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The debate over how to address climate change and air pollution issues continues to permeate the Supreme Court and Congress. During today's OnPoint, the former head of the U.S. EPA's air pollution office, Jeff Holmstead, talks about the future of climate change legislation. Holmstead, now an attorney at Bracewell & Giuliani, discusses how recent Supreme Court cases involving air pollution and global warming will affect congressional action on these issues.
Darren Samuelsohn: Welcome to OnPoint. I'm Darren Samuelsohn. Joining me today in Washington is Jeffrey Homestead, former U.S. EPA air pollution director, now an industry attorney working for Bracewell & Giuliani in Washington. Jeff, thanks for coming back on the show.
Jeff Holmstead: Thanks, it's nice to be back.
Darren Samuelsohn: Let's start off broadly looking ahead to January, what do you expect from Democrats in Congress on energy and environmental issues?
Jeff Holmstead: Well, I think there's no real surprise as they've been pretty clear that they're interested in doing more oversight and looking into these issues. I think the tone is going to be a little different maybe in the Senate than would be in the House. But I think there's going to be a lot of interest, just in general, in a lot of these issues. And I think I'm a change, in particular, will be an issue that a lot of folks will be talking about.
Darren Samuelsohn: Do you think the Senate or the House will be the place to primarily watch for climate change legislation first?
Jeff Holmstead: Well, I don't think legislation is going to happen in the near term. Just because the issues are so complicated I think it's going to be awhile before real legislation comes together, but I think the Senate is likely to take the lead. Chairman Dingell has quite a track record and when he talks about his style, his record really backs that up. He likes to get the facts in. He likes to understand the issues. So I think you could see something moving a little more quickly in the Senate. On the other hand, they have two panels that officially deal of climate change. And Mr. Carpenter has said he thinks CO2 needs to be covered under the Clean Air Act, so eventually you'll have three subcommittees in the Senate that are going to be dealing with climate change. So that will be an interesting dynamic.
Darren Samuelsohn: How many votes do you think that they would have if they tried to move a mandatory cap?
Jeff Holmstead: You know, I haven't counted with the new ...
Darren Samuelsohn: The new make up.
Jeff Holmstead: ... with the new make up, but I think if Chairman Boxer really wanted to push something she probably has the votes. But we've seen in the past that that doesn't mean very much, getting something out of the committee. It gets press, it gets coverage, but in terms of really moving towards legislation my guess is that they're going to want to do a little more careful job and try to get some more people involved so they can show they really can move legislation.
Darren Samuelsohn: Do you think she can find 60 votes in the Senate?
Jeff Holmstead: It depends what the bill is. I think there's a lot of people around town who are really thinking carefully about how to address this issue. It's a huge issue. And it's one thing to be in the minority, you know, kind of complaining and representing your constituency, but actually getting legislation is a lot harder. I mean I don't think there's 60 votes for the legislation that she has sponsored in the past. I don't think so. But I think you can see that there could eventually be that kind of consensus, but it's not going to be easy.
Darren Samuelsohn: Who do you think would be calling the shots ultimately to get a bill onto the Senate floor? Would it be Senator Boxer or maybe someone trying to make a more moderate point of view to really get climate legislation?
Jeff Holmstead: I don't know. And I think it will be interesting to see. Chairman Boxer is a very capable legislator and she's been in the role of being in the minority and complaining about things the Bush administration and others have done. But I think she's fully capable of putting together the kind of coalition that you might need, so I wouldn't underestimate her. But she, obviously, has to have support from the leadership. And I think she will realize that she also has to be working, to some degree, with the other House.
Darren Samuelsohn: How much do you expect that she's going to look back on your tenure at EPA, at the regulations that you helped to move through and finalize?
Jeff Holmstead: Various people are around town have said, Jeff, you're going to be spending a lot of time up on the Hill. I would be surprised, only because the major NSR issues are basically now before the Supreme Court. The mercury issue is before the court. I think she has other things on her agenda and we'll see. But I'm not expecting that there's going to be a whole lot of looking back. I don't think that's good politics. And I think people have realized, for a lot of reasons, that we've kind of gone beyond those issues to a large degree.
Darren Samuelsohn: What do you think is going on right now in the minds of industry executives, I guess across all the different kinds of industries, now that Democrats are in control of the Senate, and just talking about climate change specifically?
Jeff Holmstead: You know, I've spent time over the last couple of months talking with a lot of people in industry. And I'm not sure that they've had a fundamental change just because the Democrats took over the Congress. There's a lot of senior people at major companies, who are responsible for a lot of CO2 emissions, who have been doing a lot of serious thinking about this issue. I think the policy debate will be very interesting because when you sit back and see just how dependent not only our economy but the world economy is on fossil fuels, you know, there's things you can do around the edges. But fundamentally we're pretty dependent on those for our way of life.
Darren Samuelsohn: Is there more of a willingness by industry, by different kinds of industry, to engage with the Democrats as opposed to sit back and maybe get gobbled up by whatever bill gets written?
Jeff Holmstead: Oh, I think so. I people generally realize that they will have to be engaged and there's a lot of education that needs to go on. So I think that you will see some major players really step up and try to engage in the debate.
