Energy Bill in the Senate Right Now [Updated]

The energy vote today - and the message the Roadblock Republicans risk sending far and wide across the globe - is a gigantic reminder why we're still one election away from bringing the biggest and boldest change to Washington.

Here we are, this morning, Democrats in Congress poised to deliver on one of the most ambitious overalls of our energy policy in decades - the first meaningful increase in fuel efficiency standards in thirty years which we scratched and clawed to achieve; closing the SUV loophole; trading egregious tax giveaways to oil companies to instead fund green energy projects and extend a tax credit for renewable energy for four years; a renewable energy standard in there, mandating that utilities get 15% of their power from renewables.

But here we are this morning - waiting to vote - and still we're counting votes - because it really does take sixty votes in the Senate to get anything accomplished.

Why is the world watching? Because right now in Bali, representatives of more than 180 nations are meeting to chart a course toward a new global agreement to control climate change. The world knows no agreement can succeed without the United States. While the president has acknowledged global warming as a problem, he has refused to commit the United States to mandatory emissions reductions, or to embrace a global target for halting the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere before they double from pre-industrial levels. This week the leaders in Bali saw the Senate EPW committee pass a landmark bipartisan bill to get real about climate change. That's big news. But the world wants to see again this morning what the Senate will do on this energy bill - because everyone knows that for too long, American inaction has been used both as an excuse and a green light for all the world's polluters to continue behavior that will ultimately threaten life on Earth.

And everyone of us should know by now that to build the kind of big, enduring change necessary in a race against climate change where time most assuredly is not on our side, we will need to end once and for all the obstructions from the party still stuck in the last century, the Bush Republican Party.

So, here's the deal - right now we're counting votes - and tonight I hope to be boarding a flight - oh, a good twenty hours in the air - to get to Bali and deliver a simple message: the United States is ready to lead - now. Things are changing. George Bush is out of step now with mayors, Governors - and the Congress. And the days are waning in his presidency. Yes, the United States is ready to get back in the business of leadership.

Republicans have a choice: they can join with us in trying to face the challenges of the 21st century, or they can go the way of the Whigs. It's that simple. Sure, the procedures and rules of the Senate gives them the tools to try and block things, but every time they choose to do so, they're betting on the past not the future Americans so desperately want to see: a future of clean air, clean water, safe renewable fuels, and an America that leads on combating climate change. We'll know a lot more which way we're headed in an hour or two. I'll keep you posted.

update:Well, the final vote was 53-42 for cloture. I'll spare you the all too familiar Senate-speak, but you know what it really means: once again, the Roadblock Republicans throw up the procedural roadblocks to getting big things accomplished. This cloture vote is the 58th of this Congress, only 4 short of the record for a two-year Congress.

We'll keep moving on this and yes we will pass an energy bill next week, albeit not as bold as we'd like, but it's increasingly clear that the Bush Republicans are still insistent on clinging to the past rather than doing what it takes to secure the future. And parties that try to hold on to the past tend to become part of the past - if we get off our butts and go to work.

When I'm meeting with leaders from the rest of the world in Bali, though, I will make sure to convey the true feelings of Americans. I will remind them that a few weeks ago five Midwestern states, including Illinois, Kansas and Michigan, announced their intent to cap their greenhouse gas emissions and launch a regional emissions trading program. They are following the lead of 10 Northeastern states and six Western states led by California. Together these states include more than half of the U.S. economy. Twenty-seven companies - including General Electric, General Motors, DuPont, Caterpillar, oil, mining, and utilities - have joined with leading environmental groups to ask Congress to act swiftly to impose economy-wide limits to reduce emissions. I will make sure they know about the landmark climate science bills and fuel efficiency bills we passed out of the Commerce Committee. And I will tell them how just last night, I was talking to John Warner - the legendary Republican Senator from Virginia - who worked in the EPW Committee with Barbara Boxer and Joe Lieberman to pass an historic bill. John said, "I'm glad you're going to Bali - tell them what we're doing here."

