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Looking back at ACES and looking ahead to the Senate

Jason Kowalski — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 08:38:03 -0400

1Sky is relieved by the House of Representatives' passing of the American Clean Energy and Security Act in a close 219-212 vote. However, a great deal of work remains to be done in the Senate to pass the strongest climate legislation possible, and grassroots voices will have to be louder than ever in the coming months to demand it.

Here is our analysis of the events around the House vote and what we can initially expect from the Senate. Thanks to 1Sky's Rhiya Trivedi for her work with this report.

In the days preceding the vote, key Democratic representatives and members of President Obama's Cabinet worked hard off the floor to whip up last minute votes, while strong grassroots pressure helped log thousands of calls and faxes to Congress from across the country, so many that the congressional switchboard was shut down.

1. Lead Up to the Vote
Deal struck with Agriculture Committee: After days of backdoor negotiations between House Speaker Pelosi (D-CA), Agriculture Chairman Peterson (D-MN) and Energy and Commerce Chairman Waxman (D-CA), a compromise was finally reached.

• Authority over the approval and issuance of agricultural offsets was given to the Department of Agriculture
• EPA has been banned from regulating "indirect land use emissions" from the domestic production of biofuels
• The "renewable biomass" definitions was made significantly broader, with stripped down language and fewer restrictions on qualifying sources

The compromise moved several key "Ag" Committee members and representatives from farm states to support the bill and ultimately, help bring about a victory on the floor.

Environmentalists have expressed concerns over the agreement however, citing the USDA's history of approving offsets for projects that would have normally occurred and the potential for unsustainable biomass practices to continue under the new bill. Read Grist's take on the deal.

Amendments
More than 220 amendments were submitted to the Rules Committee, which were filtered into a Manager's Amendment and released early Friday morning.

• The Manager's Amendment included significant quantities of new funding to increase renewable energy deployment and ease worker and industry transition, in addition to strengthening the presence of natural resource conservation, minorities and marginalized groups in the bill.
• Weakened components included pieces already decided upon in the Agriculture Committee compromise: provisions to solidify free allowances for merchant coal, and adding new language that would spur inquiry into "thorium based fuel reactors" (a form of nuclear energy generation)
• Read 1Sky's draft analysis of the Manager's Amendment
• Grist's breakdown of included amendments

Getting the Votes
Off the floor, phone calls were being made, and private meetings held to round up key swing votes by:

• Speaker Pelosi's team of Democratic whips including Democratic Leadership like Rep Van Hollen (D-MD), and Energy and Commerce members like Reps Rush (D-IL), Inslee (D-WA), Boucher (D-VA), Waxman and Markey (D-MA)
• Energy Secretary Stephen Chu, Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change Carol Browner, Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel, and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar
• President Obama and Former Vice President Al Gore on the bill

Responding to outreach from grassroots groups, constituents bombarded their congressional offices with calls and faxes, demanding that the strongest bill possible be passed:

• Green For All on grassroots pressure strengthening equity in the Manager's amendment
• 1Sky's Gillian Caldwell recounts growth in the grassroots movement around ACES
• In an unprecedented statement, the League of Conservation Voters vowed to withhold their valuable endorsements from any representative who voted in opposition to ACES

2. Floor Debate and Vote

Debate
For six hours on that Friday afternoon, representatives debated not only the various costs and benefits of the bill, but the validity of climate change and the need for American leadership on climate.

• Progressive Media USA's one minute video summary
• House Majority Leader Hoyer's (D-MD) address
• Rep. Broun (R-GA) receives a standing ovation for calling climate change a "hoax"
• Minority Leader Boehner (R-OH) filibusters the vote for more than an hour by reading portions of the Manager's Amendment
• Rep. Bachmann (R-MN) called the difference between the ACES bill and the GOP energy bill a choice between "liberty and tyranny"

Vote
Final roll call: 219 votes for, 211 against:

• 44 Democrats voted against the bill
• 8 Republicans voted yes (8 more than the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act received)
• New York Times map of vote breakdown
• National Journal map

What passage means

• An international agreement (Former Vice President Al Gore)
• The bigger picture (Joe Romm)

3. ACES in the Senate
The House passage could not have been achieved without GOP votes. The significant number of Democrats voting against ACES only serves to highlight the challenges the bill may face in the Senate, and the need for continued bipartisan support.

