Kerry says that he thinks the climate control bill has a shot to pass - countering the

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/60869-kerry-convinced-climate-bill-has-a-shot-in-the-senate

(From the end of the article, it seems Kerry was more optimistic, but the article repeats what was likely the opinion of the MSNBC person that it would have a steep climb.

about this http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=07896C4D-18FE-70B2-A8E75E0F613DECEF

but CSPAN is covering it - it starts about 14 minutes in after Gibbs' press conference.
http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&tID=5&src=atom&atom=todays_events.xml&products_id=289226-1

As an example http://rockefeller.senate.gov/press/record.cfm?id=318456& I guess Rockefeller's status as the new hero of the left will be short lived after all :-).

S.1733
Title: A bill to create clean energy jobs, promote energy independence, reduce global warming pollution, and transition to a clean energy economy.
Sponsor: Sen Kerry, John F. (introduced 9/30/2009) Cosponsors (1)
Latest Major Action: 9/30/2009 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. COSPONSORS(1), ALPHABETICAL : (Sort: by date)


Sen Boxer, Barbara - 9/30/2009

I received this e-mail today,

I am copying it all because I can not find a clean link for this e-mail and request.



Yesterday, Barbara Boxer and I introduced legislation in the Senate to finally take charge of our energy future, build clean energy jobs, cap carbon pollution, and deal with the huge threat of climate change. President Obama joined us in backing our fight and calling for big changes - now.

And - predictably - before the ink was even dry on our bill, the other side announced a news conference to distort the facts, saying the legislation does one thing when it does the exact opposite - the usual game of mislead and confuse. From phony facts and figures to the press releases of big oil special interests, the usual suspects were out in force.

Already, there's even a group backed by big oil money that's running ads saying we need MORE carbon pollution, that more carbon is good for us! That's like tobacco companies trying to market cigarettes in the health food store.

We've seen this movie before. And we're not going to let them get away with it. Within minutes, we pounded back with the facts, fighting back with the truth.

But I've been in this game long enough - I've seen this movie before - that I know the truth isn't enough. The truth needs help to fight back.

That's why we're relaunching TruthFightsBack.com, focusing on the truth about carbon pollution, the truth about clean energy, the truth about the reforms we all need. And that's why I'm asking you to help us.

Please contribute what you can to help the truth fight back.

This stakes are huge. The price of doing nothing is too high, while the rewards of real reform are too great, to allow the status quo to defeat reform. We've seen the last few months how hard some people try to block progress, how tough the fight can be to get real reform. The status quo does not give up the fight easily.


But neither do we. We need to make sure that when 10 people show up at a town hall with misleading facts, 20 show up with the truth. When a newspaper gets 5 letters to the editor spewing the same rightwing lie, we need 15 telling the truth. We need to spread the truth through email, on Facebook, on blogs - we need to raise the volume of the truth to drown out the shouting of lies.

We can't do it without your help. Please follow this link to give what you can so that we can build the tools you need to take the fight into your own hands.

LINK

Because when we work together and we get tough, the truth will win. And we will get the clean, American energy economy we all need for a safer, cleaner, and more prosperous world.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

John Kerry

Could you replace LINK with the link and post it in GD-P?

on the Chamber of Commerce position. It seems telling that there has been a recent avalanche of companies leaving it citing its poor climate change position. (If so, it is having at least one effect - the Chamber of Commerce is back pedaling and whining they never questioned climate change - http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/09/29/chamber-questions-climate-science/ )

Yet, in 2003, they had no similar problem with McCain and Lieberman, neither of whom were the chair or ranking member of the committee - or with Warner and Lieberman more recently. Boxer said years ago that Kerry was the go to guy on climate change, so why not? (It is also weird that they bring in his Presidential run as a negative - yet they never do that for McCain or (even more so) for HRC)

http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2009/10/02/02climatewire-kerry-gives-dems-chance-to-frame-climate-deb-85649.html

Grist has a long list of reactions to the bill:

http://www.grist.org/Senate-climate-bill-reactions

It seems it makes some real progress but leaves a lot to be desired for hard-core environmentalists. That might be exactly what it has to be in order to stand a chance.

That said, I am worried that even if it survives committee mark-up relatively unscathed, it will be even more watered down on the Senate floor, and turn out to be "health care reform redux". But JK has been doing this Senate thing for awhile so I'm hopeful a fairly decent bill will get through.

btw the bill number is S.1733 for anyone who wants to look it up on thomas.

The other thing to keep in mind is what Kerry said on the acid rain legislation. It ended up improving things much faster and for less money than was thought possible even by the people in favor of it. Many hard core environmentalists ignore that setting a price on carbon that is designed to become higher over time creates a demand for technologies that will do this as well and as cheaply as possible. Between that and direct incentives to research, this will accelerate the move to energy efficiency and pollution reduction that has already started.