CSPAN/Newsmakers

October 1, 2009

1:00 p.m. EST

STEVE SCULLY, HOST, NEWSMAKERS: Joining us on Newsmakers on this Sunday is California Senator, Barbara Boxer, the Chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. And joining us for the questioning is Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post and Dina Cappiello of the Associated Press.

Senator, let’s begin with a broad question about your proposal, announced last week, along with Senator John Kerry. How, in the short term, do you reduce emissions over the next 11 years by 20 percent and keep American industry competitive in the global economy?

BARBARA BOXER, DEMOCRATIC SENATOR FROM CALIFORNIA: Well first of all, you probably know this is a gradual decrease, so we don’t say tomorrow you have to reduce by 20 percent; it’s 20 percent by 2020. In addition, because of the recession and because of some changes in habits, carbon emissions are going down. They’ve gone down about six percent already, so it’s less of a climb.

Having said that, your question is very important. We think that this bill is great for business, is great for America’s prosperity and American leadership in the world, and green jobs. We know these are jobs that will stay here. And I’m not just saying this as rhetoric; I can give you a couple of backups.

John Doerr, who’s this very big venture capitalist from Silicon Valley, who funded Google and Amazon, says that the capital that’s going to flow into these new clean engine technologies are going to dwarf the capital that flowed into biotech and high-tech combined. And he testified in front of our committee a couple of times on that.

So we think this is the ticket, first of all, to face up to this great challenge of global warming that the world’s leading scientists say could be devastating if we do nothing, and also, it’s a great economic opportunity. And Pew Charitable Trust has come out with the green job creation in California, which is we’ve had a bleak time there. That’s the one bright spot and UC Berkeley just said there’d be a couple of million jobs created if legislation like ours passed.

So I would just say it’s scare tactics on the part of our opponents. They have every right to say what they you know think or worry about to say that this is bad for the economy. We think it’s just what the economy needs.

SCULLY: Dina Cappiello of the Associated Press.

DINA CAPPIELLO, NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL REPORTER, ASSOCIATED PRESS: Hi, Senator.

BOXER: Hi, Dina.

CAPPIELLO: Only 20 percent; obviously you guys came out of the box with this Senate version at the 20 percent by 2020 reduction. The House, as you know, tried the same thing, only to have it scaled back to 17 percent to assuage, basically coal state lawmakers. How confident are you that this ambitious midterm target will stick and how are you going to assure that it does?

BOXER: Well the fact is, as you know, how a bill becomes a law, if we get it through the Senate with the 20 and we go into conference with 17, the House will fight for their position and we’ll for ours. I can’t predict the endgame. I’m responsible for you know a couple of steps in the process and I take it very seriously.

This is the Environment Committee, not the Pollution Committee. You know we really are the Environment and Public Works Committee. This should be you know the high water mark and we’re going to try to convince our colleagues, Senator Kerry and I, and have great members on that committee, that this is a goal that makes sense, because we already know that because of the recession and because of you know change in habits.

We are already seeing a great reduction in carbon. We’re very excited about it; already down six percent, so in essence, we’ve already gone part of the way. So we think that 20 percent is the right number. We’ll fight for that, but there are many other things that we’re going to have to fight about in this whole battle you know to get this done.

JULIET EILPERIN, NATIONAL ENVIRONMENT REPORTER, WASHINGTON POST: Hi, Senator.

BOXER: Hi.

EILPERIN: What I wanted to ask about is the issue of the allowance and how they’re going to be distributed, since this is clearly an open question, given the language in your bill right now. Now obviously when Chairman Henry Waxman introduced his bill, he didn’t identify allowances as well, although again, that was several months ago. And there’s a real question of how many will be given away for free? Now obviously, President Obama, during the campaign, wanted 100 percent of them auctioned off. The final House bill initially gives away 85 percent of the allowances.

It sounds like there could be a scenario where the Environment Committee has a different recommendation on allowances, compared to the Finance Committee that also has jurisdiction on it. Could you clarify what you’re seeking to do on that?

BOXER: Sure, sure. Well let me talk about jurisdiction. We think we have the jurisdiction. We’ve had it the last few times the bill has come forward on allowances, so we will be, in chairman’s mark, distributing those allowances.

I have told Senator Baucus of the Finance Committee, if he thinks he has jurisdiction, I have no problem with him doing his own plan. This is fine. The more people get involved in this the better, because we find the more committee involvement you know the more collaboration, the more people get into the weeds on this, in – because you have to understand what you’re doing.