Comments

[inkabinkaboo182]

Who were the 5 people that didn't vote!?

[Sundialsvc4]

Sen. Kerry, with all due respect I say to you that this is a prime indication of why you and I must come from different planets.

At this particular moment, the thing that matters to me most of all is how I am going to come up with $X,XXX by next Friday. It could well mean the difference between whether an old man spends his winter in his home or in a state-home. But I do not expect you to understand such things.

Nevertheless, it should not be, I think, any sort of stretch of the imagination to recognize that -- NO MATTER WHAT the U. S. Senate might rule with regard to fuel economy standards, the economy effortlessly will.

Next year, various companies are going to try to sell cars.

Next year, gasoline might well cost me $5.00 or more per gallon -- and, unlike you and your colleagues, I do not have "a driver" and I never will. If I happen to be in the market for a car, will an automobile manufactured in the United States of America be worth my time-of-day as a consumer .. or not?

Good sir, I actually say this MOST respectfully to yourself and to your office: DO you -- CAN you, really -- understand what it means to be ... ME?

P.S. There are about 320 million of "me."

[Heyman]

THE ENERGY BILL? MORE MONEY FOR THE OIL COMPANIES?
I BOUGHT A 2008 PRIUS, LAST MONTH. WENT TO THE IRS WEB SITE TO GET MY REBATE. NONE! TOYOTA SOLD ENOUGH UNITS BY OCTOBER 1ST, TO DISQUALIFY ME.
THIS COUNTRY DON'T CARE ABOUT CONSERVING ENERGY. IF THEY DID? WAVE TURBINES, SOLAR, GEOTHERMAL AND ELECTRIC CARS WOULD BE AT THE FRONT OF THE LIST. INSTEAD? NUKE AND COAL PLANTS. FOSSIL FUELS. ARE THE TALK OF THESE LAME POLITICIANS.
THE SAME OLD GARBAGE...
WE NEED TO CHANGE THE POLITICAL SPECTRUM.
A MASSACHUSETTS VOTER.

[Danny]

Senator Kerry,

Speaking of energy, why isn't GM ever asked about the electric cars they had in the mid-1990s which were recalled and destroyed, even though they could drive almost pollution-free, on electric power, for a reasonable (commuter length) span.

Please have look at this development. If it's for real, you've got to get behind it. Or at least have it evaluated.

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2007/12/06/electric_ca

Sincerely,

Danielle Greene
Fairfax VA

[Sanjong Thapa]

Dear Sen. Kerry,

please read this piece

A Low-Carbon Diet From Fossil Fools

http://biz.yahoo.com/ibd/071207/issues01.html?.v=1

Energy Policy: The House and Senate have put a lot of energy into legislation that develops no new energy. The only thing it'll produce is higher prices for everything we eat and make.
A bill calling for mandatory U.S. limits on so-called greenhouse gases passed 11-8 in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee last Wednesday. It calls for a 70% cut in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions from electric power plants, manufacturing and transportation by 2050. But the main thing it will cut is U.S. economic growth.

Last Thursday the House passed a similar bill, 235-181. Its centerpiece is a 40% increase in fuel economy standards to an auto-industry average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020. It would also roll back $13.5 billion in oil company incentives to produce more oil

[rockymountainhigh]

Mr. Kerry, is there anything in this bill to support increasing domestic exploration and production?

