Why Obama Has to Step Up — By Thursday

As The Atlantic’s Marc Ambiner reported June 10, in a Senate meeting of committee chairmen “it became clear to many that there aren’t 60 voters” for an energy-and-climate bill that includes a mandatory declining cap on carbon. “A final decision will be made by the caucus next Thursday,” he added, on the question of whether to move ahead with an energy bill that does not include a carbon cap (not even one in the power sector, apparently, though most of the industry is now in favor of one).

Senate Democrats want to pass something they can campaign on, even if it isn’t the carbon cap America needs to drive clean energy investment. (The Senate’s version will have subsidies and mandates to prop up clean energy. Nice, as far as it goes, but a carbon cap would create a market that drives private investment over the long term — far more powerful than government subsidies could ever be.)

Why should the country have to settle for whatever the Senate can manage to cobble together in the next few weeks? Wouldn’t it be better to discover what might be achievable with sustained policy-making, politicking and communicating from President Obama? After all, the president only recently pledged to “keep fighting” for a carbon cap, conceding that the votes aren’t there now but promising to round them up over the coming months. If he really is willing to start now and work hard, he might get the votes he needs by the time the Senate reconvenes for its post-election “lame duck” session. By then, some famously cautious politicians heading for the exits (helloooo Evan Bayh!) might even be bold enough to do the right thing before leaving the stage. (But don’t count on it: Bayh was one of six Democrats  who last week voted in favor of Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s odious, and now failed, resolution to strip the EPA of its power to regulate CO2.)

Is it really time to settle for an energy bill with no carbon cap, the sort of measure that Republican Senator Lindsey Graham used to call “half-assed”? If Obama leaves it up to the senators, that’s surely what they will do. But if the President inserts himself into the action in the next few days, he could change the trajectory and the timetable of this legislation.

He has until Thursday.