Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) says the health care fight has worsened the odds for bipartisanship on a climate bill. GOP warns of harsh energy climate

Senate Republicans warned Monday that the bruising fight over health care reform could deliver a knockout blow to another Democratic priority: passage of a climate change bill in 2010.

With a united Democratic Caucus, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was able to get to cloture on health care without a single GOP vote. But Democrats aren’t united on climate change, and the bitter battle over health care has left even sympathetic Republicans with little desire to help — a dynamic that would likely doom the bill to legislative failure.


“It makes it hard to do anything because of the way this was handled,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

Graham didn’t elaborate, but he didn’t have to — the fierce partisan fights during the past few weeks have torn away at the Senate’s clubby decorum, raising temperatures, fraying nerves and creating what one Democratic senator has called a “very high” level of distrust among members.

Graham’s words carry serious weight with supporters of climate change legislation because the South Carolina Republican has emerged as a leader on the issue in the Senate, working with Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) on a bipartisan bill.

Other potentially “gettable” Republican senators also sounded discouraging notes Monday.

“Right now, I would say that cap and trade is stalled,” said Maine Sen. Susan Collins.

“Cap and trade has been delayed by the health care debate almost indefinitely,” said Indiana Sen. Dick Lugar. “The question will be how many more battles members of Congress want to take on in an election year.”

“I give it a very low chance,” said Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a potential GOP target for bill supporters. “What it comes down to is our ability to work together as a body. And right now, the indicators are not very positive for climate change.”

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) equivocated over the weekend, when asked whether Democrats could pass a climate bill next year. But Kerry — one of only two senators to attend this month’s U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen — lashed out at naysayers Monday, saying the Senate would deliver on the promises President Barack Obama made there.

“Not a chance in hell that after the president put American prestige on the line in Copenhagen that the Senate is going to give this issue anything less than a major push,” Kerry said. “This is big — big — bigger than any individual agenda. Big. The 111th Congress is not a one-trick pony incapable of tackling more than one big issue, and the cost of tackling climate change would only grow if the Senate got weak-kneed and kicked the can down the road. Not going to happen.”

As Kerry noted, House members put themselves on the line when they approved a climate bill earlier this year. But the health backlash is only the latest roadblock in the Senate, and it’s not at all clear that supporters will be able to clear all — or even any — of them.

“It will take a lot of work,” said Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.). “We need to take a break around here and step back before we try anything of any controversy.”

The bill has scheduling issues: Climate ranks at the end of a long list of Democratic priorities for 2010, behind both a jobs bill and financial reform. It has international issues: The contentious negotiations in Copenhagen provide little, if any, boost for a bill back home.

And it has caucus unity issues.

Manufacturing-state Democrats are demanding border tariffs to protect energy-intensive industries from unfair foreign competition.

“If we don’t do this right, a company in Lima, Ohio, shuts down and moves to Wuhan, and we lose jobs,” said Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown.

And the sweeteners necessary to get Republicans on board — like expanding off-shore drilling and adding incentives for nuclear energy — could alienate liberal Democrats worried about the environmental impacts.

“The drilling would be very hard for me,” said New Jersey Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg. “Because even if they agree not to drill off the coast of New Jersey, that doesn’t protect us from the coast of Virginia, Delaware or other places.”

A handful of Democrats want to dump the cap-and-trade concept entirely.

Earlier this month, Collins and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) released legislation that would replace cap and trade with a system that would offer direct consumer rebates to offset increased energy costs.

Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) has been pushing to move energy legislation that passed the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in June — and leave behind the cap-and-trade proposal he opposes.

“We’re going to have wasted a year, in my judgment,” he said. “My hope is when the calendar turns and January comes, we’ll have the opportunity to be able to grab and seize the progress that was made in the energy committee.”

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have pronouced dead a climate bill introduced earlier this year by Kerry and Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), because of the partisan way it passed through Boxer’s committee. Instead, Kerry, Graham and Lieberman have been getting input from members across the Senate as they attempt to craft a bipartisan climate bill. The legislation must contain the right trade-offs to satisfy the long list of regional energy, economic and employment issues raised by Democratic lawmakers.

At the same time, they are trying to figure out how to steer their proposal through tricky procedural hurdles. At least two more committees — Finance and Commerce, Science and Transportation — plan to mark up portions of the sweeping bill. And the Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, which also has jurisdiction over the legislation, is headed by Arkansas Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln, a moderate who’s called cap and trade “a real problem.”

And other key Democrats have their own list of issues with the bill.

“I’m not one of those who stands against the climate bill, but I want to see it happen in a way that’s fair and gives West Virginia a chance to survive,” said Sen. John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), who wants billions in additional funding for new coal technologies.

But not everyone was so dour Monday. Iowa Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin said the health care fight has taught Democrats that they can be “cohesive” and work together despite their differences. “What we’ve done here strengthens us for next year,” he said.