Senators Barbara Boxer and John Kerry are delaying, again, the introduction in the Senate of the American Clean Energy & Security Act. The official statement, via Reuters:
U.S. Senate Democrats on Monday said they will delay introducing a climate change bill for a few weeks and set a goal of unveiling legislation "later in September."
They (Boxer and Kerry) had intended to introduce the bill next week when the Senate returns from a monthlong recess. The delay, they said, is related to the Senate's focus on healthcare legislation, as well as the death of Senator Edward Kennedy and hip surgery Kerry had this month.
Is the delay good or bad for the legislation's chances?
ACES is the other half of President Obama's domestic policy agenda (health care being the first). The House passed its version of ACES, known colloquially as Waxman-Markey and HR 2454, in June. Boxer originally planned to introduce the bill in early July, but shelved it once to focus on health care reform. Then the rumor mill had the bill being introduced shortly after Congress returns to work on September 8. Now it's officially impossible to hope for a bill before November.
The answer depends on who you ask. Joe Romm at Climate Progress sees it as positive in light of an elaborate dance (or, possibly, strip poker game) between the United States and China:
Obama needs some sort of serious announcement from China that it is going sharply change its business as usual emissions path. The good news is that the Administration has been pursuing that aggressively.... Now I’m told by a non-government source who spends a lot of time talking to the Chinese about climate and clean energy that China is prepared to make such an announcement, but probably not until Obama visits the country after the APEC meeting in mid-November. If this is true, then administration and Senate leaders should delayed a final Senate vote until after that.
But most important of all is that team Obama and the Senate leadership learn from the health care reform morass/debacle and get in front of the messaging and framing of the climate bill. The climate bill is, as noted above, actually easier from a political perspective than health care reform — in part because our side has a clear, winning positive message.
Representative Jay Inslee sees it as negative. At NN09, he told us that Obama's only chance to pass transformative legislation is this year: next year Congress will be focusing on midterm elections, and after that they'll all be in 2012 campaign mode.
The more the bill is delayed, the more the Astroturfing lobbyists organize. They've forged letters from grassroots groups, used stock photos instead of real "FACES" of coal, and barred real Americans waving American flags from "Energy Citizen" rallies. Worse yet, they've conned certain gullible members of the mainstream Washington media into believing their posts. On the other hand, the more the Astroturfers organize, the more it becomes obvious that they are, in fact, con artists.
And the more time it gives us to organize in support of the bill.
Of course, if the planet could speak, it would be begging for action: not now, but yesterday.