In addition to brewing fights over offshore drilling revenues and a host of other issues, the conflict over whether or not federal climate legislation should pre-empt the Clean Air Act continues to heat up. As it stands, the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. A variety of Senators, ranging from Rockefeller on the Democratic side, to Murkowski (R – Big Oil) on the Republican side, initiated unsuccessful efforts earlier this year to take this authority away.

As part of the grand compromise being crafted by Senators Kerry, Graham and Lieberman, rumors have been circulating that this authority will be taken away, effectively weakening the strongest environmental law on the books. As recently as earlier this week Senator Graham indicated that the bill would include such a provision.

Several Senators, including 10 industrial-state Democrats as well as Voinovich (R-OH) have indicated that taking this step to weaken the Clean Air Act is necessary for them to support the bill. These Senators are at odds with most environmentalists, who maintain that EPA authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, while not a perfect tool, should be maintained as a backstop regardless. Both the Sierra Club and 1Sky have made it clear that they will oppose any climate legislation that prevents the EPA from using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

This is the context for the latest grassroots action campaign initiated by CREDO. Seeking clarity on how Senator Kerry plans to deal with this disagreement, CREDO has generated over 700 phone calls to the Senator, asking where he stands. Here is the relevant part of the script callers are using:

The Clean Air Act should not be compromised, rolled back or used as a bargaining chip as part of any deal to bring energy or climate change legislation to the floor of the Senate. Sen. Kerry has long been an environmental champion but he is putting his legacy at risk.

Will Senator Kerry protect the Clean Air Act authority and fight any effort to roll back the Clean Air Act in congress?

CREDO then asked activists who called to let them know how Senator Kerry’s staff responded. CREDO has provided EnviroKnow with a sampling of how activists reported staff responses to this question. Their responses largely indicated that Senator Kerry will not be compromising the Clean Air Act in order to reach a deal on climate legislation. Here are some highlights:

Staffer says there is "no truth to the rumor" that Kerry is poised to compromise.Asked if Senator Kerry supported the clean air act. Person replied, "He’s doing just that" and hung up.

Claims Sen Kerry is trying to strengthen, not weaken, the Clean Air Act.

His aide said "Sen. Kerry wouldn’t do that!" When I said I didn’t want him to use the CAA as a bargaining chip…

I just spoke to one of Senator Kerry’s aides who flatly denied that Sen. Kerry is trying to compromise the Clean Air Act, indeed, he say the senator is trying to strengthen it.

Man who answered says we’re jumping the gun. Says bill has not been released yet and won’t be until Monday. Says Kerry would never do anything to weaken the Clean Air Act.

Person answering phone claims he will not compromise Clean Air Act.

Staffer said Kerry is a big supporter of the environment and he will absolutely not allow the Clean Air Act to be weakened!

Strong statement Kerry will not under any circumstances consider any suggestion to weaken the Clean Air Act or to limit the EPA’s powers under it.

It seems pretty unequivocal: Senator Kerry is not willing to compromise the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. It should be interesting to see how other Senators react to this when the draft language is released on Monday.

In new polling focused primarily on healthcare, WaPo-ABC asked the following question:

Which political party, the (Democrats) or the (Republicans), do you trust to do a better job handling (ITEM)?

Here are the results:

It looks like despite the tea parties, the stimulus, the media’s obsession with process and the so-called ‘government takeover of health care,’ Democrats are still more trusted than Republicans on seven of eight top issues.

Of particular interest, Democrats hold the widest trust advantage (17%) on energy policy, followed by health care (13%), Afghanistan (10%) and the economy (8%). This finding echoes the results of recent Pew polling, which found that clean energy and mass transit investments are far more popular among the American public than nuclear investments and expanded offshore drilling. All of this strikes me as a pretty strong indictment of the Republican approach to energy policy, given the miles of separation between the parties on the issue. While Democrats support investing in clean energy technologies and implementing a strategy to reduce global warming pollution, most Republicans oppose such a strategy and are increasingly confused about the science. At the same time, beltway prognosticators continue celebrating the death of comprehensive climate legislation, despite its consistent popularity.

In light of the huge trust and polling advantage Democrats hold on the issue, you would expect them to forge ahead on their popular policy proposals despite Republican opposition. But that is not how things have played out over the past six months. In November, Democrats moved a bill through the Environment and Public Works Committee despite unprecedented obstructionism and unanimous Republican opposition. By the time the bill was passed through committee though, Democrats had already decided to scrap that bill, opting instead to place their hopes in a tri-partisan approach led by Senators Kerry (D), Graham (R) and Lieberman (I).