But let me just say, to give you a little bit of a story, we don’t intend to really change too much what the House did and we said when we sat down with pen and pad. We said we’re really using the House bill as a base because, as you know, there was a huge amount of give and take there. We don’t want to reinvent the wheel and reinvent the problems, but we will have some tweaks.

And I would just say that, just like the House, the vast majority of the allowances are going to consumers to keep them whole, because we get back to the initial question. We want to make sure consumers are in good shape and actually benefit, not only from the jobs that will be created, but also, as we move to the clean energy, we don’t want them having to pay a lot more for their electricity and that’s a primary focus of the allowance distribution.

CAPPIELLO: So just to clarify on that, got two – kind of two questions. One is so are you personally asking and lobbying for what the House bill had, which is 85 percent for free? I mean where do you personally stand on the allocation issue?

BOXER: Well we’ve already decided the allocations with the committee members and they’ll be revealed in a few days, but I don’t want to reveal them now because we might make a couple of tweaks. It’s already been done; the work’s been done.

CAPPIELLO: And obviously you know this is a big placeholder, this piece, this allocation piece of the bill. So I mean how is it that, with this kind of question mark, and obviously you’re going to reveal it in a few days.

BOXER: Yes.

CAPPIELLO: But the Republicans are already coming back with a national energy tax, the cap and tax you know all the things they used on the House. How do you counter their claims when that part of a bill isn’t spelled out yet and also when the very basis of cap and trade is to set a price signal to force a change in habits?

BOXER: Well there’s already a huge – that’s already in the bill; 11 at the bottom and 28 at the top, so we’ve settled the soft collar, so we’re very clear on price. And we’re very excited about that because we took the best of all the ideas out there and cost containment ideas. So we have a soft collar. At 28 you’ll see the allowances come flooding in, so we’re happy cause we think it’ll stop market speculation and it’s certainty and the business community loves that part of our bill.

But let me just say, so to my Republican friends who may be watching, until we reveal this in a couple of days, 70 percent of the allowances go to the consumer and the rest divided along the same lines as the – as the House bill.

EILPERIN: And, Senator, one of the other big kind of pieces of news this week happening on the same day as the release of your bill was the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal in terms of targeting the – basically the identical number of facilities that you’re targeting in your bill. And obviously you’ve spoken in the past about how the prospect of regulation by the executive branch, as opposed to regulating CO2 and other greenhouse gases through Congress could have an effect on the dynamics on Capitol Hill.

It really could go two ways, in terms of either spurring action or obviously prompting somewhat of a backlash. Can you give a sense of what do you think is the significance of what EPA’s doing right now and what does that mean for the prospects of climate legislation?

BOXER: Well what kind of backlash are you talking about? Because well (ph) if you explain that then it sounds …

EILPERIN: Thinks like, for example – sorry. Senator Murkowski, for example, the top Republican on the Energy Committee, has obviously raised the prospect of barring the EPA from acting and arguing that it’s inappropriate. Obviously in your bill you reserve the right for the Environmental Protection Agency to have jurisdiction under the Clean Air Act, and so there certainly is a lot of talk, even among some centrist Democrats, that they’re concerned about EPA moving to regulate greenhouse gases before they have a chance to deliberate on it.

BOXER: Very good. I wanted you to expand because I was hoping you were going in that direction. Yes, we already have had an attack on the Clean Air Act by Senator Murkowski, which we were able to, let’s – shall we say, put off for another date. It was shocking to me that some of my colleagues want to repeal the Clean Air Act as it relates to carbon.

This very conservative Bush Supreme Court ruled five to four that carbon is a pollutant regulated under the Clean Air Act. If anyone reads the Clean Air Act, the language is so clear. I am not an attorney, but I read that. It was very clear. It says this Clean Air Act covers you know and it names all the gases and it said “any pollutant related to climate change.” So clearly you know carbon and greenhouse gases, they have been judged to be pollutants under the Clean Air Act.

The EPA has no choice. This isn’t about Lisa Jackson waking up one morning and saying I’m worried about global warming; I’m worried about agriculture losing it in America because the climate’s so hot. I’m worried about my grandmother you know having to live in 105 degrees weather. I’m worried about droughts, fire, and floods. I mean she may worry about it. I think people should.

