The Dems' Climate Change Fail

Much of the blame for failing to pass comprehensive climate and energy legislation properly rests with a risk-averse President and Majority Leader.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's recent announcement that the Senate will not take up a comprehensive energy and climate bill this year is the inevitable result of Reid and President Obama failing to lead on the issue and squandering one opportunity after another.

In what might be described as the “audacity of nope,” the White House bristled at criticism that the president had not been engaged enough in the effort and lashed out at the environmental community. An administration official complained that environmental groups “spent like $100 million and weren’t able to get a single Republican convert on the bill.”

What bill would that be? The sad reality is that neither the President nor the Majority Leader ever got behind any specific approach or piece of legislation.

The White House is lamely blaming lobbyists for not doing the president’s job of specifying what he wants and securing votes to drive his proposal to passage. Ronald Reagan would shake his head.

For his part, Reid focused his ire on Republicans. In a statement, he claimed to want a comprehensive bill but said, “Unfortunately, at this time not one Republican wants to join us in achieving this goal.”

Reid should review his office’s news clippings.

In April, as Senators John Kerry (D-MA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) were about to unveil their bi-partisan bill, Reid blindsided the trio by suggesting that he wanted to put climate on hold and move immigration reform to the top of the agenda.

Graham, who was also putting together an immigration reform bill for next year with Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), saw that Reid and the White House were playing political games and withdrew from the climate effort.

Another Republican, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, is co-sponsor of a bipartisan cap-and-dividend climate bill with Maria Cantwell (D-WA).

Neither of these bills had clear support from President Obama and Senator Reid.  Neither Obama nor Reid has said much of anything about the Collins-Cantwell bill, the only bipartisan bill in the hopper.

Instead of getting behind a specific bill, Obama and Reid spoke in generalities and stood on the sideline with their fingers in the air trying to gauge which way the wind was blowing. Reid would tell bill sponsors that he would allow a vote on their proposal only if they brought him 60 votes.

What kind of leadership is that?

They have also been woefully indecisive about whether to even tackle the climate issue, letting everything from healthcare to financial reform leap ahead of it on the schedule.

All of this prevented the Democrat caucus from being unified on an energy and climate strategy. Instead of rallying around the President to solve big national and global problems, Democrats in the Senate were undisciplined in both purpose and message.

While it is certainly true that most Republicans remain opposed to putting a price on carbon pollution, the assertion that there are no Republicans willing to work constructively to pass a climate bill is not.

Much of the blame for failing to pass comprehensive climate and energy legislation properly rests with a risk-averse President and Majority Leader whose feckless “leadership” never gave it a chance.