As Senate leadership determines the timeline for rolling out and debating a climate and energy package this year, lobbying efforts behind the legislation are ramping up. During today's OnPoint, Scott Segal, co-head of the federal government relations and strategic communications practices at Bracewell & Giuliani and director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, and Jeremy Symons, senior vice president at the National Wildlife Federation, discuss the politics of cap and trade. Segal and Symons also address the impact that health care reform may have on prospects for a climate and energy package.
As the Senate moves quickly on climate and energy legislation, many opponents of the House-approved Waxman-Markey bill are hoping to see significant changes in the Senate's version. During today's OnPoint, Joe Lucas, senior vice president at the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, discusses the provisions he hopes will change as the legislation makes its way through the Senate. Lucas explains how his industry will shape its lobbying efforts this summer. He also discusses the Obama administration's progress on funding and R&D for carbon capture and storage technology.
Who's spending on campaigns and lobbying in the run-up to the 2012 election? E&E tracks the money.
While super PACs linked to presidential candidates have drawn most of the spotlight -- and the biggest checks -- so far this election season, groups taking unlimited contributions to play in House and Senate races are starting to see their first cash infusions from donors with a stake in congressional energy debates.
The biggest energy-industry donations to a congressional super PAC, according to an E&E Daily analysis of campaign finance data, came from three coal players to American Crossroads, a conservative super PAC that counts former President George W. Bush lieutenant Karl Rove as a senior adviser. Other top-tier givers to congressional super PACs on both sides of the aisle have a less direct stake in federal environmental policy, such as private-equity titans and unions on the pro-Keystone XL side of the labor schism over the oil pipeline.
The American Chemistry Council significantly ramped up its lobbying efforts in the fourth quarter of last year, spending more than double its total for any quarter in recent history.
ACC, the chief lobbying arm of the chemical manufacturing industry, spent $5.37 million in the fourth quarter. The total represents the fifth most of any lobbying operation on Capitol Hill during that period, outspending the perennially deep-pocketed efforts of General Electric Co. and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, according to a Center for Responsive Politics analysis conducted for E&E Daily.
Senior House GOP lawmakers benefited from energy industry political action committee donations in the final months of 2011, led by Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), a key subcommittee chairman, who collected more than $40,000 each.
E&E Daily reviewed year-end campaign finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission last week via data collected by CQ Moneyline for chairmen and select senior members of the Energy and Commerce; Natural Resources; Science, Space and Technology; and Transportation and Infrastructure panels.
Of the 33 Senate races on tap this year, nine are true tossups -- and they are also the likeliest to make a difference in the battle for control of the chamber as Democrats struggle to hold on to their slim majority. But at least another eight states are hosting Senate races of varying competitiveness in November and bear watching. The latest campaign fundraising figures, which were released last week, helped to clarify some of those contests.
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