By Kennedy Maize
The slim passage in late June of the House Democrats’ global warming bill – 219-212 – reminds old-timers of the Clinton administration’s passage of a Btu tax in 1993 by a 219-213 vote in the House, only to see it crater in the Senate.
Is the same result likely for the Obama administration’s global warming legislation? It may happen. Indeed, it’s likely to happen, as I scope it out.
The Senate is a far more conservative legislative body than the House, meaning that it is less likely to agree to bills that have won in the House, even with large margins. That’s what the Constitution had in mind. The Senate also proportionally represents more rural areas than the House members, and more coal interests.
The narrowness of the victory of the Waxman-Markey bill (HR 2454) in the House, despite a late-in-the day spending spree of concessions to reluctant farm-state and coal-state Democrats, suggests to me that it is dead legislation walking in the Senate.
The House bill is a dog’s dinner. It is legislative hash, with something for everyone. Billions are spread around to win crucial votes. For instance, Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), a Chicago pol, gets a billion-dollar inner city green job training program, with a rationale that defies comprehension. But it won Rush’s vote.
Farmers got all kinds of last-minute concessions that make no policy sense. But the bill would not have passed without rural Democratic votes. In the end, 44 Democrats voted against the bill, and eight Republican voted for it. Without farm-state votes, the bill would have failed.
The July 4 issue of The Economist described the bill as “a masterpiece of obfuscation” and “so weighed down with giveaways, loopholes and needless complexity that many environmentalists hesitate to support it.” The magazine also predicted a rocky course in the Senate.
It’s clear that the original Waxman-Markey bill (gosh, only about 900 pages), which emerged from the House Energy and Commerce Committee, would not have survived on the House floor, even with the large Democratic majority (275-178). According to multiple press accounts, House Commerce Committee chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) was horse-trading to line up votes on the floor as the House was voting on his committee bill. As a result, the bill grew from 900 pages to over 1,400 pages. I’d bet the ranch that nobody in the House – members or their staff (including Waxman and his aides) – had read it when it narrowly passed.
The New York Times’s John Broder, a veteran observer of how legislation in Washington works, wrote, “As the most ambitious energy and climate-change legislation ever introduced in Congress made its way to a floor vote last Friday, it grew fat with compromises, carve-outs, concessions and out-and-out gifts intended to win the votes of wavering lawmakers and the support of powerful industries.”
This is how legislative sausage is made in Washington. It’s not new. The Republicans, when they controlled the House, put the vote-timer on hold for hours (it’s supposed to be 15 minutes) while they lined up votes for a Bush-administration tax plan and beat the fields for special-interest and corporate support.
But the latest legislative peregrinations in the House, where the Democrats have a large majority, suggest problems for the Obama plan in the Senate, where the Democrats now have a nominal majority 60-vote majority (thanks to the final victory of Democrat Al Franken in Minnesota). The Democratic majority – allegedly filibuster-proof — is meaningless in the Senate, where energy and environmental issues are regional, not partisan. Franken, for example, a Paul Wellstone liberal, might bolt on a climate bill if it doesn’t favor Minnesota agriculture interests. Then there are the many Democratic senators who represent coal mining and coal burning states.
My prediction is a reprise of 1993. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee may report a bill later this year – it won’t come soon – that is vastly different than the House-passed legislation. Even given the enormous compromises in the House bill to coal (utility) and agricultural interests, that won’t mollify utility and ag interests in the Senate.
I’d bet (if I were a betting person) that the Senate won’t come up with a measure for floor passage this year. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada doesn’t much care about this energy stuff, as long as the nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain is dead (and it is). So Reid’s not going to push Obama’s energy legislation onto the agenda ahead of things he, and the White House, really care about, including health care, economic recovery, and financial regulation.
If the Obama administration were able to push its global warming agenda onto the Senate floor and get passage this year (remember, I said that’s unlikely), it probably will be very different than the House bill. That sets up a potentially long and nasty House-Senate conference committee to work out differences.
So my best guess is that the topic gets kicked into 2010, and becomes a mid-year election issue. If I were a Democrat running for House and Senate in 2010 (that would never happen), I’m not sure I’d want to be bumping up against an opponent who says my party wants to raise electric rates to combat a dubious problem. The climate hasn’t warmed in a decade.
Gridlock in Washington isn’t entirely a case of partisanship. It’s also a case of policy differences based on regional and local interests. What’s wrong with that? It looks like democracy to me.
“The climate hasn’t warmed in a decade”, says Ken. NOAA differs : “Based on preliminary data, the globally averaged combined land and sea surface temperature was the fourth warmest on record for May, the fifth warmest for boreal spring (March-May), and tied with 2003 as the sixth warmest January-May year-to-date period.”
