CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
July 9, 2009 – 12:03 a.m.
Boxer Crosses Aisle For Help on Climate Bill
By Coral Davenport, CQ Staff
Senators rarely turn to House members for pointers on legislative strategy. And it’s even more unlikely to find Barbara Boxer , the brash California liberal, soliciting strategic advice from Rick Boucher , a strong advocate of his Virginia district’s coal industry, on how to get a global warming bill through the Senate.
But Boxer must assemble a broad coalition behind the sweeping climate change bill that forms the cornerstone of President Obama’s energy agenda and is one of her own top priorities. Privately, many Hill watchers are skeptical (and indeed sometimes dismissive) of Boxer’s capacity to summon the clout and support to pull a broad coalition together. But that initiative falls squarely under her jurisdiction as chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and so for the past two months, she has been doing what any Senate dealmaker does on the verge of a historic legislative push: methodically reaching out to all manner of potential allies — lawmakers, coal-staters, even Republicans.
It’s the same approach the White House has used in its other big initiatives, from the February stimulus vote to the pending debate over health care. And Boxer aims to keep the proceedings on a tight schedule. Her committee starts hearings this week on the House-passed version of the bill, and she expects to have the legislation marked up and through the panel by the time Congress leaves for the August recess.
For Boxer, however, the run-up to the Senate climate change debate will mark the difference between publicly touting an environmentalist agenda, as she has for years, and ensuring that one comes to pass, with all the back-scratching and compromises that come with moving any major bill. Many Hill watchers are skeptical that Boxer, known more for being a voice of protest from the left than for actually moving legislation, can tone down her abrasive style and deploy some diplomatic skills as chairwoman to make it happen.
Boxer acknowledges that marshaling the bill through the Senate means adjusting her usual blunt style. “I am known as someone who says it the way I think it,” she said. But she also says that a historic climate change bill would mark a lifetime achievement, and that it can only get done in a spirit of moderation and inclusion. “This is groundbreaking. It’s transformational,” she said of the effort to mitigate global warming. “It’s important in such an undertaking that it be very collaborative. It’s the kind of issue that cuts differently in different regions. We have to marry those up and make sure we are being considerate and understanding of all those regions.”
And that’s where the recent consultation with fellow Democrat Boucher came in. On June 23, as House negotiations on the bill were nearing their endgame, Boxer asked Boucher to walk a group of two dozen Democratic senators backing the plan through the process that was then leading up to the bill’s narrow passage in the House. Members of the group meet each Tuesday to pool information and refine strategies to get the bill passed.
Boucher, a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce panel that wrote the bill, had resisted moving a climate change bill for years, concerned that it could hurt his coal-dependent district. In House negotiations over his committee’s measure, he pushed hard to get concessions for electric utilities and low-income rural districts — and won crucial votes from blocs of similarly situated Democrats.
Boucher reports that the meeting with the senators was focused on dealmaking minutiae, rather than the economy-wide sweep of the pending bill. “Sen. Boxer was intensely interested to know the details of our negotiations — exactly whom we talked to, and what kind of provisions we put in for them,” he said.
Getting to Sixty
Boxer’s keen interest in the finer points of legislative strategy is certainly well-advised, given the stakes involved. Both supporters and opponents of the climate change bill call the effort one of the most ambitious undertakings that Congress has ever tackled. The core of the plan is a cap-and-trade system for the carbon emissions produced by nearly every economic sector, establishing a threshold for emissions and then creating markets for tradable credits among affected industries. It’s no exaggeration to say that every productive arm of the economy will be affected by the scheme, and that all U.S. consumers will bear additional costs as a result.
There are global implications as well, since a U.S.-based cap-and-trade system could form the basis of a new international climate treaty to be struck under the auspices of the United Nations in Copenhagen this December. The performance of cap and trade in the U.S. economy could also prove decisive for major developing economies, such as India and China, that have dramatically increased their carbon emissions and assailed U.S. inaction on the issue as evidence of Western hypocrisy.
The magnitude of Boxer’s challenge was apparent when the House passed its climate bill by a close 219-212 vote after months of negotiations by Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry A. Waxman , D-Calif., a skilled and veteran Hill dealmaker.
And the Senate’s path to approval is steeper still, since the measure will need support from a 60-vote supermajority in order to stave off a filibuster from cap-and-trade opponents.
Boxer’s new conciliatory approach signals recognition that the simple math on climate change won’t permit divisive appeals to the liberal base, longtime observers of California politics say. “She cannot do it alone,” said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a political analyst and senior scholar at the University of Southern California. “Rightly or wrongly — and there may be some sexism in this — Boxer doesn’t always radiate the image of a team player. To be an iconic figure of the left and to be perceived as not being flexible enough to be a team player is not a good thing.”
