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.
Congressional candidates in a half-dozen Western states are charging ahead to their respective primaries -- many now just two months away -- with incumbents and challengers alike exceeding the $1 million mark, according to recently filed campaign finance reports. Democrats made significant gains in the Mountain West in the 2006 and 2008 election cycles, but Republicans came roaring back in 2010, and the region should be a major battleground in the fight to control the House of Representatives next year.
House lawmakers have already seen two of their senior colleagues fall to other members in contentious intraparty primary battles this cycle -- as Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D) lost to Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D) in Ohio and freshman Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R) defeated Rep. Don Manzullo (R) in Illinois -- so it's likely members still waiting to face off in the election this year are taking notes. With new district lines in place across the country in the wake of the decennial reapportionment process, nearly two dozen lawmakers found themselves competing with a fellow incumbent to return to Capitol Hill in 2013.
Last week, West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin (D) met with Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin (D) and several business leaders in the state, including some from the Coal Association, to discuss winning what they call the Obama administration's war on coal. The roundtable discussion at Walker Machinery in Belle, W.Va., just south of Charleston, was a chance for Manchin to prove his pro-coal credentials amid what could shape up to be a tough re-election campaign.
A Texas billionaire who is one of the top Republican campaign contributors of the 2012 presidential cycle is at the center of an ongoing controversy over a waste storage project near Andrews, Texas. Harold Simmons, a majority owner of Waste Control Specialists, has donated more than $11.5 million this election cycle, according to Political MoneyLine, with most of the money -- at least $10 million -- going to American Crossroads, the conservative super PAC connected to Karl Rove, President George W. Bush's political guru.
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