Energy Lobbyists Flocking to Capitol Hill

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The Road Ahead

• Cap-and-Trade Proponents Look Ahead to Next Congress
• Video: Global Warming Sets the Stage
• Congress Looks to Energy Technology
• A Trio of Senators in Play for Republicans’ Energy Voice
• Obama, Clinton Aim to Raise Fuel Standards
• McCain Promises an ‘Urgent’ Approach to Climate Change Challenge

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Lobbyists on all sides of the global warming, energy and environmental policy debate are getting a warm-up this week as the Senate debates a major climate change bill.

K Streeters say the discussions now are not likely to lead to any new laws this year, especially since President Bush has promised a veto, but instead will help frame the issues for 2009 when the 111th Congress — and a new president — is sworn in.

“I would say there is a broad bipartisan consensus that Congress will enact mandatory emissions reduction legislation by the end of the 111th Congress,” said Philip Clapp, the deputy managing director of the Pew Environment Group, an organization that lobbies for greenhouse gas reductions.

But starting this week and heading into the next Congress, Clapp and his supporters will have to compete with scores of other voices from the oil and gas industry, alternative energy and chemical companies, nuclear advocates and the entire U.S. business community.

In short, energy and environmental policy promises to be one of the hot lobbying issues for the 111th Congress.

Former Rep. Charlie Stenholm (D-Texas), a lobbyist at Olsson Frank Weeda whose clients include the Independent Petroleum Association of America and the American Petroleum Institute, said right now is the crucial time for industry lobbyists to begin educating Congress and the public.

Stenholm, for example, is organizing a briefing in mid-June with a University of Texas professor, Scott Tinker, who will discuss the role of fossil fuels in the global energy future.

“There is a lot more oil and particularly natural gas to be found in the United States, but you can’t keep prohibiting where the drilling is,” Stenholm said, articulating one of his client’s arguments that Congress needs to allow more drilling in the United States.

On global warming policy, Stenholm said lawmakers must take into account the costs to the U.S. economy of adopting strict curbs on carbon emissions if foreign countries such as India and China do not.

“There are too many on the green side that only look at it from their perspective,” Stenholm said. “I used to be one of those who only looked at it from the production standpoint, and I’m willing to admit I was wrong. You’ve got to look at it from all aspects and develop an energy policy for the United States that will allow us to compete — if not we will continue to export jobs.”

When it comes to a cap-and-trade system, a method of reducing pollution by providing economic incentives for reductions, oil and gas companies and chemical and manufacturing representatives say it could be very expensive for Americans.

“The thing about global warming and CO2 suppression is that it’s going to cost money, and the debate will begin to focus on that,” said former Sen. J. Bennett Johnston (D-La.), who counts the Edison Electric Institute as a client. “That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it. I’m one of those that thinks that global warming is real and we need to do something to suppress it. That said, the American public hasn’t realized that it’s going to cost real money.”

Johnston said he expects Democrats to post big gains in the 2008 elections and thus have the votes to pass global warming measures, so it’s more a matter of how the legislation will be accomplished, not whether it will happen.

American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Red Cavaney said his organization supports having the debate over cap-and-trade, in part, he said, so the American public is well briefed on the increased costs such proposals could generate.

“We look forward to that,” he said, “and ultimately support a legislative solution to the climate change and energy security issues and feel the two are inexorably linked.”

And American Gas Association President and CEO David Parker, who has been with the group for more than a decade, said “It’s really cap-and-tax.”