What are the top ten warmest years, incidentally? 1998,2005,2003,2002,2004,2006,2007,1997,2008, and 1995, according to the World Meteorological Organization.
How long will we keep reading denialist statements on Power Mag’s site? Remains to be seen, but at some point — hopefully — reality will set in.
Don,
I use NASA data, not NOAA or WMO.
Here’s a link http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CRUMSUCO2June.jpg
Hi Ken,
‘icecap’ is a known denialist website. If you really want NASA data, why wouldn’t you go to the source at NASA’s websites rather than a denialist one?
From NASA’s “Global Temperature Trends: 2008 Annual Summation” :
“Calendar year 2008 was the coolest year since 2000, according to the Goddard Institute for Space Studies analysis [see ref. 1] of surface air temperature measurements. In our analysis, 2008 is the ninth warmest year in the period of instrumental measurements, which extends back to 1880 (left panel of Fig. 1). The ten warmest years all occur within the 12-year period 1997-2008. The two-standard-deviation (95% confidence) uncertainty in comparing recent years is estimated as 0.05°C [ref. 2], so we can only conclude with confidence that 2008 was somewhere within the range from 7th to 10th warmest year in the record.”
Don,
What does denialist mean? The data are the data. Goddard’s spin is just that: spin. The NASA data, as provided from Roy Spencer and John Christy, are what they are are. You are the one who denies the data, not I.
Ken
Hi Ken,
That was fast. In one message you claim to be using NASA data, in the next you are denying what they say. Actually I’ve seen all this before. Go to “denialists” of any stripe, whether they think global warming is a hoax, or they are 9/11 “truthers”, or UFO believers, etc etc, they always say the authorities have it all wrong, or they are hiding the truth, it’s a big conspiracy; and they always have a few pet ‘experts’ who are willing to say what they want to hear and are therefore the only ones they believe.
Don,
Don’t tar me with associations tha
Opps, that got posted before I was finished. Must have hit some wrong keys.
Don,
My message: don’t tar me with associations that you think apply, but are bogus. I don’t think global warming is a “hoax,” I think it is bad science. I saw the twin towers collapse, and don’t doubt that Osama bin Laden orchestrated it. I don’t believe in UFOs. and I have close friends whose parents and grandparents perished in the holocaust.
I’m not a believer in conspiracies.
I think George W. Bush was the worst president in U.S. history, eclipsing even James Buchanan.
I’m a believer in truth and subjecting evidence to the highest level of scrutiny. I’m not a “denier” but a skeptic. Skepticism is deep in my bones as a journalist for some 40 years. I also spent some time in government, where I saw both good science and bad, and I think I can discern the difference.
I’f you want to attack me for personal traits I don’t possess, I will not respond in the future and I will not allow your posts on this blog.
We’ve got to be civil. I don’t know who you are, what your values are, what your politics are, and I don’t care. I think you are wrong on the facts and the science, but am willing to debate you on the subject. Apparently, you are not.,but prefer ad hominem attacks.
Personal attacks are out of bounds.
Ken
Hi Ken,
Interesting but not really helpful. Your repeated statements, such as that there has been no warming since the 1950s, or no warming in a decade, are in stark contrast to the science and evidence.
You claim to be pursuing this ‘skeptically’, therefore you should understand that claiming that the scientific authorities are wrong is an ‘extraordinary claim’ that requires ‘extraordinary evidence’. The American Geophysical Union ( one reputable science organization out of many taking the same position ) says “The Earth’s climate is now clearly out of balance and is warming”. You say it isn’t. Explain.
Don,
“Out of balance” is an extraordinarily unscientific statement. What is “in balance”? The climate has changed and is changing forever. There is no such scientific concept that equates to “balance.”
Is there climate equilibrium? No. Is there a “normal” climate? No.
These are not terms of science, but terms of politics.
The Arctic was warmer in the 1930s than it is today. Antarctic ice is growing, by most measurements.
Climate change is a given. There is no such thing as “balance.” Is the climate warming as a result of man-made forces? The verdict is still much in doubt.
As for skepticism, it does not require “extraordinary evidence.” The burden of proof is on those who claim the climate is warming, not on those of use who cast doubts. Science is not based on plebiscites but on proofs.
Ken
Hi Ken,
To overturn the established science would indeed require ‘extraordinary’ evidence, but let’s face it, you haven’t produced any evidence.
Again, you are claiming that science has it wrong — I won’t bother with yet another quote here, but major scientific organizations state that the climate is warming and that the cause is primarily our greenhouse gas emissions. You say, no, it is still very much in doubt.
You don’t seem to have a grasp of the magnitude of your own claims or what would be required to substantiate them. The idea that the climate is warming is not something that Al Gore just dreamed up. It has been measured and confirmed in too many ways to even list here. You are saying they are ALL wrong. Scientists from many disciplines, worldwide, decades of research, no, no, no, you wave your hand and say they have it wrong. That is not skepticism, that is denial.