But that’s not what this is about. It’s about Lisa Jackson you know reading the Clean Air Act and recognizing that she has to act to control carbon. If she doesn’t she’ll get sued you know really by the people who are fighting on behalf of the families that I represent, the hardworking families who you know are facing this pollution.

So absolutely, I expect people to go try and repeal the Clean Air Act and I expect them to try to repeal the Endangered Species Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Water Act, the landmark. Well they have never liked them and this is just an excuse for them to come in.

Now I think the EPA is doing what they have to do under the law. You know it’s – there’s a danger to global warming. Guess who said that, the Bush administration; we have their words and all the scientists and the American Academy of Sciences. So either we step up to the plate and resolve it; now we can resolve it in two ways.

One is to let the EPA do their work and I support that. But I think it’s foolish not to do it our way, which gives much more flexibility; the ability to buy offsets, the ability to really create jobs and do the kinds of things that we want to do, so.

SCULLY: Will you get Republican support for your bill?

BOXER: I don’t know. The last vote, we had 54 people voting to move forward. We didn’t get the 60. We had 54 people who voted or sent letters; they weren’t there. And that was the Lieberman-Warner-Boxer Proposal, the one – that was the high water market, 54 saying they wanted to go forward. The one before that was 37, Lieberman-McCain. And the one before that was McCain-Lieberman; I think it go a little more forties, about that.

So we’re gaining you know we’re gaining ground, but at this point, I don’t – I can’t count to 60, like I can’t on healthcare either, yet. But you just do your job and you move forward. And I think the big difference is in – that this time, with this bill, which is the Kerry-Boxer Bill, there’s a lot more support out in the country that’s organized. And we have an administration that is helping – will help and that makes a big difference. The last time we had an administration that was against this. So at this point, I can’t report to you Republicans, but I – Senator Kerry and I have been talking to Republicans and we’re very hopeful.

SCULLY: Ten years in the House, though, 17 years in the Senate; is it any different whether it’s this bill on environmental legislation or healthcare? Is the atmosphere any different now than it has been in the past?

BOXER: That’s a great question. There’s a big difference in the political parties, in my opinion. This is my view; it’s not scientific, just having watched. I’ve watched the Democratic Party become a larger and larger umbrella. I mean we have people to my left in the caucus and people to my right in my caucus. And the Republicans – and so it’s a large umbrella and really, what has happened to the national Republicans, it’s a very small umbrella and if anyone peaks outside they get drenched. I mean that’s sort of my view of it.

And there are just a few now, a couple, two or three you know Arlen Specter became a Democrat. Some of the moderate Republicans were pushed out in their primaries. It’s very different. Now every piece of legislation I’ve ever done, and I’ve got a lot of them that became law; I did with Republican co-sponsor. I don’t have one yet for the Kerry-Boxer bill. I’m looking. If anyone’s watching, please dial in.

CAPPIELLO: The other thing, as you know, Senator, besides pending EPA regulation looming over your head, is the international negotiations in Copenhagen for our new treaty.

BOXER: OK. The EPA regulations are not hanging over my head. They actually help us, which is I think the point that was made, because it shows that you know we’re going to get this carbon regulated one way or the other, so I think that helps us and Copenhagen.

CAPPIELLO: And Copenhagen, and obviously you know we’re weeks away from the meeting in Copenhagen. Where do you see this bill being at that point?

BOXER: Right. It’s a good question.

CAPPIELLO: And how realistic are you that you know it will hit the floor? I mean where will it be?

BOXER: That’s a very good question. I think it – we’re going to move ahead in our committee and I believe we should be able to pass a good bill out of there. Never say for sure, but it looks good. And that will be progress.

Listen, it’s hard to describe to people, cause you when you read bill – book on how a bill becomes a law, it sounds so simple. You write the bill; you drop it in the hopper. You know it has a hearing in the subcommittee; it has a hearing in full committee. Oh, it goes on the floor, you debate, you pass it; that’s how they describe. Lordy (ph), it’s very different from that.

So it’s hard for me to predict you know how this all moves, but I would predict that before Copenhagen there will be progress in the Senate. I think just the introduction; I was making a joke the other day about and said it’s like giving birth. I know you just did and will (ph), so it really is. Writing a bill of this magnitude is; it takes a lot of hard work.

So it was a very good feeling to get that step done. It’s a positive step, just the introduction of the bill, cause so many people collaborated. It was not one of these sitting down alone. We went in – late into the night. We went – I mean some of – some of our staff were there till 3:00, 4:00 in the morning, just getting to this point that we really had a good feeling that we had reached a good balance and we have a little more to go.