• White House Senior Advisor David Axelrod says Senate will pass energy bill, despite not having 60 votes at the present

• According to E&E news, there are currently 45 "yes" or "probably yes" votes (including Republican Sens. Snowe and Collins of Maine), with 23 fence sitters. More bipartisan support is likely to come with greater compromise outside of the cap-and-trade portion of the bill. GOP support may be found in Sens. Michael Crapo (R-ID), Brownback (R-KS) and Voinovich (R-OH)

• Committees with jurisdiction over the bill (Environment and Public Works, Agriculture, Commerce, Energy and Natural Resources, Finance and Foreign Relations) have been given a Sept. 18 deadline by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to produce their pieces of the bill.

• Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has said that she now aims to have her committee mark up climate legislation by the end of July (Greenwire).

• Energy and Natural Resources Committee passed a bill two weeks ago featuring provisions that would impose a 15% by 2020 RES (with up to 4% coming from efficiency), establish a wide range of efficiency standards, and boost green jobs training. Also included are liability protections for parties investing in carbon capture and sequestration projects, a significantly smaller offshore drilling buffer in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, protection for oil from the Canadian tar sands, and a nuclear energy title that would support reactors as viable, emissions-reducing technology.

• It is currently unclear as to what the calendar for the "American Clean Energy and Leadership Act of 2009" is in the weeks before a floor debate.

Most climate advocates, including 1Sky, are refusing to support the bill in its current form, and will seek floor improvements to increase renewable energy deployment and eliminate safeguards for fossil fuels. Read our letter to the Committee

4. Important New Reports
• New CBO Analysis on Household Costs from ACES, quotes $175 in annual costs for the average household

• EPA's ACES analysis, quotes $111 in annual costs for the average household.

Blog & News Round-Up: Climate bill in the Senate, G-8, & creative activism

Felicia Thrower — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:25:48 -0400

Climate legislation is getting a lot of press this week, what with the G-8 meeting, Greenpeace scaling national monuments, and activists in muscle suits on the Hill. Young activists from Avaaz Action Factory, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, and the Energy Action Coalition donned shirts with a line from a Daft Punk song meant to encourage senators to produce a climate bill that is “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger:”

Harder: oversight on coal plant
Better: Renewable Portfolio Standards and international adaptation methods
Faster: emissions reductions targets
Stronger: leadership from the Senate and a stronger bill

In their shirts and muscle suits the group did a ‘climate bill workout,’ and left 5 pound weights to encourage senators to “flex their legislative muscles” and “lose 40 percent of carbon emission fat.

Also worth mentioning, although I’m sure many of you already know, several Greenpeace activists were arrested for hanging a huge banner on Mount Rushmore:

Regarding the G-8 meeting, an agreement among the countries has not come about. The countries had agreed to commit to cutting global emissions 50% by 2050, but that fell through and no real commitment was made.

Leaders vowed “to identify a global goal for substantially reducing global emissions” by 2050, but did not say how these cuts would be made, or who would make them.

The lack of progress coming out of these meetings makes it that much more important that President Obama arrives in Copenhagen with a strong piece of legislation showing the United States’ commitment to global emissions reduction.

If the economy, jobs, polar bears, and/or the fate of environment itself haven’t been enough to convince some of the dangers of climate change, and therefore the need for strong legislation, Oxfam has released a new report detailing the effect of leaving climate change unchecked.

The consequences from the developed world’s green house gas emissions on poorer, less developed countries takes central focus in the report. Oxfam explains the links between climate change and things like health, employment, and conflict. For example, when farmers in China are unable to plant crops because of erratic weather patterns this affects the farmer’s health, the health of his or her family, any people who buy the crop, and so on. Without this source of income and food, people will have to move to find other resources, which will become scarce and in turn, lead to conflict.

Read this report and send it to your friends, especially those who have yet to get active in support of climate legislation (then send them to 1sky to take action, of course), I think it will re-ignite your fight-for-climate-legislation fire .