[Mariofaz]

Mr. Kerry: with all due respect to a member of our Senate, you are wrong.
I'm a geologist and for me the environment has a different look than the rest. Our planet as a whole is in constant evolution and keeping an equilibrium in all of its variables.
Let me give you an example in the Carboniferous Period, the atmosphere had quite a lot of CO2 (15% more than nowdays) because of the vital processes of the plants therefore living organisms adapted to those conditions and evolved.
When a giant meteor fell north of Yucatan, created a huge crater and the dust resulted of settled all over the earth; the Island of Cuba, long before Columbus,did not sank and remained where it stands today.
What the heck this guy is trying to say?
The planetary environment is out of our reach if we pretend to view it as a factor we can control, we can detect the changes, the big ones, but we can't control them.
The human activities because of the ever growing population and the industrial growth can not.
The small changes, those that affect a conmmunity or a City; such the aquifer contamination, areas with contaminated soils due to industrial or agricultural pollutants yes.
At the human scale we can asses the damage we can design systems to do the cleanup in a smaller scale. That's my point.
I'm working as a environmental geologist here. We have contaminated lots of land called Brownfields that are in the process of cleanup.
The Biscayne aquifer once with harmful chemicals from the agricultural areas to the north is in the process of becoming cleaner.
The sea level rising because of the melting of the polar caps is not a worry for me. It could take maybe 1000 years. You know why? Because the models used by scientist to predict the rise in 50 years are all biased by people whose salaries are controlled by the so called environmentalists organizations who receive huge amounts of money from the industries that produce the CO2.
Mario Faz, P. G.
Mario.faz@­gmail;.com

[OkieMon]

No real economic and environmental progress that benefits the majority will occur in the US and the world without the development of alternative energies that replace oil and coal.

[Dandy12]

It is so unfortunate that many are selling out our future for short term profits. We have become a nation that prefers to bury our heads in the sand, or even worse, and possibly appropriate, DoDos (now extinct). I agree wholeheartedly with the changes you envision for America. It is quite unfortunate that the position that will propel America into the future has been blocked or put on hold.

[RossalGondamer]

Is it only me that would like to actually SEE a filibuster against this bill AS-IS, instead of hearing how a guy must fly to Bali to excuse the rising tide?

[realitytrumpsbull]

So, when are they putting in more E85 plants
nationwide? Didya know that all you really
need to start making ethanol is sugar?

http://lugar.senate.gov/energy/hearings/pdf/060622/Carvalho_slides2.pdf
1979...wow...

http://www.impeachbush.org

[Citizen54]

I suspect the Senator is not reading these comments, so I guess that makes this a rhetorical question, but here goes: So what are the Democrats going to do when the Republicans block this legislation (as surely they will)? Trot out the old "60 votes" excuse?

Replace the government in 08!

[jdm58]

It would have been nice if you had included in your blog which republican­s/democrat­s fought against passing this bill. Armed with this information, we could have got to bat by calling/emailing them as the voting public, to let them know their actions are accountable. It is also a wakeup call to all Americans to follow closely not only the Presidential election, but their state and local elections as well. To affect a change in Congress, we must start by electing officials on the local level who pledge to support not only the best interests of their state, but of the nation as well. Some of these Senators have been sitting pretty for decades, and seemingly are no longer held accountable for their voting records.

[vippy]

We have the technology for 50 mpgs. The US could have saved their car industry by mandating at least 45 mpgs. The president calls us energy dependent when in fact it is congress/senate that hold the key to this.
It takes only 41 votes to filibuster if the president vetoes this bill.

[ethnobotanist]

i agree with some posts here, reluctantly

seems you can't get the votes needed for progress in this country

that means lots of people 'on the hill' have to go (lose their jobs) for screwing it up for everyone

i see both dems and repubs losing seats

hopefully, people with real ability and true passion and a 'get it done' attitude will be a wide-spread quality in the new, improved congress to come.

it is so bad now - it has to get better - and the way to do that is give fresh, inspired, able to work across the aisle, new people the chance to make it work for the new admin. to come, with all the challanges and issues we face, both foreign and domestic, and who aren't jaded or sold out to special interests, and care that our men and women are dying over oil and bringing big business to the m.e....

sorry, sen. kerry, i have little hope in this congress, one disappointment after another....and it's not like I haven't applied myself. There is something foundationally wrong in wash. and cleaning house completely might give usa chance.

I'll take the risks, rather than more of the same excuses - we can't get the votes. I believe you can't. That's why that house has to change all around.