Still Trying to Work

Senator Boxer and the Dems showed up again this morning, but the Republicans played hooky.

This morning, Senator Boxer reconvened a full business meeting of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, so that the Republicans who boycotted yesterday's meeting would have an opportunity to participate in the committee mark up. But the Republicans still didn't show.

According to this Politico article, yesterday "Republican committee aides said they had no plans to yield on their boycott of the hearings unless [a full EPA] study [of the economic impact of Kerry-Boxer] is issued." (The Houston Chronicle reported the same thing, here--apparently, Harry Reid's offer of a post-committee five-week study was deemed inadequate.) Since the study couldn't happen overnight, Republicans boycotted again today. Only Senator Inhofe (R, OK) attended, to say something disingenuous about how much he really, really wanted to cooperate. Really. He did. (His exact words, according to the Wall Street Journal, were ""We want to mark up this bill, Madame Chairwoman, we really do. . . We want to do it together.")

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans and industry (except the coal industry, which was overjoyed by yesterday's events) are trying to make inroads even as EPW stalls, to make sure that their interests are represented in any bill that comes out of the Senate. According to this Washington Post article, today, Senator Kerry (D, MA) "and Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) are scheduled to meet with a host of administration officials, including White House climate-change adviser Carol M. Browner and Energy Secretary Steven Chu, to 'ascertain the administration's parameters' for the climate bill, particularly on the subject of nuclear energy."

Further, "R. Bruce Josten, the chief lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, sent a letter to Boxer and the committee's ranking Republican, James M. Inhofe (Okla.), suggesting that a bipartisan approach along the lines of the compromise Kerry is trying to forge with Graham might work." The full letter from the shrinking business lobby can be read here.

All that aside, unless Boxer corrals the Republican members of EPW, hopes are fading that she will get the bill out of committee before Copenhagen, as she has hoped to do.