As national security issues and health care reform continue to dominate the headlines, how will energy and climate play into Congress' agenda in the new year? During today's OnPoint, E&E reporters Darren Samulesohn and Alex Kaplun discuss how a changing political climate will affect the Democrats' agenda. Kaplun and Samuelsohn also preview the president's upcoming State of the Union speech.

Transcript

Monica Trauzzi: Welcome to the show. I'm Monica Trauzzi. Joining me today are E&E Daily reporters Darren Samuelson and Alex Kaplun. Darren, Alex, thanks for joining me today.

Alex Kaplun: Sure.

Darren Samuelsohn: Thanks.

Monica Trauzzi: Alex, with Congress returning to the capital this week there will certainly be a lot of attention on national security issues, health care as well. Is the fact that the climate is getting a little more difficult for Democrats going to really weigh on the agenda that we start seeing emerging in the next couple of months?

Alex Kaplun: I think so. I think there's still a lot of things up in the air on what exactly is going to be on the table this year. I think one of the big things that Democrats realize that they need to make real progress in the economy to kind of be successful at the polls next year. We had unemployment numbers come out last week which were not as optimistic as they hoped and we already heard that that's going to be the big issue. I mean that doesn't necessarily mean that sort of the energy climate change agenda is going to fall off the table. They've always tried to sell that as a jobs issue, but that's clearly going to be the priority, at least for the early part of this year. And how quickly they can move on some of those issues, you know, how successful they are is really going to affect everything else.

Monica Trauzzi: Darren, this idea of an energy only package is still getting play. How likely is it that a cap-and-trade vote will actually happen and would it be a good move for the Democrats to just focus on energy?

Darren Samuelsohn: The energy only approach is sort of one of the fallbacks that you're hearing talked about right now and it remains one of the fallbacks, along with like power plants only or some sort of iteration that's not an economy wide bill. I mean the administration remains pretty committed to it an economy wide cap-and-trade bill right now. That's what they promised when they were in Copenhagen a couple of weeks ago. It's what they're looking for as we go forward. I think that they're going to try and push for a vote on cap and trade and that's what's going on right now behind the scenes and what will continue to go on behind the scenes for the next couple of weeks and months as they try and come up with a package of 60 votes and they start to play around with what is it going to take to actually bring along a good number of Republicans. They need about 4 or 5, 6, 7 Republicans to be engaged on the climate bill, which is seven more then what were involved in the health care bill. So, they're looking for some sort of bipartisanship recognizing that they're going to have some tough votes on the Democratic side, that they're going to lose probably some Ben Nelsons, and Mary Landrieus and Blanche Lincolns. And then going forward they can try and fuse that together. They won't make a decision on that and asking people right now what's going to happen, a lot of people just don't know and it's all going to kind of just happen sort of naturally over course of the next couple of weeks and months.

Monica Trauzzi: Will the fallout from the Copenhagen meeting and sort of the Climategate email issue, will that have a lingering impact on the domestic climate debate?

Darren Samuelsohn: Well, the Copenhagen Accord, it's interesting. It was so raucous there in Copenhagen at the end no one really knew what was happening. But what did come out of it is this three or four page document that they're going to be working on over the course of the next year and it's a signal for sort of multilateralism going forward, that all these countries are going to be working maybe outside of the U.N. auspices trying to forge an international agreement. And the reason that's important back home is because you did get the Chinese and the Indians and South Africans and the Brazilians to the table proposing commitments that they're going to be taking going forward. And also, another key piece to Copenhagen was that there is this talk of what are they going to do to sort of put these countries, these developing countries pledges, how to open up the books going forward. And those are key issues for those moderate Democrats, your Arlen Specters and Jay Rockefellers, Evan Bayhs going forward. All of them had staff in Copenhagen watching over the process there. So, the work going forward here on the climate bill is going to reflect what the Chinese and the Indians put forward in Copenhagen and there's still these two tracks sort of going forward. Climategate and the e-mails, I mean Senator Inhofe is not going to let that one go. I mean it was interesting, in Copenhagen very little talk about Climategate among the people that were there working on the issue sort of dismissed it out of hand right at the very start. Inhofe is not going to let it go though and the whole point for Inhofe here is he's trying to make it uncomfortable for some of those moderate Democrats to even be talking about climate change. That's what this politically is all about. So he's not going to let go of that one.

Monica Trauzzi: Alex, the president's approval rate is sagging. Will he continue to focus on climate change? Is it still going to be a major issue for this administration if those numbers continue to go down?