In the Senate there have been some changes where the climate bill is concerned (and really, where else would our concern be?). Politico reports:

Climate legislation is competing for time and attention with the health care reform, a task that has consumed both chambers this summer. And while the White House has said it wants a climate bill this year, it has put a lot more political capital into health care legislation.

This was made obvious by the move Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) made to push back the deadlines for committees. Says Politico:

[Senator Reid is] delaying the time frame for Senate movement on a climate bill. Yesterday he bumped his deadline for committee action on a bill back by 10 days to Sept. 28. By that date, he wants all six committees with jurisdiction to have concluded markup of their components of a climate plan. Reid said he pushed the date back to give legislators more time to work out differences over the bill.
Barbara Boxer (D-CA), chair of the Environment and Public Works committee, which is a major player in this bill, also moved her deadline for the committee to have a bill that is ready for voting.

We don’t have to rush it through,” Boxer told reporters (Sub req’d). “We’ll do it as soon as we get back [from recess], and we’ll have it at the desk when Harry wants it, when the leader wants it.”

From Politico:

Asked whether the delay would be a major setback for the the bill, Boxer was dismissive. “Not a bit ... we’ll be in until Christmas, so I’m not worried about it,” she said.
There is, however, the looming deadline of international climate talks in Copenhagen in mid-December, by which time Congress needs to act if the U.S. is to demonstrate to world leaders that it is committed to emission reductions. Boxer would not guarantee that Congress would have a plan finalized by that time. “I want to take this as far as we can take it [before Copenhagen]. The more we do, the better,” Boxer said.

Let us not forget that the House has passed a bill, and it took political risk-taking from some representatives, who are now being targeted because of it. The Hill reports:

A coalition of labor, environmental and veterans groups is spending serious money to make sure Democrats who supported the cap-and-trade legislation have political cover.

Groups that back the bill, operating under what they call the Blue-Green Alliance, have begun running television advertisements in at least 25 districts thanking Democrats for their votes.

The groups declined to give a total figure for the money spent on the advertisements but called it a significant amount.

[Tom Perriello (D-Va.)] said: “We win this argument with the American people on national security, we win it on jobs, we win it on climate and science.”

Nicely put!

That's it for this week, if we missed anything let us know!

Half-empty or half-full? An economist's perspective on ACES

Luis Hestres — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 10:46:30 -0400

From guest blogger Kristen Sheeran, director of Economics for Equity and the Environment Network (E3), a nationwide network of more than 150 economists, developing new arguments for environmental protection with a social justice focus.

It is easy to be disappointed with the climate bill that the House passed. After all, the science couldn’t be more compelling about how low the caps need to be set, and the economics couldn’t be clearer about why 100% of the allowances in the cap-and-trade system should be auctioned. Yet, the bill falls short on these fronts and others.

It is often said that economists never agree on anything. Therefore, to find the wealth of peer-reviewed economics literature on RealClimateEconomics.org that supports an immediate and effective policy response to climate change is surprising. It speaks volumes to the urgency of the crisis and the just how compelling the economic case for mitigating climate change really is. Economics supports a climate bill that achieves the targets scientists recommend, auctions permits, and invests sufficiently in new technologies. Should we settle for less?

ACES, though disappointing, is still worth passing. First, it will give the Administration the credibility it needs to help broker a global climate agreement this December. Economists understand that the solution to a global public good problem ultimately requires the participation of all countries. Second, it provides adequate provisions to protect low-income families from the direct and indirect effects of higher energy costs.

Most importantly, it creates a price signal for carbon for the first time. A price signal for carbon – however weak initially - will begin correcting the underlying inefficiencies in our economy and direct capital towards new and existing clean technologies. What innovations will be unleashed from this critical first step we do not yet know. What is certain that these innovations can never materialize as long as the price of carbon remains zero.

Indeed, the most troubling part of the ACES legislation from an economist’s perspective is that it may undermine the very price signal it pioneers to create. ACES gives carbon allowances to utilities with provisions that the utilities share the savings with consumers through lower rates. But suppressing the price signal for electricity provides the wrong incentives, while putting more pressure on other energy providers and energy-intensive sectors to achieve the reductions required by the cap. Consumer rebates are a better alternative that can offset the costs for vulnerable households, while preserving the effectiveness of the price signal.

