What does CNN political commentator and former presidential advisor David Gergen know that nobody else does about reconciliation? Or does he not actually know what he's talking about?
It's time for a breakdown of this year's NCSE conference in Washington DC!
This weekend concludes "Building a New Green Economy", this year's conference of the National Council of Science and the Environment -- ironically held in the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center. The NCSE conference always boasts a roster of impressive speakers, and this year's didn't disappoint. The keynotes were delivered by Charles Holliday, Chairman and CEO Emeritus of DuPont; William Spriggs, Assistant Secretary of the US Department of Labor; and Lisa Jackson, US EPA administrator. Van Jones was on a panel. So was congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ). On and on, it was packed with top notch speakers and panelists.
I was there to participate on a breakout group panel on growing a green auto industry, speaking about the work of my company (Celadon Applications) in making software for electric vehicles to accurately determine remaining range and locate charging stations. The purpose of the breakout groups was to make recommendations to be passed to governmental agencies. I was joined by marketing expert Joan Michelson, Edmunds editor John O'Dell, WaPo automotive journalist Warren Brown, RMI prinicipal Hiroko Kawai, and NRC Senior Program Officer Alan Crane. The latter was particularly interesting, as he was one of the authors of the recent... ahem... controversial report on plug-in hybrid vehicles. He and I had a few cordial fireworks over that one. ;)
I follow energy-related topics closely, and was an active participant in the discussions, but even I found new things to learn in the panels. For example, I was familiar with our use of CO2 injection in the Weyburn oil field, capped from the Great Plains Synfuels Plant. But I didn't know that we have, for a long time, been tapping natural underground sources of CO2 from New Mexico and injecting them into oil fields in West Texas. That's right -- carbon de-sequestration combined with carbon sequestration!
Now here's where it gets interesting. Given my habit of actively taking part in any discussion I could, when CNN's David Gergen moderated a panel, I couldn't resist. I caught ahold of him briefly after the panel and asked the biggest question on my mind.
Q: Everyone here has been talking about how much of a disaster it is that we can't get anything through the Senate. So why are we not using budget reconciliation to pass things like the public option and cap and trade? I mean, you only need 51 votes.
A: You can't. There are various procedural reasons.
Q: But... yes you can. Like cap and trade -- it's a tax. It's directly under...
A. No, you can't. That's not how the rules work.
He then left to move onto the next person who wanted to speak with him.
This left me scratching my head. I mean, what? We've been talking about passing a public option through reconciliation here for ages. And cap & trade? You don't get much more of a clear-cut reconciliation option than that.
In another session, I turned to Allyson Anderson, a Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources staffer, for the answer. She seemed surprised that anyone in the audience had even heard of reconciliation. She initially responded that yes, they can, but that they can't get it through committee. I pointed out that the Republicans seemed to have no trouble pushing through Medicare Part D by reconciliation. Again seeming surprised that someone in the audience knew about this, she agreed, and then mentioned that it's all about bipartisanship. According to her, the administration and many of the Democrats in the senate truly believe in bipartisanship, and they're afraid to hurt it by using reconciliation.
I didn't have a chance to tell her what I was really thinking -- that the public only cares about bipartisanship when they like the policies that come out of it.
After many more interesting panels and talks, the final panel came up. Sure, I loved hearing from the CEO of Stonyfield Farms about how they feed flax seed to their cattle to raise the omega-3 content of the yogurt and reduce cattle methane emissions. But I missed a chance to speak with him in order to instead speak to Damon Silvers, Director of Policy and Special Counsel for the AFL-CIO. I posed the same reconcilation question to him. His response?
"We are pushing for reconcilation on the public option."
And for cap and trade?
"We haven't decided yet."
So there you go. A fascinating conference, top notch speakers, and David Gergen in absolute disbelief that you can use reconciliation to pass a public option or cap and trade.