Alex Kaplun: I don't think the issue here is so much the administration. I mean obviously they want their approval numbers to be high, but it's more the congressional Democrats and how they react to the president's numbers and to their own numbers really. I mean there's no doubt that the 2010 election is going to color everything they do for this year. And I think the interesting issue is not just the election itself and Democrats trying to sort of position themselves to appeal to voters, it's also who's up for election. Not only do you have a lot of senators, more so than in most cycles because of all the vacancies, but you have some very important players. Barbara Boxer has a serious challenge. Harry Reid has a serious challenge. And it becomes an issue of not just do these people have the time to write a climate bill, but who even wants to vote on one? So there's senators like Michael Bennett, Arlen Specter, you can probably get them, or potentially get them to support a climate bill. Do they want to cast that vote three or four months before a really competitive election?

Monica Trauzzi: The president's State of the Union address is right around the corner. They haven't announced a date yet, but it's either late January or early February. How big of a role are you expecting climate to play with national security, health care, the economy all being front-page news these days? Where is climate going to fit into all of that, Darren?

Darren Samuelsohn: Well, if he doesn't mention climate change that would be a huge story. I mean I don't think Obama will let that speech go without a push for Congress to pass the bill thanking the house for what they did last year and urging the Senate. I mean everyone is going to be waiting to see what Obama is going to put into this. I mean he went to Copenhagen, he negotiated, some people say he barged into the meeting there with the Chinese and the Indians. So, he's put a lot on the line and he's going to need to push Congress to act. They're going to need to make a calculation though at some point what exactly are they going to act on? Is it the energy only bill? I mean, of course, if they push the energy only bill then it raises all sorts of questions about the fact that the House did pass cap and trade and how does a conference work those issues out? Very similar to health care, you know, you have two different bills. So, if they go with the energy only approach and Obama makes a calculation that that's what he can get, you know, he's still got to deal with the House Democrats who have walked a plank on cap and trade. So, I can't imagine he lets the State of the Union go without a push and then the questions become does he make a nationally televised address to the country? Does he go on a barnstorming tour to try and sell the country on this? And there's a lot of time between now and the election, so Obama is going to need to talk about something for the next 11 months.

Alex Kaplun: I think there's a couple of things in play here too. I mean I would suspect that climate change will come up in some capacity in the State of the Union. Again, it might come up through the specter of jobs; I mean that's sort of been the Obama strategy for selling a climate bill all along. I think he'll keep pushing that idea. The other sort of bigger political issue is that there's been increasing criticism of President Obama not being active enough in pushing for his priorities. Some Democrats have said openly that if he wants anything, health care, climate, etc., he needs to get out there. He needs to twist arms. You know, do some of the things that it doesn't appear like he's been doing. And I think it's going to be very telling what he does with climate change for the next couple of months. That if he doesn't get behind and if he doesn't do some of the things that Darren talked about, go out there and campaign for it, I think that's going to give a lot of cue to Senate Democrats in particular to say, hey, this is not a big priority for the president. Maybe we should hold off.

Monica Trauzzi: Final question here. Darren, EPA's endangerment finding. There is a push in Congress to stop EPA from acting. How far does that actually go and how closely are we watching this dance between Congress and the EPA?

Darren Samuelsohn: Well, it's a huge, early test for the whole climate agenda. I mean a lot of people kind of weren't expecting such an early vote on the EPA regulations and sort of what that means symbolically for the larger cap-and-trade debate. Now, Senator Murkowski, Lisa Murkowski from Alaska, hasn't actually decided what specific amendment she's going to offer and if she's even going to push for a vote. That was the word last week from her staff. They're going to be trying to figure out what kind of vote tally they're going to be able to get, how many moderate Democrats can they get to vote to sort of stop EPA on regulations for greenhouse gas emissions. Now, going forward, whatever Murkowski pushes and whatever vote happens, the question then becomes, well, okay, what's the alternative Senator Murkowski? If you want to stop EPA, do you support some sort of congressional action to pass cap-and-trade legislation or something else? And Senator Murkowski, who has cosponsored cap-and-trade legislation in past years under the Bush administration, is going to need to answer that question. And she seems willing to engage and say that everything should be on the table. As for what it actually is that goes on to the table, that's still to be determined.

Monica Trauzzi: OK, we'll end it right there. Thank you both for coming on the show.

Darren Samuelsohn: Thanks.

Monica Trauzzi: And thanks for watching. We'll see you back here tomorrow.

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