible for 24,000 deaths a year.” She acceded however that coal is “cheap and abundant “and “will continue to be a part of our energy portfolio for awhile.”

What does Obama want?

Amid this plurality of opinion, lawmakers sought this week to find out what Obama’s goals are for the climate bill.

“The president needs to hear from a diverse group, the possibilities, what’s real and what’s not,” Graham told reporters. “And we need to hear from him what his goals are.”

“I think he wants to share his own sense of urgency, as well as solicit
opinions and get intake from people and see where the playing field is,” Kerry told reporters.

Among those at the closed-door, face-to-face meeting with Obama in the White House Cabinet Room were New Mexico Democrat Jeff Bingaman, Barbara Boxer, California’s Democrat, Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown, Washington Democrat Maria Cantwell. Jay Rockefeller, Democrat of West Virginia, Michigan Democrat Debbie Stabenow, Maine’s Republican Susan Collis, Judd Gregg, Democrat of New Hampshire, Florida’s Republican George LeMieux, Indiana Republican Richard Lugar, and Alaska’s Republican Lisa Murkowski, ClimateWire reported.

White House sources report that the group, as it headed into the meeting, Republicans interest in addressing sweeping proposals was low.
Lugar, for example, said he is drafting legislation that would fold together ideas on energy efficiency, a nationwide clean energy standard that promotes nuclear power and “clean coal” technologies, and a stronger plan for automobile fuel efficiency standards.

“We’re trying to put together a number of ideas that would conserve energy,” Lugar told reporters. “And most importantly, save money either for businesses or building renovations or homeowners or car owners.”

Lugar said he likely would not support the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman approach that would put a price on carbon emissions. “I’ve participated in a lot of discussions, so you never say never, but this is not the course than I’m on,” he said. “It appears to me that course does not have popular support.

The term formerly known as ‘cap and trade’

LeMieux said he would push the Senate trio and Obama to pare back on a sweeping proposal that would cap greenhouse gas emissions. Instead, he suggested a focus on building 50 new nuclear power plants, speeding up licensing at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and prompting the commercial trucking industry toward natural gas.

“Let’s do the things we can do and agree upon and not try to do some big, comprehensive, bollixed-up bill that’s going to fall on its own weight,” LeMieux said.

Kerry, Graham and Lieberman said their goal is still to produce an energy and climate bill before the spring recess that starts at the end of this month.

“It’ll be a draft,” Lieberman told ClimateWire. “It won’t be final. But it’ll give us something in legislative language.”

Lieberman also downplayed the use of the term “cap and trade” when it comes to limiting emissions, even though that is generally the plan with their bill. “We don’t use that term anymore,” he said. “We’ll have pollution reduction targets. Remember the Artist Previously Known as Prince?”