What effects will U.S. EPA's proposed endangerment finding for greenhouse gas emissions have on the push for climate legislation in Congress? During today's OnPoint, David Hoppe, president of Quinn Gillespie & Associates and a former chief of staff for Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), and Kevin Kayes, a director at Quinn Gillespie and a former chief counsel for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), discuss the prospects for a climate bill this year and the hurdles that Democrats face to pass bipartisan legislation.

Transcript

Monica Trauzzi: Welcome to the show. I'm Monica Trauzzi. Joining me today are Dave Hoppe, president of Quinn Gillespie & Associates and a former Chief of Staff for Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, and Kevin Kayes, a director at Quinn Gillespie, and former chief counsel for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Gentlemen thanks for coming on the show.

Kevin Kayes: Thank you.

Dave Hoppe: My pleasure.

Monica Trauzzi: Dave, the two of you have written a series of papers pertaining to the landscape of the 111th Congress and how the new Democratic majority signals a shift in the way legislation will be passed. Why do you believe the first two years of the Obama administration will be much like the first term of President Reagan's administration?

Dave Hoppe: Well, I think if you look, the big comparison is that President Reagan came in where there was significant economic dislocation. You'd had very high unemployment during the last years at the Carter administration, low growth, and President Reagan had a very firm and direct set of policies that he talked about in the campaign, said he wanted to follow. He also had, while he had a majority in the Senate of Republicans, he had a majority, a philosophical majority I guess I should say, in the House. If you put the conservative Democrats and the Republicans together he had more than a majority in the House and was able to work with the Congress as if he was working with a body that had a majority of people who supported him, which they did. Once again, Senator, now President Obama comes in with significant economic dislocation. He had a very clear set of policies that he set out during the campaign. They're very aggressive policies as were the Reagan policies. And both of them have said this is the direction I want to go. Now, philosophically, they're very different directions. But in terms of the activity and the action they want to take I think they're very much the same and they have to go to Congress and make Congress a partner in what they're trying to do in order to be successful in getting the policies passed. President Reagan was, obviously President Obama has had some success early on, now there's a number of issues that are coming up before him that are just getting ripe before the Congress and we'll see how he does.

Monica Trauzzi: So we have a Republican and a Democrat at the table. Do you both agree on how the Democrats should be proceeding with certain legislative battles throughout this year, Kevin?

Kevin Kayes: Well, this administration is unique. We were talking on the way over; he inherited a substantial economic problem with the economy. And I think they've spent a lot of time in this first few months doing triage on the economy and I think we're sort of starting to turn the corner and see some of the benefits of that. At the same time, he has been bold enough to actually signal his interest in doing major healthcare reform and also climate change legislation, two significant, monumental efforts. So I think it's too early to tell. I think because of the situation he inherited it's been difficult, but I think as we turn the corner and as the Congress has a chance to ramp up on both of those issues you're going to begin to see some significant progress.

Monica Trauzzi: And Dave, on climate you believe the Senate majority Democrats will make a real effort to reach out to Republicans and develop a consensus on certain controversial issues. There are still some major discrepancies that fall along party lines regarding cap and trade, specifically about its economic impacts. So how does the bipartisanship challenge play into the climate issue and do you see a way that this can actually be a bipartisan bill?

Dave Hoppe: Well, it appears that they will go that route. Having said that, in the last couple of three weeks we've seen some effort to leave open the possibility of putting a climate bill into a reconciliation bill, although the response by a number of leading Democrats in the Senate and House have advocated that they not do that. We don't know the final answer to that until we see the Budget Conference Report. But it appears that that will not be included right now, although technically if you look at the way the House reconciliation bill was set up it is a possibility. Having said that, if they go the route that I expect they will right now, yes, it will have to be done under the regular order the Senate which means that if there is a filibuster it would take 60 votes to break that filibuster to move forward, by its very nature you have to reach out. Clearly, the effort that has been going on in the Energy Committee with Chairman Bingaman and Senator Murkowski, they have tried to work together. Now, they've had the roughest time on renewable energy portfolio. That part of the issue has not come together. But they have, Senator Bingaman, as chairman, has reached out and said, "I want to develop a bill here which has a lot of input from Republicans and a broad support." And thus far, with the exception of RES he has been able to do that. And I think that is a good model and a model that you'll find them following. The Environment Committee is a little tougher to do that in. They aren't quite as…there tend to be more members with differing philosophies. That was a nice way of phrasing it.