All in all, it matters not whether the glass is half-empty or half-full. Our country is thirsty for climate legislation. As an economist, I am willing to hold my nose and drink up.

LIVE VIDEO: Greenpeace hangs banner on Mt. Rushmore for bold climate action!

Luis Hestres — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:00:10 -0400

Three Greenpeace climbers have hung a banner on the face of Mount Rushmore to issue a challenge to President Obama: "America honors leaders, not politicians: Stop Global Warming.” Check out the live video!

Greenpeace is also taking action during the G8 Summit in L'Aquila, Italy. Go Greenpeace!

Guest blog: Brita Climate Ride creates the kind of heat we need

Luis Hestres — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 10:13:45 -0400

The following is a guest blog from Caeli Quinn, co-founder of the Brita Climate Ride. -- Luis

This year's 2nd annual Brita Climate Ride and "climate conference on wheels" will see 200 cyclists pedal 300 miles from New York City to the US Capitol in Washington DC to raise awareness of climate change and the need for action. The ride takes place from September 26 to 30, 2009, and benefits critical projects at three climate and bike-related organizations: Rails-To-Trails Conservancy, Focus the Nation, and Clean Air - Cool Planet. If you have wondered how to join the movement and starting fighting climate change this is an extraordinary way to make a difference and make your voice heard.

Climate Riders are renewable energy experts, green organizers, environmental leaders, and everyday citizens coming together on a beautiful 5-day bike ride to tackle global warming, and learn about solutions to the climate crisis and how to transition to a new energy future. At the end of the event in Washington DC, climate riders will meet with their congressional representatives to summon a new natural resource: the collective political will to actually affect change in our nation's capital.

This year, the ride will feature several notable expert climate speakers and leaders in the green movement, including:

Alison Gannett: world champion free skier, Patagonia Ambassador, founder of the Save our Snow Foundation, and star of Warren Miller ski films. Alison will be pedaling with the Climate Riders all the way to DC! In her free time, Alison converted the 1st Solar-powered SUV PHEV in the world to get 100+mpg. This amazing athlete and climate change warrior also leads ski expeditions to Pakistan, Bolivia, Bhutan and India to document global warming.

Josh Dorfman, a.k.a. the Lazy Environmentalist, who has a new show on Sundance, will also return for his second year, to show that the Lazy E can ride 300 miles without training. (We don't advise this for anyone but Josh!)

Friis Arne Petersen, Denmark's Ambassador to the US, will be joining the ride on Night 4, right before the riders begin their journey to the US Capitol. Mr. Petersen will brief the group on the upcoming COP15 United Nations Climate Conference, which will be the next phase of the Kyoto Protocol being negotiated in Copenhagen Denmark this December. Three Climate Riders will be chosen for an all-expenses paid trip to Denmark during the conference, courtesy of the Embassy of Denmark. (News Update--the Ambassador has decided to ride 3 days of Climate Ride!)

Check back with us at www.climateride.org to learn who else will be pedaling from NYC to DC.

Brita Climate Ride is the first multi-day, multi-city charitable bike ride that showcases the bicycle as a viable solution to climate change and the only such event that benefits climate and bicycle-related organizations. Riders pay a $100 registration fee, and then raise $2,400 to participate. The ride is fully-supported by a team of talented leader-hosts, bike mechanics, medics, and massage therapists. Climate Ride is also one of the 'greenest' multi-day charity ride events in the world. Riders are asked to bring no bottled water (recyclable water bottles will be used, and filtered water will be provided by the title sponsor Brita). There's no disposable plateware or cups, the support vehicles are hybrids and vans that run on veggie grease, and every effort is made to recycle and compost materials used on the ride.

Registration is now open and riders can sign up or find out more information at the Brita Climate Ride website: www.climateride.org. Join us as we drive the ultimate carbon-free machine: the bicycle!

