The Kerry-Lieberman - compromise - Bill

The American Power Act, unveiled on Wednesday by Senators Kerry and Lieberman, outspokenly aims at being a compromise bill. When the Democratic effort to take up the Kerry-Boxer Senate legislation (also known as CEJAPA) stalled after the bill passed out of committee, the "tri-partisan" group of Senators John Kerry (D), Lindsey Graham (R), and Joe Lieberman (I) set out to write a comprehensive bill they believed could secure 60 votes on the Senate floor and achieve the three administration’s main goals: green jobs, green technology and green exports.

While the bill hasn’t received many comments yet (many senators and companies like the American Petroleum Institute said they are withholding their judgement until they study the proposal in depth) it is, however, possible to outline some main difficulties its approval will encounter.
To begin with, the tri-partisan group is now bipartisan. Senator Graham withdrew, since he doesn’t believe the legislation has a chance to pass both because of the Senate Democrats’ desire to pass immigration reform this year and because of the Mexican Gulf spill and subsequent veto power given to states by the APA, which has limited the encouragement the initial bill wanted to give to offshore oil drilling. Immediately after the unveiling, Senate Minority Leader M. McConnell said that he and other Republicans will fight the legislation because “whatever its intentions, this bill is little more than a job-killing national energy tax”, referring to the caps on GHG emissions, initially foreseen only for the power sector. While Lieberman said that there’s more business support for this bill than for any other Democratic initiative (and BP and Conoco-Philips have indicated their support), it still needs to be proved. Meanwhile, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce - an outspoken opponent of every previous legislative effort to address global warming with mandatory caps on emissions - strongly expressed its opposition to this new effort. Outlining which formula will be used when giving credits to the power companies also threatens to divide Senate Democrats along regional lines.
Like every Senate proposal, APA needs to be approved first by the Senate, then by Congress, then again by the Senate, after which the President’s signature would be required. Timing could not be predicted - as for any other bill - but the President called on the Senate to move ahead so that a final bill could be enacted this year. It would be a tough task, and Senate Majority Leader H. M. Reid is playing for time. He clearly stated that he would probably not be able to bring the legislation to the floor this year without more help from Republicans. Reactions following the unveiling will be critical in Reid’s decision about whether to bring the proposal to the floor this spring or summer. For the time being, what seems to be sure is that Reid is planning to huddle with the six major committee leaders with jurisdiction on the issue after Memorial Day break (May 31st).