U.S. Senate votes on climate change

On January 21, 2015, the U.S. Senate voted 98-1 to pass an amendment to S. 1, its Keystone XL Pipeline bill, stating that "climate change is real and not a hoax." A further amendment, stating that "it is the sense of the Congress that--(1) climate change is real; and (2) human activity significantly contributes to climate change" and citing the scientific consensus of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the National Research Council, and the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), failed by a vote of 50-49. 

It is worth noting a few points regarding these votes. First, it is historic that a Republican controlled Senate would agree that "climate change is real and is not a hoax." This is a far cry from the rhetoric many Republican senators employed during the election cycle, where many of them either flatly denied climate change is occurring or made statements such as "I'm not a scientist" as if to suggest they shouldn't be asked such questions. That said, this vote shows the evolving position of congressional Republicans on the issue.

Second, this amendment was clearly a political calculation aimed at securing the necessary Democratic support for the Keystone XL Pipeline bill to pass a vote. As Republicans do not currently benefit from a supermajority in the Senate, getting any legislation through a vote requires at least some bipartisan support.

Third, the language of the amendment that passed is the minimum language required to secure Democratic support.

Fourth, and perhaps most significantly, in rejecting the second proposed amendment, nearly half the members of the U.S. Senate voted to reject a statement consistent with overwhelming empirical observation and that reflects the prevailing opinions of experts across multiple scientific disciplines. 

In the first place, it is curious that the Senate would take any position on a matter of empirical observation. It is not as if, simply by voting, the Senate can change reality, creating a world where humans are not "extremely likely" (borrowing a phrase from the IPCC) to be significantly responsible for observed changes in our climate since the industrial revolution.

What would it hurt the Senate to agree with the overwhelming consensus of observation? As the Senator (Brian Schatz, D-HI) who proposed the rejected amendment pointed out in his testimony on the floor of the Senate, "The purpose of this amendment is simply to acknowledge and restate a set of observable facts. It is not intended to place a value judgment on those facts or to suggest a specific course of action in response to those facts. It is just a set of facts derived from decades of careful study of our land, air, and water."

The Senate's rejection of Senator Schatz's amendment provides cause for concern with our political system: if our elected officials aren't basing decisions affecting our nation and our planet on empirical observation, on what are they basing their decisions?

President Obama's G20 remarks and the Keystone XL Pipeline

US President Barack Obama at the G20 summit in Australia on Saturday built on the momentum of a recent surprise announcement of a deal between China and the US to work together to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. News outlets (e.g., see here, here, and here) report that President Obama brought the issue of climate change back to the fore, despite the efforts of host nation Australia's Prime Minister Tony Abbott to leave climate change out of the summit altogether. As the Guardian reports:

...in a one-two manoeuvre that caught Australia off guard, Obama upstaged Abbott and made certain it was the talk of the conference anyway. First came the joint US/China post-2020 greenhouse emission reduction targets announced in Beijing on the eve of the summit and then the $3bn Green Climate Fund pledge made in a keynote speech as Abbott was greeting other world leaders across town.

It will be interesting to see what effect, if any, President Obama's recent outspokenness on climate change might have on his decision on whether to approve TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL Pipeline, which would be used to ship bituminous crude oil from Alberta's burgeoning tar sands developments to refineries along the US Gulf Coast. On the one hand, the US agreement with China, along with President Obama's remarks in Australia, have been praised by the president's environmentalist supporters. These efforts might grant the president leeway to approve the pipeline without entirely losing their support. On the other hand, environmentalists might accuse the president of only paying lip service to climate change mitigation efforts while failing to take a stand when given a "real" opportunity.

How "real" an opportunity to take a stand rejecting the pipeline would be is a subject of debate among industry supporters, environmentalists, the US Department of State, and the White House. Industry supporters back the pipeline and point to the jobs it will create and the reduced dependence on foreign oil it will enable. Environmentalists contend the pipeline will lock in the full development of Alberta's tar sands, for which energy-intensive production methods are required to produce crude oil. The US Department of State, for its part, has claimed in its environmental impact assessments that building the pipeline will have a negligible effect on climate change since Alberta's tar sands are likely to be fully developed anyway. And the White House has hinted recently that President Obama might veto the pipeline even if the House of Representatives and Senate both approve of constructing it. Moreover, the White House has contended in the past that approving the pipeline is the president's decision alone to make since the proposed route crosses an international border.

The failure of the recent Keystone XL Pipeline bill to pass a Senate vote is likely only a temporary reprieve for the White House. When Republicans take control of the Senate in January, President Obama is likely to see another bill pass in both houses of congress. The question is, what will the president decide: to reject the pipeline proposal and appease his environmentalist backers, or to approve it in exchange with congressional Republicans for concessions on other aspects of his policy agenda? Only time will tell. Whatever the president decides, environmentalists can already claim a small victory: delays in the approval process have nearly doubled the cost of the pipeline, raising overall project costs and making Alberta tar sands oil less competitive with alternative and renewable energy sources.