2009 Climate Bill Is Expected to Reverberate in 2010 Vote
The climate-change bill headed for a House vote Friday is likely to be a defining issue of the 2010 midterm election.
Republican leaders see the measure, one of President Barack Obama’s top priorities, as a perfect illustration of their broader case that Democrats are the party of high taxes and intrusive big government.
In a memo circulated to House Republicans, Minority Leader John Boehner (R., Ohio) said the pending climate vote would have significant electoral consequences.
“Democrats who vote for it do so at their own peril,” Mr. Boehner wrote. “The American people will remember this debate and will remember who stands up for them.”
Democrats also see the measure as consequential. “This vote and this issue will loom very large in 2010,” said Rep. Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who is an architect of the bill. In what it called an “unprecedented” move, the League of Conservation Voters said it won’t endorse any member of the House of Representatives in the 2010 election cycle who votes against passage of the bill.
Many Republicans refer to the measure as a “cap and tax” plan — playing on the term “cap and trade” employed by Democrats to describe the bill’s system for buying and selling permits to emit greenhouse gases.
Republicans are pushing a competing bill that includes incentives for development of renewable fuels and relies heavily on increasing nuclear power, among other things…
Ahead of the climate vote, Republicans are turning up pressure on wavering Democrats, especially those like Alabama Rep. Bobby Bright who represent rural districts, which are seen as particularly vulnerable to electricity-rate increases, among other feared ill effects.
“The time has come for Bobby Bright to take a stand,” said Ken Spain, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign arm of House Republicans. The NRCC issued sharply worded attacks against Mr. Bright and more than a dozen other Democrats Wednesday.
A spokesman for Mr. Bright said the congressman is “leaning very strongly no,” on the bill.
Carol Browner, Mr. Obama’s adviser on climate issues, is among several top officials reaching out “to build support for floor passage,” said an administration official. Top backers of the bill, including Rep. Markey, are making changes to shore up support, especially among rural lawmakers…
The issue is important to farmers. The legislation would let businesses meet their obligations to reduce emissions by paying farmers to engage in such activities as injecting soil with seeds rather than plowing ground and causing the release of carbon.
Farm groups fear the EPA would be unlikely to approve some potentially lucrative projects as offsets. Environmentalists, conversely, worry that the Agriculture Department would rubber stamp projects of dubious environmental benefit.
“The environmentalists don’t trust us, and we don’t trust them,” said House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D., Minn.).
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