Bingaman: ‘Difficult to see’ 60 votes for climate change bill

 

By Ben Geman - 06/27/10 11:29 AM ET

 

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) said it is unlikely the Senate can pass legislation that imposes limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

The senior Democrat offered the grim political prognosis in an interview that aired Sunday on “Platts Energy Week.”
“If you actually have a bill that puts in place a cap-and-trade system or a limit on greenhouse gases and a mandatory reduction in greenhouse gases, I think it is difficult to see where we get the 60 votes to pass that legislation,” he said.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) plans to bring a broad energy package to the bill next month.

Environmentalists and lawmakers backing greenhouse gas curbs – including Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) – are fighting to keep some form of carbon limits in the mix, but face a difficult climb.

Bingaman is seeking action on an energy bill his committee approved with several GOP votes a year ago. It contains a national renewable electricity mandate for utilities, wider federal support for low-carbon energy projects and a suite of efficiency measures, but does not impose limits on greenhouse gas emissions.
 

Bingaman has said he would support combining the bill with climate legislation if there's enough support.

Also, his committee will mark up offshore drilling safety legislation on Wednesday that Bingaman sponsored with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the panel’s top Republican. The bill revamps Interior Department oversight of offshore oil-and-gas drilling and requires a suite of new safety precautions.

The bill is one of several legislative responses to the ongoing BP oil spill.

One provision would prevent oil companies from bidding on new offshore leases if Interior finds that they are not meeting safety, environmental and due diligence requirements on their other leases. Companies responsible for oil spills would also be barred from seeking new leases if they have failed to pay for cleanup costs and damages.

Bingaman said in the interview that federal officials need to think carefully before providing new leases or contracts to BP.

“My impression would be that they should be subject to a very high degree of scrutiny when they want to enter into new drilling activities,” he said. “There has been enough of a pattern of negligent activity involved with BP that the government needs to have a heightened sense of concern until that company can fix its own corporate management system and get better control of what they are doing.”

The Gulf of Mexico oil spill follows a fatal 2005 explosion at BP’s Texas City refinery and a 2006 oil spill from a pipeline at the company’s Prudhoe Bay field in Alaska.

The April 20 explosion at the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 workers and touched off what has become the largest oil spill in U.S. history.

 

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