Democrats swap favors in bid to revive cap and trade
By: Susan Ferrechio
Chief Congressional Correspondent
June 26, 2009
With Democrats falling short of the 218 votes needed to pass a sweeping global warming bill this week, President Barack Obama was trying to persuade more than a dozen Democratic members to either change their planned “no” votes or get off the fence and back the legislation.
Whether the president was successful will be known Friday, when the House plans to vote on the historic measure. The bill would charge energy companies fees for credits to produce carbon dioxide. The companies could then resell the fees at a profit to other polluters.
The bill also would require power companies to use wind, solar and other renewable sources in an effort to reduce the emissions that many believe cause global warming.
“Right now we intend to bring it up,” Pelosi said, but when asked whether there were enough votes for it to pass, she answered, “You never know until you take the vote, but we are making progress.”
Democrats in Congress and the White House spent Thursday working on pockets of opposition from Democrats whose districts would be the most negatively affected by the bill, particularly those from the South and Midwest that rely on coal-fired power plants or rely on manufacturing.
More than a dozen Democratic members of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition were not ready to back the bill as of Thursday, many of them concerned with the rising utility prices that would result.
“The most important thing is what impact it is going to have on our constituents in their daily lives,” said Rep. Allen Boyd, D-Fla., who is co-chairman of the Blue Dogs and undecided on the bill.
Boyd said he has fielded calls from White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. “He wants it done,” Boyd said.
Democrats have cut numerous deals to get them as close as they are now, the most recent concessions made to win over members of the House Committee on Agriculture, whose chairman, Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., agreed to back the bill only after negotiators agreed to put in place provisions favorable to farmers and those growing corn for the production of ethanol.
Even with those changes, Boyd said, “I’m not sure it helped as much as everyone thought it would.”
But the bill has come closer to passage than most expected even a week ago, when Peterson was leading more than 40 Democrats in opposition to the bill.
That number has been whittled down considerably, said Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., “because of the tenacity of the speaker and the commitment of the president.”
Pelosi’s willingness to pass the bill has won her praise from centrist Democrats like DeGette, but it has cost her on the left.
Not only are some environmental groups now attacking the latest incarnation of the bill, House members like Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, say the bill is now too soft on polluters and are threatening to vote against the bill.