The Fine Art of Teamwork
That was largely the lesson of Boxer’s last go-round on climate change in 2008. As Senate leaders prepared for the first time to bring a major climate change bill to a floor vote, Boxer’s committee marked up a broad bipartisan measure cosponsored by independent Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut and now-retired Virginia GOP Sen. John W. Warner. But just before it came to the floor, Boxer took over sponsorship of the bill, significantly rewriting many pieces of it — a move that angered Republicans and alienated some of the moderate Democrats who were wary of the proposal’s economic impact.
In the end, Republicans used procedural moves to torpedo the bill on the floor, killing the debate before it started. And that, in turn, sparked Boxer to lash out at the GOP. She was particularly scathing in her attacks on James M. Inhofe , the ranking Republican on the Senate Environment panel, who has said global warming is a hoax. “The senator from Oklahoma reminds me of the people who kept saying, ‘No, the Earth is flat’ and ‘No, cigarettes don’t cause cancer,’ ” Boxer said. And it was the same with the Republican Party, she charged. “The leadership of the Republican party and the vast majority of Republicans — save a handful — are fierce defenders of the status quo,” she said. “They say no.”
This time, Boxer clearly prefers dealmaking over partisan grenade-throwing. Indeed, for the past two months, she has been recruiting the members in her Tuesday group to serve as emissaries to particular blocs within the chamber to learn what a successful climate bill would have to include. In the House, for instance, a major stumbling block in building Democratic support was resistance from farm-state lawmakers, led by Agriculture Chairman Collin C. Peterson of Minnesota. So Boxer has asked Peterson’s home-state Senate colleague, Democrat Amy Klobuchar , who sits on Boxer’s panel, to reach out to Senate farm-staters for input on the bill. Boxer also has invited Senate Agriculture Chairman Tom Harkin , D-Iowa, to join the Tuesday group and help shape the bill.
She needs to maintain this approach, say longtime observers of the climate debate. Getting to yes in the Senate does not involve a partisan push from the left — the typical Boxer style — but rather closely coordinated outreach to 15 to 20 moderate Democrats, who all have concerns about the measure in its current House form.
Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry , who has worked with Boxer in her Tuesday group to flesh out effective points of compromise, is confident that she can control her inner scold. “This year is different,” said Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “She understands that we have to build consensus here. We’re trying to build as broad a coalition as possible. She’s legislating. We’re a team.”
Senior Partners
Of course, there are other Democratic leaders on climate change who are monitoring Boxer’s progress closely. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada has been holding meetings with the five other committee chairmen with jurisdiction over pieces of the bill — Harkin; Kerry; Finance Chairman Max Baucus of Montana; Commerce, Science and Transportation Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia; and Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico — to ensure that they will weigh in on the bill by Sept. 18, the date Reid has targeted to bring it to the floor. That means either a brisk series of markups or, more likely, working out deals with Boxer on provisions and changes they’ll need to see in the final bill.
Reid has made clear that moving a climate bill is a top priority for him, as well. “I’m a lot closer to Barbara than people think,” when it comes to advocating action on climate change, Reid said.
And then there’s Obama, who enjoys cordial relations with many of the Midwestern, coal-state and farm-state Democrats that Boxer needs to woo. The White House staff has been closely involved in building the Senate strategy. Senior adviser David Axelrod has met with Boxer’s Tuesday group, and other aides are attending meetings with the same pivotal Democratic moderates.
All this coordinated outreach is essential, backers of cap and trade say, to clearing the 60-vote hurdle. They see the coming push for Senate passage as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. And like Boxer, they readily concede that dealmaking trumps derision of the bill’s opponents.
“Last year it was an exhibition game,” said Daniel J. Weiss, a climate change analyst with the Center for American Progress, referring to Boxer’s 2008 performance. “Because of that, this broader bridge-building wasn’t as essential.” But now, he says, the times call for a more measured and diplomatic Barbara Boxer — and that’s exactly what the stakeholders are seeing so far.
“I think what she’s doing by having different senators educate other senators is very important,” Weiss said. It’s going to take a lot of work to build consensus. It’s a huge undertaking, and she’s going about it the right way.”
Comments
I understand the revolutionary Smart Grid Technology began to gain ground from all around the world, hopefully it will lead the U.S. to a greater exporter.
Rick Boucher is the wrong congressman to be talking to concerning climate. I live in Wise County, Virginia where people's homes are virtually and literally turning into a clean coal mountaintop removal mine site. See for yourself the progress and prosperity of the likes of Boucher, Kaine and The Wise County Virginia Board of Supervisors. http://www.wisecountyissues.com/?p=138 We are being bombed, blasted and bulldozed right into 3rd world America !
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