A new DK-Greenroots series will examine the role of various US Senators as the American Clean Energy and Security "ACES" climate bill makes its way through the Senate. This isn’t as much about assessing the relative merits or problems with the bill as it stands after House passage, as much as whether it can be strengthened and which Senators will help or hinder that effort – and whether it will even be possible to pass it at all. I volunteered to help cover Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).
(See also the recent post on this series by Meteor Blades)
Disclosure: I am not a Maine resident. Just so you know.
So where does Sen. Collins stand on the American Clean Energy and Security Act?
Overall record on climate change and energy policy
I think the first thing we should look at with any Senator on this bill is what his or her overall view on climate change is and what their record looks like on that.
In May 2009 (via Grist) she delivered the commencement address to graduating students at Unity College in Maine and told them "Climate change is the most significant environmental challenge facing our planet." But does the record match the rhetoric?
Sen. Susan Collins, who was elected to the Senate in 1996 with a plurality of the Maine electorate but subsequently twice by large margins, has a lifetime overall "Progressive Score" of 58.72% from ProgressivePunch.org on "The Environment" at large, and she ranks 57th. (Here’s an explanation of how they develop this ranking. It’s an imperfect measure, but it helps...). This in itself does not mean very much, so I looked at a couple sub-categories of that. On "global warming," which is the issue at hand here, aside from energy policy itself, Collins has a 73.68% score from them, and ranks 45th. So on global warming and climate change, she doesn’t have a terrible Inhofean score, but she’s no superstar either. She is, after all, still a Republican. What this tells us is that she is probably quite willing to discuss the issue and let it progress through the Senate to some degree. She won’t throw the kitchen sink at a climate bill to stop its progress.
Additionally, according to Grist’s summary of Collins’ track record,
Collins was one of just seven Republicans to vote in favor of moving forward with the [unsuccessful] Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act in 2008. A strong supporter of environmental legislation over the years, she was the only Republican senator to get an endorsement from the League of Conservation Voters in 2008, and she got perfect marks on LCV’s scorecard in 2007 and 2008.
If you look at the LCV links there, and you’ll notice her score with them has steadily been improving over her career and they now believe she’s doing quite well. Granted, once again, such scores are complicated to calculate and can be easily disputed for their subjectivity, but they give us some sense of how she might vote.
On the ProgressivePunch subcategory of "renewable energy," as with "global warming," Collins is a bit of a mixed bag but still on the high side at 76.92% progressive alignment. On some votes, she’s definitely been with the progressives, and on other votes she’s not. But certainly encouraging signs.
I won’t go into detail on other subcategories of environmental policy, but you can take a look for yourself if you want.
Penobscot Narrows, Maine
Views on cap-and-trade specifically
Collins labeled herself earlier this year "a supporter of cap-and-trade," which is, of course, the core of the ACES bill. Since this policy is a central part of the bill, and the part probably most violently opposed by our obstructionist buddies in the Republican Party, for the moment, Collins is a good potential partner on this bill for Democratic supporters. On the flip side, it also means she can expect a lot of pressure from the rest of her party, especially from the minority leader, Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who hails from a coal state and opposes the bill, and from the Republican whip, Jon Kyl (R-AZ), who is not known for loving support of cap-and-trade.
Is Collins likely to work with Democrats?
Let’s face it: this is not a bipartisan bill. It’s nicknamed "Waxman-Markey" after the two House Dems who penned it. And in the Senate it's "Kerry-Boxer." So, this is a Democratic bill, even though it deals with a universal issue. That means we should know if Democrats might be able to get any cross-party support. Not because it’s automatically wonderful to have bipartisan backing, but because there are some Democratic Senators that might be unwilling to toe the party line on this bill, possibly making it necessary to flip a couple Republicans, if those Democrats don’t even support a cloture vote. (As an example, Sen. Mark Begich of Alaska, while a Democrat who would probably very much like to help the environment does come from an oil state and one that gets nearly all its state operating revenue from oil taxes... and so we can’t count on his support in all likelihood, though we can hope).
The good news here is that Sen. Collins has been working with Democrats on various bills this year (unlike some Republicans who refuse outright), and she was one of three Republican Senators (including Arlen Specter, now a Democrat) who voted in favor of the January stimulus package. While this makes her a likely negotiating partner again, the bad news is that she exacted quite a few damaging cuts to the stimulus bill in January as the price for her vote, and we have to watch out that nothing serious gets cut on this one if she’s along for the ride. This is especially critical, in my view, because I don’t really think the bill is too strong as it is, and the Senate should be making it stronger, not gutting it.
White Mountains National Forest, Maine
Relevant Donors
It's also always a good idea to check the donor list for big bills like this, in case that could turn a vote. According to OpenSecrets, Susan Collins has received a career total (PAC and individual) of $430,801 from Agribusiness - which made a big fuss on the House bill and extracted concessions - and $384,093 from Energy & Natural Resources. These are biggest and fifth biggest respectively of various sectors from which she's gotten donations.
For the 2010 cycle (keep in mind, she's not up for re-election until 2014), she's pulling 199K and 186K so far for those two sectors... This is much less than some sectors this cycle, but it's still substantial.
These sort of donations may have less of an impact because she's just been re-elected, but from 2003-2008 she received over $200,000 from Agribusiness and $186,000 from Energy & Natural Resources, so she may be beholden. However, once again, it's not overwhelming dollar values (though in smaller states like Maine each dollar goes further), so she may not let the donations sway her vote. Who knows?
This diary is just an overview or introduction, and I will be following Collins on this bill, as part of the series. I will go more in depth in future diaries. For the moment, of course – especially if you are a Maine resident – you can contact Sen. Collins on the American Clean Energy and Security bill and urge her to strengthen it and support its passage in time for the international climate treaty negotiations in Copenhagen later this year.
Official Collins website:
(High-speed version)
(Low-speed version)
Collins DC Office
413 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-2523
Fax: (202) 224-2693
Thanks for reading!
GreenRoots is a new environmental series created by Meteor Blades and Patriot Daily for Daily Kos. This series provides a forum for discussing -- and acting on -- all environmental issues, including the need for sustainability and the interrelationship between environment and salient issues of our lives, including health care, family, food, economy, jobs, labor, poverty, equal justice, human rights, political stability, national security and war. Please join a variety of hosts on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday afternoons and early evenings.