Monica Trauzzi: Nice way to say it.

Dave Hoppe: And they're a little further apart, but once again, if they are going to do this under the regular rules of the Senate, to get 60 votes you simply have to reach out, simply assuming that the 58 Democrats and you're going to find two Republicans is not most likely the way you're going to get a bill because there's a number of those Democrats who, if you look at the regional aspects of energy and environment will have a difficult time going right down the line with sort of the standard approach that some of the more liberal Democrats would like to take. So they're going to have to pull it back in. If you look at the proposal such as it was laid out by the Energy and Commerce Committee, by Mr. Waxman and Mr. Markey, it was a bill that shows some openings to try and work together with some Republicans. Whether they'll be successful on the House side in doing that, I don't know, but certainly they are open to the possibility and the administration has clearly said they want to be open to that possibility. So we see the opportunity there and it's going to be interesting to watch from an academic point of view if nothing else just how they pursue this.

Monica Trauzzi: So Kevin, does approaching energy and climate in the same package affect the bipartisanship in any way, affect its chances? I mean what's the strategy there for the Democrats of doing both in the same package?

Kevin Kayes: You know, I think first the Democratic leadership in the Senate wants the committees not only to be involved, but wants them to be the workhorse and lead this effort. And I have to say my experience has been when you do that you end up with a better work product. And the MO in the Senate is for committees, and Dave is right, Senator Bingaman is doing this on the Energy Committee. You get the best work product when you reach across and work with Republicans. And I think the goal is to do that on both committees. And Dave is right; the Environment and Public Works Committee has some of the more liberal Democrats and some of the more conservative Republicans. And it remains to be seen whether they can fashion a bill out of that committee that gets support on the Republican side. And in terms of combining the bills, I think this was really sort of foisted on… I don't think that was the Senate Democrats wish going in. I think they clearly wanted to do an energy bill and come back and do a climate change bill. But when the House decided to do that, that decision was sort of foisted on them and, you know, they have to respond. And it may turn out that having a collective effort here where the committees do the bulk of the work and get as far as they can get, and allowing both of those committees to work, actually three committees, Environment, Public Works, Energy and Finance, along with the leadership to craft a bill, you may actually get a bill that's more reflective of the broader caucus. And that really is a challenge. It's interesting, when Senator Reid was minority leader in the Senate we held a Democratic policy committee lunch on climate change and I was surprised, there was almost unanimity among caucus members that we needed to do something on climate. And the speakers were folks from industry. They were companies like GE and one of the utilities that actually were in favor of legislation. So from that point it was clear to me that the consensus in the caucus was that we needed to do something. You know, the question is sort of how you do that and where you end up.

Monica Trauzzi: Dave, final question here. As we tape there are indications that EPA may act on regulating emissions within the next few days, a week or so. How will a move like that impact Congress and the push to get this type of legislation through?

Dave Hoppe: Well, I think where they are right now is they would be happy to move forward, but what they're really doing is trying to put pressure on the Congress and say, "If you don't do it we will." And always acting by regulation as opposed to acting something in the legislative sphere and having the give-and-take of politics, which you find in the legislative branch, is a way of getting more people together and finding a more refined product, really. And so I think that the effort is to tell everybody that on the shelf they've got an opportunity to go ahead and do this, but they are waiting to see what happens on the Hill legislatively, what can be done legislatively. So there's a bit of a sword of Damocles here. But I think the administration would like to see if the Congress can do something before they will act aggressively in these regulations. Now what they've told everybody is we have the power, we have the ability and we have the will. Now, do we have to or are you going to do it?

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

Dave Hoppe: A pleasure.

Kevin Kayes: Thank you.

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

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