Darren Samuelsohn: How much do you think the Supreme Court decisions, the Clean Air Act, New Source Review enforcement decision, and then also the greenhouse gas decision will influence what Congress does?
Jeff Holmstead: I may be in the minority on this. I don't think it has that large of an impact, no matter which way the Supreme Court comes out on either of those cases. But just think particularly about the greenhouse gas case, the Clean Air Act, even if they were, I think, coming out with a surprise and say the agency does have authority, the Clean Air Act just doesn't make any sense for climate change. It's not as though EPA can go out and develop a whole new program. I mean there's no way they can do a cap-and-trade program for CO2. The only reason you can do that for SO2 and NOX is because you have an ambient air quality standard and states haven't met that. And so you look at the programs that are available under the Clean Air Act and they just don't make sense for climate change. So I think no matter which way the court comes out Congress is going to take up the issue in a serious way. Now politically, obviously, it matters and I don't want to minimize the importance. And I know some people in the environmental community have their own ideas about how NSR could be used, how other programs could be used, but I just don't think the Clean Air Act fits very well with this problem.
Darren Samuelsohn: Let's look ahead to 2008. How would you advise a Republican presidential candidate to talk about energy and environmental issues?
Jeff Holmstead: You know it's probably a good thing I'm not a political adviser, just because it's a difficult question. Everybody is concerned about climate change and I think there really is a consensus that climate change is occurring. There's much less certainty about what's really causing that, how much is natural variation and how much is a buildup of greenhouse gas up in the atmosphere? But the thing that's most difficult is what is the solution? Renewable energy is an interest thing that, over time, could be I think important. But no one is really talking about anything other than kind of around the edges. And I think a president is going to have to have a vision of what to do and be able to convince people it's an important issue, but the kind of issue that's not a five-year issue or a ten year issue. It's a 50 year issue and obviously with steps in between there. But I think it's going to be an important issue for presidential candidates on both sides to be talking about and I think we will see that.
Darren Samuelsohn: How would you advise President Bush in his final two years in office? Same question, energy and environmental issues, how would you advise him to finish out his term?
Jeff Holmstead: Well, this won't surprise you. I actually think the President doesn't get credit for all that he has done. People accuse the administration of not dealing with climate change. In fact, they're doing an enormous amount. It's in terms of incentives. And this is the way we do public policy in lots of areas. We have tax incentives for wind, for renewable, for alternative fuels, and that, along with the non-regulatory programs, have actually been quite successful. If you look at the United States' track record versus the countries who have signed onto Kyoto, I would say, and I think most sort of public policy people would say we've done as well or better than most of those countries have. But politically it's been a very hard thing I think for the administration to talk about. I would be surprised if there's any significant shift other than trying to really talk in a more serious way about the transformational technologies, how we get those developed. I think the President will make a lot of people available to have this kind of engagement with Congress, but I wouldn't expect the President to use the last two years to sort of change the debate in a way that some people have suggested.
Darren Samuelsohn: You don't think he's going to actually come out and support mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions?
Jeff Holmstead: I would be surprised.
Darren Samuelsohn: Let me ask you this, Christie Todd Whitman has said that if it was presented to him by the Democratic-controlled Congress, he might consider signing it. What do you think if that were to happen?
Jeff Holmstead: I think it depends entirely on what it is. I mean you can have a cap up here, with safety valves and other things that you could see wouldn't be economically devastating. You could have caps down here that could be. And so I think you really have to see what it is before predicting what he would do.
Darren Samuelsohn: Now during your time at EPA and during the course of the last six years there has been a lot of controversy about various pieces of the Clean Air Act that that you moved through. How do you think, looking ahead, the history books will remember President Bush will remember President Bush then on energy and environmental issues?
Jeff Holmstead: You know, one of my frustrations in the job at EPA is there's sort of a public debate about these issues that you read about in the newspapers, especially in the sort of major press. And I would say you guys and others do a much better job of dealing with sort of the substance of the policy. I think, looking back, people will say that certainly in the airy year we accomplished a great deal, you look at CARE, you look at the diesel rule, you look at the mercury role. I think when people, like Resources for the Future, look back and other sort of serious public policy, I think they'll say we did an enormous amount to make the Clean Air Act work better. I think the NSR reforms, once you get beyond the politics of the way that's played out, they were absolutely the right thing to do, just in terms of making the regulatory system more predictable and more efficient, the caps that we put in place. So I feel really good about the record. On the other hand, people who just read major publications and the New Yorker magazine will get a very different picture. And I hope that history can go back and take a little more serious look at what he was able to accomplish.
Darren Samuelsohn: OK, Jeff, well, we'll have to bring you back on in the year 2020 and we'll have this discussion then.
Jeff Holmstead: I'll look forward to it that.
Darren Samuelsohn: OK. Thanks so much for coming on the show.
Jeff Holmstead: My pleasure.
Darren Samuelsohn: Until next time, this is Darren Samuelsohn for another edition of OnPoint. Thanks for watching.
[End of Audio]
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