EILPERIN: Just following up on that, given you know where things stand now and the House-passed bill, to what extent would you say to President Obama and his negotiators, going to Copenhagen, that they could feel comfortable signing off on an international agreement that has emissions reductions targets for the U.S. that essentially mirrors maybe something in between the House bill and the Senate bill? To what extent would you say go ahead; Congress has given you good enough marching orders that you can commit to this?

BOXER: Well I don’t give marching orders to the President. I wish I could. But I think he could be very confident that in America we are starting to do our part. Listen, I come from California. It’s unbelievable. We have taken the lead on this. Energy efficiency in California is such an important part of our way of life. We have stayed even; all through you know the last 20 years, our per capita energy use, per capita, is lower than the national average by this much.

And I always do this and I know it’s not so great on TV, but this much. So the space in here is the low-hanging fruit. This is where you can easily you know do it. How do you do it? You know better efficiency on your – efficiencies on your appliances, whether it’s your refrigerator, whether it’s your air conditioner; all of that. You know just being mindful; using the bulbs, all the things that we do there that has kept our energy use flat over all these years, while the rest of the country’s gone straight up.

So I think, just in the regular budget process, with this, I think, great new President; And he understands this issue so well and he served on the Environment Committee for a while with me. You know we’re going to use the regular budgetary process to fund programs – we did it in the stimulus – that are going to invest in clean energy and energy efficiencies and help the mayors of our – of our nation.

And by the way, I want to point out – so just to get to you, cause I can go off on tangent; I don’t want to. To get to your point, I think he can be confident that the House has passed a bill; the Senate is working its will. It’s going forward; it is going forward. Don’t forget, Senator Bingaman has passed an energy bill as well. So there’s lots of ways we’re moving on this, and California and many of the western states, the northeast states. There’s compacts happening. There’s going to be all kinds of more states that this week, coming up, the thousandth mayor is going to sign on to dedicate himself or herself, as – I don’t know if it’s a man or a woman, to this climate change issue.

So they’re acting locally. They’re acting in the states. They’re acting in the regions. EPA is acting under the Clean Air Act. So I feel, if I were the President – if I were, I would just feel we’re doing this, one way or the other. You know whether we do it this way or that way, we’re going. Half of that – a very big part of my bill are authorizations of new programs to help cities, counties, states you know bring energy efficiency to their people, to help with fire prevention, flood control, training of nuclear workers in nuclear facilities and research and development on technology.

So there’s a lot in our bill that isn’t part of the more controversial, shall we say, formerly called cap and trade you know now called pollution reduction and investment part. And so I would feel good about it if I were the President and I think our venture capital’s already starting to flow. It will flow much more if we do the national bill, so I would feel confident in going to Copenhagen and signing a good agreement and always being mindful that we have to make sure all the countries of the world are onboard. Otherwise we got to be careful. We need to make sure everyone is onboard with this.

CAPPIELLO: You just gave me a great segue, Senator. There seemed – there seemed to be, when you announced the bill and had your rally and press conference out on the – on the Capitol lawn a shift in emphasis in terms of why this bill was needed. I mean we saw that in the House, but I mean it was much stronger at your press conference and rally from a – something (ph) talking less about we need to do this to kind of stave off the most severe effects of climate change and global warming and more about economic security, economic growth, and national security.

BOXER: Yes.

CAPPIELLO: Many military people spoke, rather than the big green groups.

BOXER: Yes.

CAPPIELLO: How does that play into your strategy? I mean you, yourself, said cap and trade’s not the term anymore.

BOXER: That’s right.

CAPPIELLO: It’s not pollution reduction and …

BOXER: Investment.

CAPPIELLO: … and investment. How is that playing into your strategy?

BOXER: Well the reason, just to say – to finish up on the – the reason we changed to pollution reduction and investment is no one really understood what cap and trade meant. You could be talking about you know putting a cap on a baseball player and trading him to another team. I mean no one got it. So we’re saying pollution reduction and investment. We think it makes – it explains it more.

But you’re absolutely right you know. When I teamed up with John Kerry, one of his passions in dealing with this issue, and I’m so proud to be working with him because he’s worked on this so long and he comes at it, not only from an environmental perspective, but also from a national security perspective. I mean this is a man who ran for President; this is a man who spoke to the leaders of the world. This is – he’s very well prepared on this issue and as the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, on which I serve.

