Political Hay
Kerry Looks for a Legacy
What we’re seeing is an ugly repeat of what happened in the House to pass cap-and-trade.
After cap-and-trade energy legislation cleared the first test in the House of Representatives this summer, it stalled in the world’s most deliberative body. Then, John Kerry decided to jumpstart a compromise bill among his colleagues.
Ever since Kerry came up short in the 2004 presidential election, he’s been casting about for a legacy and seems to think he has a winner. The way he’s been talking and writing about it practically screams “history books,” and it certainly wouldn’t be bad for his domestic tranquility. His wife’s Teresa and John Heinz III Foundation is a major booster of trendy green causes. It focuses “in particular” on influencing “those who write the laws and cast legislation-creating votes.”
The final cap-and-trade bill, Kerry said, would be the result of “honest give and take” among all senators of good will — principally Democrats. But what give, which take? Right now there is talk of adding provisions to the bill that would allow more nuclear power and offshore drilling. Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican, may even provide the necessary bipartisan cover to help pass the bill.
Talk of adding nuclear or drilling to the bill, however, is just talk. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has done everything in his power to keep a nuclear waste disposal facility from opening in the Yucca Mountains. Offshore drilling is deeply unpopular with the Florida delegation, and the drilling issue is too complicated to be part of a grand compromise.
What we’re more likely to see is an ugly repeat of what happened in the House to pass cap-and-trade: the worst sort of pork-fried deal making followed by an absurdly fast vote, with opponents left sputtering.
Recall that when Henry Waxman and Edward Markey introduced a draft of their cap and trade bill in May, it was a svelte 400 pages long. It grew to 1,200 pages the week before the vote and then an additional 300 pages the morning of the vote, making it impossible for Republicans to digest the unappetizing contents of the legislation in time.
What was in those extra pages? They were fattened with special favors to representatives otherwise inclined to vote against a massive new energy tax. Even that might not have been enough if the House leadership didn’t promise numerous representatives that they would add extra exemptions or favors into the bill when the House and Senate come together to reconcile the two bills.
The draft of the bill that Kerry introduced in the Senate is 800 pages long. How long will it be after he is done doling out favors? We’re pretty sure, from having listened to a few of Kerry’s stump speeches, that his bill will be much longer than the House version.
Many parliamentarians claim that the Senate is good break for bad legislation, with its supermajority requirement for controversial bills. That’s true, to a point. But there is not much organized opposition to cap-and-trade and Kerry has already moved to neutralize the bill’s largest potential critic: big business.
He did that by allowing a coalition of corporate titans known as the Climate Action Partnership to help write the legislation. Kerry’s bill incorporates almost all of the proposals from the CAP’s Blueprint for Legislative Action.
Why did big business agree to go along? Some companies favor cap-and-trade because they are owned by the Obama administration (General Motors). Others stand to make windfall profits on the carbon derivatives market created by cap-and-trade (Alcoa and DuPont). And some support a carbon cap because it’s good for the bottom line, because it will hobble competition (General Electric is a leader in low carbon technologies).
With big business effectively bought off, Kerry could start soliciting senators. His strategy was — and is — quite simple: Make a cap-and-trade scheme worthwhile to at least 60 of his colleagues so as to beat a filibuster threat from those senators who have the most to lose, chiefly representatives of coal-dependent economies.
There’s already a long line of favor-seekers. Senators from natural gas producing states outlined their demands in a letter to leadership. Rust-belt senators want constituent industries to get a cut of the carbon derivatives market. Prairie state senators want to pay farmers to sequester carbon. Corn-belt senators want to relax regulations for corn-based ethanol. Etc.
Though maybe “favor seekers” is the wrong way of looking at it. The term “compromise” takes on an entirely new meaning under Senator Kerry’s august leadership. Forget such fuddy-duddy notions as “give and take” or “back and forth.” The deal is: Supporters of his cap-and-trade bill get everything they want. That’s the only way they’ll vote for a massive new energy tax at a time of straitened economic circumstances. Many senators who would be inclined to oppose the bill face a tough choice: Join now to exact concessions or fight it out, and risk massive economic fallout for their constituents.
The newly senior senator from Massachusetts knows that he has one shot to get the bill through, so he is moving it at a pace that is, by the Senate’s standards, almost reckless. He is adding pages furiously behind the scenes to craft something that can get through the Senate with very little debate. Ohio Senator George Voinovich complained this week, “We’re going to have hearings on Tuesday and I haven’t seen the bill.”
About the Author
Jeremy Lott is editor of RealClearPolicy.com, RealClearBooks.com and RealClearReligion.org and associate editor of RealClearScience.com.
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drudge ette obama| 10.23.09 @ 6:17AM
Kerry wants a legacy? This bore with the pie face couldn't even run a mediocre cookie shop. He'll always be looking for something because there's nothing there. His legacy? That no one cares and he'll be forgotten before he even leaves.
Melvin| 10.23.09 @ 7:46AM
John Kerry will never ever have a meaningfully legacy.
In order to have a legacy a person has to have a vision that the Country can get behind and support. Also this person would have to be a statesman or stateswoman that the Country trusts deeply and has an extremely high regard for.
John Kerry in neither a visionary or statesman. He is a bureaucratic buffoon who spews half-truths to advance a political agenda that Americans mock more than they support.