What followed has amounted to a months-long campaign of lowered expectations and concessions to industry. Senator Graham has taken every opportunity possible to downplay a comprehensive approach and emphasize how far from previous Democratic proposals the forthcoming legislation would be. In February, President Obama played up pro-polluter ideas favored by Republicans in his State of the Union address. Rather than negotiating with Republican Senators, Senators Kerry, Graham and Lieberman actually resorted to working with climate change denying industry groups to craft legislation that might attract 60 votes.

The idea behind all of this movement toward a more Republican friendly (read: less effective) approach to addressing climate/energy policy is that if the bill is polluter-friendly enough, it may be able to attract 60 votes. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be working. Senator Collins, who is widely considered one of the more ‘gettable’ Republicans on the issue, continues suggesting Senator Kerry’s efforts be bypassed. And Senator Graham, when he isn’t using disingenuous process complaints to downplay expectations, made it clear on Sunday that he has no interest in being the 60th vote for a climate bill. As of this writing, no Republicans other than Graham have expressed serious support for the effort.

Meanwhile, all of these efforts to attract industry and Republican support are weakening enthusiasm for the effort on the left. Tellingly, when President Obama made the case for increased investments in nuclear power and expanded offshore drilling, Move On found it to be the least popular part of his SOTU, among their liberal membership.

Over the past 10 days, a variety environmentalist groups and liberal Senators have begun to publicly criticize the yet-to-be-released legislation as it takes shape. Here are a few examples:

• 10 coastal state Senators sent a letter last week to Senators Kerry, Graham and Lieberman, warning that they can not support legislation that greatly expands offshore oil and gas drilling.
• Environmental group 1Sky is imploring Senators Kerry and Reid: Don’t let big polluters rewrite the Clean Air Act.
• Senator Sanders sent a letter Friday to Senator Kerry, citing serious concerns about a variety of polluter-friendly provisions.
• Erich Pica, President of environmental group Friends of the Earth, told Greenwire, "We’re worried they’re the first ones in the room to get a briefing."
• Mike Brune, the new Executive Director of mainstream environmental group the Sierra Club, expressed a variety of concerns last week: "We will go to the mat for defending Clean Air Act authority. We are also concerned about offshore oil drilling, and we will not be able to accept the dramatic giveaway that offshore oil drilling represents."

Senator Lieberman last week brushed off concerns that the bill may lose support from the left, saying "In the end this will be one of those cases where everybody will be a little unhappy." The groups and Senators listed above seem more than a little unhappy to me.

Senators Kerry, Graham and Lieberman would be wise to keep an eye on their left flank. Weakening the legislation in an attempt to gain industry/republican support will cost them the support of some liberal Senators and environmental groups. And it may do so without even winning them the support of an equal number of conservative Senators. Worse yet, given the new polling showing that Democrats are more trusted than Republicans on energy policy, further concessions to Republicans would likely weaken support for the bill among the American public. Democrats should be emboldened by this polling data, and should take it as a sign that crafting polluter-friendly policies to try to gain the support of Republicans is a losing strategy, both in terms of policy and politics.

Originally published at EnviroKnow.

The hits keep coming for the embattled United States Chamber of Commerce. On Saturday, I wrote about the Chamber’s overwhelming hypocrisy on climate legislation:

While the Chamber claims it “continues to support Federal climate legislation”, it is actually continuing its 17-year old campaign against it. Representative Ed Markey on Thursday issued a point-by-point explanation of how his legislation, which the House passed in June, meets all of the Chamber’s criteria for successful legislation. Energy Secretary Chu even took a few shots on Thursday as well, but the ever-defiant chamber remains unrepentant.

This follows an unprecedented string of public relations disasters that have left the Chamber grasping for straws.

Pete Altman at NRDC is keeping track of the fallout over the last few weeks regarding the Chamber’s climate change extremism:

Quit US Chamber over climate: Apple, Exelon, PNM Resources, PG&E, PSEG, Levi Strauss & Co.

Quit US Chamber Board over climate: Nike.

Say Chamber doesn’t represent their views on climate: Johnson&Johnson, General Electric, San Jose Chamber of Commerce, Alcoa, Duke, Entergy, Microsoft.

It is starting to look like the only actor in the debate over clean energy legislation less credible than the Chamber of Commerce is the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, which is currently facing investigations for sending 14 fraudulent letters opposing the bill to members of Congress.

In the last few weeks a diverse group of activist, NGO and labor campaigns have launched to escalate the pressure on the Chamber and its member companies. Here is a brief summary of current efforts:

The Natural Resources Defense Council has been leading the fight. In addition to Pete Altman’s prolific coverage of the story as it develops, they have launched a website — whodoesthechamberrepresent.org — to ask the question: “Who Does the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Really Represent?” Read the rest of this entry →