And you know he thinks that not enough people see this issue as a national security issue or an economic security issue. So we discussed this and decided it’s time that we put that right out there. And the words from you know admirals, generals, people who serve in the military are very you know are listened to. And they’re basically saying this is a threat to our future; famine, drought, refugees. That all poses great problems to our national security and the security of the world and you know we think people have to take a look at this.

And there’s one more issue I think is so salient and that is that every single day in America we spend a billion dollars a day to import our energy from a lot of countries who don’t love us very much and who wind up using it against us; a billion dollars a day. I mean it’s a shocking number. Why wouldn’t we, for our national security’s sake and our economic security’s sake, take control of our energy future; keep those dollars home.

And so we’re very excited about this and you know we know some people don’t see it this way. Maybe they don’t want to see it this way, but we really do. And we feel that this message that you point out was one of the very strong messages of our press conference. We don’t think the American people have focused on that message and so we wanted to drive it home.

EILPERIN: Do you see that swaying votes? I mean have you kind of tested it out? Are you bringing some of the swing voters onboard with that message? Or are they kind of saying, as one Republican aide said to me yesterday, is this lipstick on cap and trade?

BOXER: I’m glad they didn’t say lipstick on a pig, but I hear you. Well, it’s – ever since I got into this issue many years ago, I prepared a kind of a global warming 101 thing. I still have it around. It’s sort of my first attempt to explain this to a lot of people who didn’t understand. And we had about three or four pages on warnings from our national security people about this issue.

So this issue has been there a long time, but it hasn’t been brought to the floor. It was Senator Kerry’s notion to bring it to the floor and it goes hand in hand with this billion dollars a day leaving our country, going to nations who don’t love us or like us, and you know it helps those nations and doesn’t help us and we want to see that money stay here.

Now does that work well with voters? Yes. And I just looked at some very interesting polling data; very recent polling data. And I don’t know – I don’t remember – Berenson (ph) Group – I think I’m remembering it right – that said that 63 percent of the people supported us doing a bill like this. That’s terrific. And many people said if you didn’t vote for it they would vote against you.

So you know I think the resistance we have in the Senate, and there’s a lot of resistance, as you pointed out, in the Republican party particularly, and in a few regions, doesn’t really add up to what’s happening in the real world. And just to say none of us knows you know where this all leads, but I know this. We’re going to tackle this issue with – through these authorizations, if we can, through this pollution reduction investment piece, through the EPA, through State of California, which will have its own program, the western states, Reg E (ph) is kind of you know a silly way to go, but we’re going to go that way you know whatever happens, because I think – I’ve said this before, the people get it out there.

The people get it and some of my colleagues don’t get it and I’m going to work as hard as I can to – with my colleagues on the committee, with John Kerry, with others off the committee who care, to persuade them. We’ll do our very best. You know I always say this, like you never know when you’re going to be born, you never know what the challenge is you’re going to face. Who knew? You didn’t know when, and your kids; they don’t choose you know. We’re here.

And you know when Al Gore said an inconvenient truth; I thought what does he mean? It’s very inconvenient. I mean it’s certainly been inconvenient for a lot of us because for years it’s taken a lot of time. There’s no way to close your eyes to the truth. And the truth is, at the rate we’re going, it spells trouble for your kids and my grandkids and you know.

SCULLY: How much trouble?

BOXER: Well we could put it into exact numbers for you, but the scientists are very clear what will happen to the U.S. and other nations of the world; with rising waters, with agricultural regions that can no longer grow agriculture, with rainfall that now doesn’t exist, snowpack that doesn’t exist. We’ve been told by American scientists in my committee that up to 50 percent of God’s species would no longer be here and that’s you know I’m a – I’m a spiritual person. We have a lot of – a lot of faith-based people in our coalition. You know we could – we could just say it’s inconvenient to talk about it. It’s not pleasant.

I thought Tom Udall did a great job in the committees, one of the new members of the committee from New Mexico, of talking about how it would affect his state. He did – he has such a beautiful state with these gorgeous mountains and the you know just beautiful flora and fauna there. And he said what would happen in his state if the worst happen and we just didn’t get our arms around this; it would be like dropping the state down 300 miles, I think he said. And it would be like a little town in Mexico that’s a dessert you know wasteland that has nothing. And it’s a jarring notion.