Don,
Not one of the “major scientific organizations” you refer to polled its members before issuing their politically motivated statements. The fact is that the scientific community is as deeply divided over human influence on climate change as is the general populace. Skepticism is rampant and your name calling will not change that.
As for the original issue, the fact that temperatures over the last decade were the highest on record (even if true) in no way contradicts the fact that there was no warming during that decade, which was Ken’s point. Your supposed counter argument completely misses the point.
Moreover, that supposed 150 year temperature record is pure junk, a computer made concoction of bad data. The satellite record, which is far more accurate, shows no warming over the last 30 years, except a single step function around 1998. That sudden jump is completely inconsistent with GHG induced warming. There is no real evidence for human induced warming in the temperature record.
Skepticism is the only rational position to take in the face of all the contradictory evidence and politically motivated claims.
Hi David,
You are wandering into conspiracy theory here. For example you are claiming that all the major scientific organizations have been hijacked against the wishes of their members. You have not provided any proof of that. If the scientific community is in fact “deeply divided” on the issue it should be pretty easy to show that. For example, were the directors of any of these organizations voted out after having made these statements? Hardly. The AGU’s position statement on cliamte change was first issued in 2003, and reaffirmed in 2007. When exactly does the rebellion occur?
Rather than missing the point of the “no warming” in a decade, I have often pointed out that it is a deliberate ‘cherry pick’ and would be irrelevant in any case, since a decade is too short to establish a climate trend. I’m well aware that it is a treasured belief of, ahem, skeptics, and if it makes you feel better to choose a ‘trend’ from ’98′s El Nino to 2008′s La Nina and choose to believe that it means something, well, good luck with that. Funny that you deride the temperature records in all other cases as pure junk…
I agree that skepticism is the rational approach, and I invite you to start using it. Try reading the comments of actual skeptics such as Michael Shermer. Look up his June 2006 column in Scientiific American, called “The Flipping Point” where he says “Nevertheless, data trump politics, and a convergence of evidence from numerous sources has led me to make a cognitive switch on the subject of anthropogenic global warming.”
and : “Because of the complexity of the problem, environmental skepticism was once tenable. No longer. It is time to flip from skepticism to activism.”
Thanks Don, glad you finally agree that there has been no warming for the last decade, which was the point at issue. But if you look at the satellite records there has also been no GHG warming for the last 30 years, just a single step up in temperature over a 2 year period, which is inconsistent with GHG warming. And the surface record shows no warming for the 40 years before that, so guess what, there has been no GHG warming for the last 70 years. Is that period long enough for you? As Ken says, look at the data, instead of listening to politically motivated pronouncements.
By the same token, claims about the distribution of skeptical beliefs among scientists are empirical claims. Where is the data? Where are the polls? The scientific associations are lobbyists for funding and the climate change scare is a pot of gold for science, so their resolutions endorsing the scare are not reliable data, to say the least. I have done some research in this area an note the following. The high percentage of skeptics commenting on science blogs does not diminish as the level of expertise increases. This indicates that the distribution of skeptics is just as high in science as it is in the general populace.
Readers of Power are familiar with data analysis, and data manipulation. I doubt they are fooled by claims that the science is settled when the arguments are everywhere to be seen.
H David,
yes, that’s cute, I “agree there has been no warming for the last decade” . You can add me to the ever growing list of those who disagree with anthopogenic warming, I guess; good little demonstration from you of how those come about.
I see you are still pushing your conspiracy theory that scientific organizations are all in on the plot. Previously you called temperature records “junk”, also all part of the dastardly plot you’ve become aware of. Instead you take internet blogging as a real indication of the truth…
Still, the ‘little’ problem with your idea that there is significant scientific opposition is, where are they? Every time there are one of those protest letters circulated ( yet another was recently sent to the US government ) there are only the same few people signing it. According to you there should be thousands.
There are thousands.
Hi Ken,
Okay, there are “thousands”. Good. Where are they? Specific names, so that their qualifications can be confirmed etc.
One of these protest letters was sent to the Canadian government, listing 60 names of scientists doubting global warming. That’s 60, from across the world. 59 actually, one of them claimed he didn’t know what he was agreeing to. This 60 ( 59) included persons from a wide variety of fields, such as engineering ( David was one ) and economics. The few climate scientists were the same ones as always. Some truly questionable oddballs such as Tim Ball were included ( known for wildly mis-stating his own qualifications, to start ). So, world-wide, multi-discipline, including even the questionable people, yielded only 60 ( 59) names.
Let’s see. 60 ( 59) vs. “thousands”. hmmm.
Ask Fred Singer