Take for example than when children walk into a room when adults are discussing something serious the adults either stop talking and wait for the children to leave or change the subject altogether. That pretty much what happens to John Kerry in the Senate, when he comes into a room the adults either shut up or change the subject.
d brockman| 10.23.09 @ 7:40PM
youre so right...what a bunch of phony baloney small minded idiots we've been afflicted with in the us congress...i guess mark twain and will rogers warned us about that....
crookedwren| 10.23.09 @ 9:18AM
Kerry is far worse than a buffoon. Just ask his buddies who were with him in 'Nam.
Three and a half months and how many purple hearts and bronze stars did he write himself up for? And then there was that Silver thing.
How many other men won so many stars do so little in such a short time? I wonder.
Every time the media wants to discuss Afghanistan, they turn to Kerry. Doesn't seem right somehow.
DCTJ| 10.23.09 @ 9:24AM
Cap and trade is just a bad piece of legislation. Kerry must make these concessions because everyone knows it. The worst part is that it won't even be able to achieve it's intended purpose, ie making a positive change for the environment. Write your Senators and let them know you oppose cap and trade at http://tiny.cc/pxIgi.
Eric Cartman | 10.23.09 @ 12:30PM
Kerry's been looking for a Legacy since he was spanked on the butt by the doctor! The guy brought a CAMERA to Viet Nam to film himself! Then when he returned after his 3-month tour, he joined the Winter Soldiers to get his Munster Face on the tube, then he sucked up to Teddy to get the Senate seat he now sits blubbering about the fad du jour and polar bears. He's a pathetic, pan face who will always be remembered for getting a Purple Heart for getting hit in his bony ass by a piece or rice. That's his legacy.
Pingback| 10.23.09 @ 11:11AM
» John Kerry, Still Hanging In There links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Adam Smith| 10.23.09 @ 1:33PM
Kerry's legacy is a $20 million dollar piece of pork he secured for an alcoholic killer, coward and parasite who did everything he could to help wreck the country.
Kerry's legacy is his buddy Teddy's museum he had funded out of a bill for troops.
Ray| 10.23.09 @ 1:33PM
Kerry HAS his legacy, although it's not the kind he was hoping for. After "reporting for duty" during the Democratic National Convention, Kerry enlisted for service as the Command in Chief, only to be denied by We, The People, for the Good of the Country.
Kerry, you legacy is now the same as Gore's. You're a loser. You were beaten, badly, by a man you considered an idiot, which makes you a bigger idiot for losing.
Kerry, you're a loser, plain and simple. I suggest you learn to deal with it.
Ken (Old Texican)| 10.23.09 @ 4:02PM
I think we might need to change our Republican party's name to "THE REPEALER PARTY"
For simplicity's sake let's just pick a cut off date.
Hmmmmm, 1957? 1963? ...everything since... throw it out and start over.
Dean| 10.23.09 @ 6:13PM
John Kerry isn't a senator; he is a caricature of a senator. He is pompous, pedantic, egomanical---a stuffed shirt with a very poor grade of stuffing. He is on the not-so-short list of being one of the stupidest members of the Senate, along with Patty Murray, Barbara Boxer, and Michigan's esteemed junior senator, the dishonorable Debbie Stupidcow.
rocky| 10.23.09 @ 6:40PM
john kerry
makes
joe biden
look credible
Bob R Geologist| 10.23.09 @ 7:53PM
Of the 2 biggest swelled heads around, John Kerry and Algore, it would be impossible to justify a legacy beyond the butt of comedians jokes. I would guess Don Rickles would do the best job.
Donald K Tag Jr| 10.23.09 @ 9:58PM
For me the legacy of John F Kerry will forever be his image before the Senate foreign relations committee, committing high treason by testifying falsely about the service me and my 'Band of Brothers' had so honorably given to our country. If it would not so irreputively harm the country it would suit me to name the 'Climate hoax bill' the Kerry Climate Bill just so that John Kerry's name will live on forever in the infamy that he so justly deserves.
Richard Baker| 10.24.09 @ 8:06AM
For his Legacy, how about "I wounded myself firing an M-79 at the riverbank and received a medal. What a Man! Or how about, "I always marry rich widows since I can't imagine working for a living?"
Yosemeti Sam| 10.24.09 @ 11:24AM
"Kerry Looks for a Legacy"
Sliming American soldiers!
Cut and dried legacy.
Not to mention marrying wealthy women.
Long Ben| 10.24.09 @ 6:50PM
Arguably, wizzing on ones comrades in arms and marrying a ketchup hieress do not necessarily fit a man for statesmanship. What are those poeple thinking, to keep electing so errant a Turd o' Misery
Russ| 10.25.09 @ 12:12AM
A hard rain's gonna' fall.
Whyyeseyec| 10.25.09 @ 6:56PM
Kerry made his legacy in Vietnam 40+ years ago when he accepted a Purple Heart for pulling a booger out of his nose....
Christopher Holland| 10.25.09 @ 11:21PM
Kerry's legacy is the kid he shot in the back while he in Viet Nam. Nothing Kerry can do in the Senate will ever change that - the man is a coward, a liar and a creep. It is very fitting that he is putting all his efforts into a bill about hot air - hot air is all there has ever been with this monstrous fake.
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