Uncertainty for the future of emissions regulation:

What Scott Brown means for climate change legislation.

As Republican confetti finally comes back to earth after Scott Brown’s dramatic special election victory, Democrats continue to mourn the death of the short lived super-majority.  The formidable power of the filibuster gained from the one-seat-swing represents a potentially crippling blow to a number of Democratic agenda items; the most salient in the nation’s collective mind being the health care system over-haul.   There are, however, a number of other hotly contested pieces of legislation that could also fall to empowered Republican obstructionism.  The Boxer-Kerry bill in the Senate is among those to face a hostile political climate this year; and while its passage was never assured even with the help of sixty Democratic seats, the newest Republican senator will only create more friction for the bill in its current state.

It is clear from Brown’s campaign commitments that he is decidedly against health care reform, but his position on domestic climate change legislation is less obvious.  The Senator-elect has voiced his doubts over man’s role in climate change, but does support the development of various alternative energy sources.  The potential for legislation that addresses the country’s reliance on hydrocarbon intensive fuels does not die when Brown is sworn into his new office, but the integrity of any carbon pricing system, in the short term, will.

Brown opposes the cap and trade system at the heart of the Boxer-Kerry bill, and would undoubtedly oppose any other program of a similar nature (where a higher price for carbon is passed on to the greater public).  This does not rule out the possibility of implementing a green house gas regulation scheme.  It does, however, make organizing a binding program to limit emissions far more difficult in the short term. For those attempting to tackle climate change legislation in the House and the Senate, cap and trade is the foundation on which they have built their collapsing house of cards. A new approach will require significantly restructured forms of legislation from both bodies, or risk becoming just another fragmented and ineffective government program. 

Brown’s arrival tips the scale for climate change legislation.  While the issue never fit the mould of a party line decision, the power dynamic shift means that progress will require a significant level of bipartisan support.  Issues long opposed by green advocates such as off-shore drilling seem destined to find their way back to the forefront of deliberation and compromise.  These developments can only further frustrate environmental advocacy groups, such as Greenpeace, who deemed both the Waxman-Markey and Boxer-Kerry bills as “insufficient”.   Now, the limited role that renewable energies had in the proposed legislation seems likely to be mitigated further.

The Boxer-Kerry bill will undoubtedly face the knives of a fiercely divided Senate when it eventually reaches the floor, and programs such as cap and trade will be the first to face the chop.  If it will resemble the bill it began as, or even survive the process at all, remains to be seen.

Read more about the issue here:
http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2010/01/20/20climatewire-sen-elect-browns-win-adds-more-question-mark-48190.html?pagewanted=1

Review Senator-elect Scott Brown’s stance on energy and the environment here: http://www.brownforussenate.com/issues

Review Greenpeace’s evaluation of domestic climate legislation here:
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/press-center/reports4/business-as-usual

Jaime Batista is a Senior at Brandeis Univerisity

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