John Kerry to be on Charlie Rose tonight

[beachmom]

Just got it from this Hill article:

http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/101941-kerry-senate-climate-bill-has-deeper-support-than-house-plan?utm_source

John Kerry (D-Mass.), seeking to show political momentum for his climate change plan, said the measure has much deeper support than global warming legislation the House approved last year.

Kerry and co-author Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) are under pressure to gain traction for greenhouse gas limits ahead of a planned Senate debate on energy legislation next month.

Climate advocates hope to prevent Senate leaders from instead moving a narrower energy measure that omits emissions limits. But greenhouse gas caps face widespread resistance among Republicans and some moderate Democrats.

Kerry, in an interview to be broadcast on PBS’s “Charlie Rose” Tuesday night, nonetheless claims the bill unveiled last month has attracted a “new coalition” that believes the measure is in the country’s economic, security, health and environmental interests.

David Roberts from Grist is on Twitter saying that this is demonstrably false:

I get why @JohnKerry has to pretend his bill is backed by some sparkly new coalition, but it's not true. #ACES had huge bipartisan backing.

I think it's more that Sen. Kerry worked tirelessly with Republicans who seemed to be on board but won't be officially on board. I read that Sen. Shelby was in on negotiations but then refused to support it. But if we are talking "officially" then David Roberts has a point that JK is fibbing a bit here, although does someone have a final roll call for ACES? I don't recall there being many Republicans supporting it. So "huge bipartisan support" for ACES seems to me to be an embellishment as well.


Edit: 8 republicans voted for ACES. Not "huge bipartisan support" to me, David.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=h2009-477

Actually, David Roberts is speaking of the coalition that supported ACES & he gave me this link:

http://globalwarming.house.gov/files/ACES/08.html

I would say the coalition that supported ACES is similar to the one that is supporting APA. And again, David Roberts points out no Republicans are currently supporting the bill. Sigh. I think I lost this Twitter debate. JK is fibbing and embellishing.

[Inuca]

1. Thanks, I'll try to stay up :-) n/t

[karynnj]

2. It likely is true that there is far more support IN THE SENATE for

the Kerry bill than there was for Kerry/Boxer, which was said to be more likely to pass the Senate than ACES. The real problem Kerry has is as was said. He worked very hard with Republicans and even Snowe and Collins haven't publicly joined him.

It is clear that ACES has the same coalition - which makes sense as both bills have very similar intent. As to the "depth" of the support from those on the list, I have no idea how to measure that. (Watching he does say that they have the utilities that the House did not have - here he is wrong. I don't know if they only recently gave support to Waxman/Markey.)

I think the interview was yesterday. Here a link to it - http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11046

I went to his site to get the NYC schedule and found this - so I just turned it on.

[beachmom]

3. It doesn't matter what is said privately. What matters is which Republican Senator(s)

stands up to support this bill. Kerry really shouldn't BS on this bill and make it sound like his has more support than ACES when the thing has been declared dead so many times and although "not dead" it certainly hasn't shown itself to have the votes to be passed. Even Democratic votes aren't solid.

[karynnj]

4. I agree that he needs to keep to the facts

The bill likely DOES have more support in the Senate than the House bill would if it were voted on directly. (I edited my earlier post because the interview is on the web now)

[beachmom]

5. Oh, thanks for the link!

[Mass]

6. He is not talking about a coalition in the Senate. He is talking about a coalition in the real world

(industries, generals, environmental groups...). He has been talking about this again and again. Obviously, in these categories, not everybody supports the bill, but some do.

From further down in the article

“Those groups range from the faith-based community that sees this as a matter of earth stewardship and moral responsibility, to the nuclear industry that knows that they are emissions-free, and they believe they have a chance to be able to compete in China, and India, and elsewhere in energy production, to our utilities that have supported this bill now from day one of our announcement,” Kerry said.

“They didn't support the House bill. They do support this bill because they believe this will make them capable of protecting the American consumer, not raising prices for energy, but ratcheting down their emissions and beginning to transition to the new energy future,” he added.

Obviously, this coalition is not going to please some people and they need to get traction in the political realm, but the goal of the bill is to show a large coalition which would push the Republicans and people like Lincoln to vote for it.

[beachmom]

7. Yes, but the idea that Kerry's coalition is bigger than ACES was

is not really true. See the link above that David Roberts gave. All the groups Kerry mentioned also backed ACES. I don't see why he is pushing the idea that the Senate bill is "more" bipartisan. At this point, the outside coalition at best is the same as ACES and the actual vote tallying is LESS bipartisan.

[karynnj]

8. It does seem by comments that some of the utilities were happier with Kerry's proposal

Kerry's words were that it had a greater depth of support. I would prefer that he not make that claim unless there was some clear backup - and I haven't seen anything substantial. It might mean that the "supporters" have promised to do more in support than they did before. I do think it a silly claim - and a bad one if it looks like he is making stuff up.

As to bipartisan, Kerry's has not been voted on. The fact is that if both the Maine Senators vote yes - which might happen - then he will have a higher percent. He in fact, needs a much higher percent.

I was not that impressed with Kerry's comments on the bill -- it seemed a repeat of so much of what he has said hundreds of times. I thought there were some interesting comments on the BP mess, but I think the second half on Israel and Syria is more interesting and insight that I hadn't heard from him before. It really expands on what he said to Tapper.

[YvonneCa]

9. The interview on Charlie Rose was...

...wonderful. That format really gives the Senator time to talk about complex issues in depth...something at which he excels. This is one not to miss! :)

P.S. Happy California Primary Day!! :hi:

[wisteria]

10. Oh, I agree. No talking in sound bites. n/t