I’ve had Sheldon Whitehouse, who’s from Rhode Island, a great member of the community too, and he had a map that showed what would happen to his state; I mean literally covered with water. And you know we could try to build all kinds of flood walls, but we know; we’ve tried that in other places and Mother Nature is hard.

Wouldn’t it be better to step up to the plate and do what we’re trying to do? Just manage the carbon in the atmosphere. Do it in a way that all the studies show will create great jobs right here in America; stop sending a billion dollars a day overseas. I mean it’s just – it’s almost like if you got diagnosed with a disease and a doctor – and you said oh, this is horrible; that the doctor said I have a cure for you that will not only cure your disease, but it’ll make you ten years younger; it’s great. I mean it’s a terrible problem and an amazing opportunity and that’s how I see it.

SCULLY: Barbara Boxer, that has to be the last word; the Chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee. Senator, thank you very much for joining us.

BOXER: Thanks. Oh, appreciate it. Thank you all.

SCULLY: We continue the conversation with Dina Cappiello of the Associated Press and Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post. Let me begin with you. The Senate comes down to numbers. What did you learn?

EILPERIN: Well the fact that Senator Boxer has said right now she can’t count to 60 is significant. You know of course people covering this are familiar that they’re short those votes, but it really does matter, the fact that at this point, she admitted that she – this is the first time she had introduced kind of a major climate bill without a Republican co-sponsor and felt that this was something that’s lacking. And so I think what it shows is that they’re going to work very hard. They have to win over a huge number of centrist Democrats, as well as some Republicans if they’re going to get this passed.

SCULLY: How do they do that?

CAPPIELLO: It’s going to be tough. I mean there are leading placeholders in this bill for a reason and that’s kind of saying to everybody out there, hey you know all comers come and help us write this bill and work for your home state industries. You may (ph) know this is not just a Republican/Democrat issue. Energy never is.

It’s a regional issue and they’re going to have a hard time getting onboard some Midwest Democrats that are heavily coal states, some southern people that are worried about this. So they’re doing that by not spelling it all out and they’re being very careful as to not kind of spell out what they want explicitly in the bill.

You know she said, on the big allocation issue, who’s going to get what and how they’re going to get it. Are they going to buy it? How much are they going to buy? How much are they going to get for free? She said hey, if Senator Baucus in Finance wants to put something forward we’ll take it. So they’re being very flexible in the hopes that this’ll be written by a bunch of people and, as a result, get the votes they need.

SCULLY: She of course announced this last week with Senator John Kerry, but in the conversation today, did she make news in terms of the benchmarks, which she did not talk about last Wednesday?

EILPERIN: The fact that she said that 70 percent of the allocations would go to consumers is a level of specificity that we didn’t see before. And frankly, it shows that, again, while initially both environmentalists and even President Obama, as a candidate, had been calling for 100 percent auction of these allowances to raise money; right now she’s making it clear that initially a huge amount of the resources would be going to lower electricity bills.

CAPPIELLO: And I also think one thing that struck me is the timing of all this. You know you had last week, also, the EPA taking steps to regulate greenhouse gases. You have Copenhagen international talks in a few weeks. And she says that there’s going to be some kind of action in the Senate. Well if comes out of committee that’s not going to be a huge shock. The committee’s probably going to pass this bill. What the real fight’s going to be is post-committee and getting enough votes to get it to the floor.

And so I’m going to be curious to see, as we head into December and then into Denmark you know how much of – how much committee action’s really going to count to say that the U.S. is serious about this problem.

SCULLY: And let me conclude with that. How significant; how important are these talks at the – in the Danish capitol? What will come out of Copenhagen?

EILPERIN: They’re hugely important, because basically it’s seeing whether you can get a global commitment from not only industrialized countries, but major emerging economies, to curb big carbon emissions. And while it’s not going to be the endpoint, there very well could be kind of an informal political agreement that would form the basis for a future legal agreement. It is a tremendously important psychological and substantive deadline that the world is facing.

CAPPIELLO: And they’re also in a little bit of a conundrum here; the administration and also lawmakers, because what we don’t want to have happen is a repeat of Kyoto, where they went over, they signed on to something, they came back, and the Senate said wait a minute. We don’t want to be told what to do. We want to – we want to write our own laws and tell us what we’re going to cut here in the U.S. before the world tells us what to do. So it’s – that yin and yang here is going to be really interesting to see play out.

SCULLY: With that, thanks to both of you and thank you for joining us on Newsmakers.