DC Hill update: Senate preview

Jason Kowalski — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:41:47 -0400

Despite the recently acquired Democratic super majority (now that Al Franken has been sworn in as the new senator from Minnesota), getting 60 votes for a strong climate bill will be extremely difficult in the Senate. Climate legislation is now making its way through six Senate Committees, using the House ACES bill as a starting point for action. Lawmakers will have to work to gain support from moderates without losing progressive votes. Grassroots pressure will be essential, both to try and strengthen and to prevent serious additional weakening throughout the Senate process. Stay tuned for a forthcoming policy update on 1Sky’s Senate strategy: in the meantime, this is a summary of the landscape with which we are contending.

1. Senate Timeline

7/7: Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee hearing on climate and energy legislation;
7/8: Finance Committee hearing on international trade considerations in climate legislation;
7/8: Foreign Relations Committee hearing on "industrial competitiveness" in climate legislation;
7-15-7/17 EPW anticipates releasing draft legislative text;
7/27-8/7 EPW climate bill markup;
8/8-9/7: Senate on recess;
9/18: Majority Leader Reid's (D-NV) markup deadline for all six Senate committees with climate jurisdiction.

2. Senate Climate Committees

Six committees will have jurisdiction over pieces of the Senate climate bill: Environment and Public Works (EPW), Finance, Foreign Relations, Agriculture, Commerce Science and Transportation, Energy and Natural Resources (ENR). There is a general notion about which committees have jurisdiction over which elements of the bill, but dividing the bill will likely be an ongoing process. Some pieces (like allocations) may even overlap, leaving it to Majority Leader Reid, President Obama and other deal makers to sort through committee differences in September. In the meantime, we have to fight hard over the next few weeks to make sure committee members know we want a stronger bill and that we firmly oppose any further weakening.

Here's the lay of the land for the committees:

Environment and Public Works: Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW). The Committee has jurisdiction over targets, coal performance standards, allocations, offsets, carbon market mechanisms, and generally most of the bill. Chairwoman Boxer has promised to begin a markup later in July. According to Sen. Boxer, her legislation will be based on ACES but is likely to include tougher short-term targets for capping carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. Said Boxer:

You might see a little bit of a stronger bill come out of our committee. You’ll see some refinements and changes and tweaks.

EPW is a progressive committee that will likely push for strengthening if they see the opportunity for their changes to stick amongst the full Senate. Putting pressure on swing senators to support strong legislation has the potential to embolden progressive champs to craft a better bill. Swings to watch: Sens. Baucus (D-MT), Specter (D-PA), Carper (D-DE)

Finance: Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) chairs the Finance Committee, which will have jurisdiction over allocations and trade provisions. Chairman Baucus prefers a more moderate approach to climate policy than his colleague Sen Boxer. Last year he advocated on behalf of rural electric utilities, and coal interests in his state while crafting climate legislation in the EPW Committee. Swings to watch: Sens. Baucus (D-MT), Rockefeller (D-WV), Conrad (D-ND), Lincoln (D-AR), Stabenow (D-MI).

Foreign Relations: Senator John Kerry (D-MA) chairs the Foreign Relations Committee, which will have jurisdiction over international treaty compatibility, international funds, and other international investments. Sen. Kerry and his committee have demonstrated much interest in climate legislation and a binding international treaty. We expect Foreign Relations to be a strong ally. Swing to watch: Sen. Webb (D-VA)

Agriculture: Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) chairs the Agriculture Committee, which has jurisdiction over domestic land use offsets, biofuels, biomass definitions, and commodities trading oversight. Getting support from rural interests on the Agriculture committee in the House was a major stumbling block for climate action. The Senate is generally even more representative of rural interests than the House. Hopefully the Senate will start with a blank slate on Agricultural issues, rather than working from the compromises made in the House. Swings to watch: Conrad (D-ND), Ben Nelson (D-NE), Sens. Baucus (D-MT), Lincoln (D-AR), Stabenow (D-MI).

Commerce, Science and Transportation: Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) chairs the Commerce Science and Transportation Committee, with jurisdiction over climate research, clean tech R&D, and public transit. The Committee wants to be involved, but their exact role remains to be clarified.

Energy and Natural Resources: Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) chairs the Energy and Natural Resources (ENR) Committee, with jurisdiction over clean energy provisions, renewable electricity standard, nuclear provisions and offshore drilling. ENR passed their version of the legislation, the American Clean Energy and Leadership Act of 2009, in a 15-8 vote two weeks ago. Democratic Senators Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) voted against the bill, while Republicans Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Sam Brownback (R-KS), Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and Bob Corker (R-TN) supported it. The bill aims to fast-track carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) coal projects, encourage offshore drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, protect oil imports from the Canadian tar sands, and support new nuclear reactors.

The 15% by 2020 RES (with up to 4% coming from efficiency) features several new exemptions for states and utilities, lenient non-compliance measures, and vague definitions for qualifying renewable, efficiency, and biomass sources. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J) has vowed to introduce an amendment on the Senate floor to raise the RES to 25% by 2025. Bipartisan support will be necessary to compensate for lost Democratic votes -- Sens. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), Mary Landrieu (D-La.), and potentially Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) and Arlen Specter (D-Pa.).

1Sky and other climate groups have taken a strong stance on the Senate energy bill, refusing to support it in its current form. The RES and other provisions from the committee bill will be revisited on the Senate floor.

3. Making sure the Senate climate and energy bill is strong

All six committees have the potential to strengthen this bill between now and September 18th but they won’t unless we work to pressure them in strategic ways. The three primary committees who have jurisdiction over what we asked to be strengthened in ACES (i.e. EPA authority, RES standard, and allocations to green jobs, adaptation, clean tech, etc) are EPW, Finance, and Foreign Relations. Any strengthening elements we win in committee, will have to be defended vigorously on the floor if we want to keep them intact. Some strengthening elements, like the RES, will likely be done in the form of floor amendments this fall.

4. The path to 60 votes

E&E News analysis has identified 45 "yes" or "probably yes" votes (including Republican Sens. Snowe and Collins of Maine), with 23 fence sitters. While FiveThirtyEight.com has put together a fantastic, detailed analysis of forces underlying the Senate vote count, with some Democrats voicing opposition to climate action, it is unlikely that the new super majority alone will ensure Senate passage -- we need Republican votes. Sens McCaskill (D-MO) and Byrd (D-WV) have already made unfavorable comments since ACES passed.

The House ACES bill is an appealing framework for Senators looking to get 60 votes. There is general consensus that the structure of ACES will be the core legislative framework, but senators are also ready to tweak details of the bill. Says Sen. Tom Udall (D-CO):

There's a lot of momentum [in the Senate] to work on this. I think we've been tactically smart, letting the House go first. I think if they can find the sweet spot, it's a very similar sweet spot over here. Stay tuned.

Will compromises pick up more votes? Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) is rumored to be working with several Republicans on a substantial nuclear title for the new legislation. Though aimed at gathering necessary bipartisan support, increased support for nukes could result in lost Democratic votes from Sens. Boxer (D-CA), Menendez (D-N.J), Lautenberg (D-N.J) Sanders (D-VT) and Wyden (D-OR).

President Obama and members of the Executive branch continue to stress the importance of Senate passage, although what role they will assume in gathering both Senatorial and public support for the bill remains unclear. White House senior advisor David Axelrod says the bill will pass.

Interesting reads:

Tom Friedman on the need for greater and more transparent White House backing;
FiveThirtyEight.com on Obama's "unintentionally brilliant" legislative strategy.

Here's a brief electoral analysis of the Senate, with respect to the 2008 election:

Even though there are 60 Democratic Senators, not all of them can claim Obama's mandate for climate action. In fact, 13 out of 60 democrats (over 20%) are from states Obama did not win;
Within states that Obama did win, there are 9 Republicans, many of whom do not share Obama's desire for climate action;
If all the Democrats from states Obama won vote for this bill, we will have 47 votes, and still need 13 more, at least 4 of which must come from states that McCain won in 2008;
In the House, Obama won 242 of the nation's 435 congressional districts, yet only got 219 votes for his climate bill. Thirty-four (34) of these districts voted for a Republican member of the House, and of those 34 Republican members from Obama districts, 7 of them voted for Obama's climate bill (~20%);
Takeaway: getting 60 votes for a strong bill in the Senate will be difficult, but not impossible. Obama's influence will be necessary, but will only take us so far. He'll need backup from the grassroots if we want to win over some of the more difficult swings.

Questions? Please contact me at jason@1sky.org.