At the recent caucus meeting, Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman presented a gripping video about our need for comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation.

Watch it:

In a much anticipated move, some sixth months in the making, Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman will introduce comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation this afternoon.

After a delay of a little over two weeks, the two senators will announce the legislation in a press conference at the Capitol. A summary leaked last night, followed by a more detailed piece-by-piece description.

According to the summary, the bill will protect consumers through refunds and rebates aimed at keeping energy costs down, while setting a price on carbon and investing in clean energy. The result would be a cut in emissions, new jobs created and a significant cut in oil dependence.

It comes three weeks and one day after an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico touched of a sequence of events leading to a massive oil spill, bringing the conversation about offshore drilling to the forefront.

The chief way to cut dependence on oil is through the transportation industry, not just public, but shipping as well, and the summary has a plan for that as well.

Over $7 billion is provided annually for improvements in mass transit and throughout the highway system, as well as investments in advanced vehicles and natural gas powered trucks. The same section also gives states flexibility around offshore within 75 miles of their shores, something that would have affected the current situation in the Gulf.

Carbon sequestration, nuclear power and natural gas all have their own sections in the summary, as well as a cap on carbon. The bill is excepted to initially affect about 7,500 factories and power plants.

A battle looms in the Senate, with bill proponents squaring off against one of the richest and most aggressive lobbies in Washington – Big Oil – and could drag on for weeks. What it won’t change is the need for comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation.

Don’t expect the longer time line to help calm fears about oil spills either. Even BP is currently admitting that it could be weeks or even months before even a dent is made on the well in the Gulf. This will stay in the public conscience for quite some time, as well as firmly on the minds of those in some states where many have been pro-drilling. Many are seeing first hand the damage done by dirty energy.

Today is the first look at a piece of legislation that could begin to change these outcomes.

Senators Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham are working to create climate legislation.

As details begin to trickle out about a new version of comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation, the contents of the bill are starting to become more and more clear.

Yesterday, the trio of Senators, John Kerry, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman met with several representatives of the affected industries to continue their process of building support.

According to several sources in the meeting room, the bill calls for greenhouse gas curbs across multiple economic sectors, with a 2020 target of reducing emissions by 17 percent below 2005 levels and an 80 percent limit at midcentury. Power plant emissions would be regulated in 2012, with other major industrial sources being phased in starting in 2016.

Along the lines, the bill would also pre-empt the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases, something it has been planning to do after the endangerment finding last year. There are also provisions that would make this cap a national one, giving true certainty to the market.

Overall, the bill will include eight titles: Refining, America’s Farmers, Consumer Refunds, Clean Energy Innovation, Coal, Natural Gas, Nuclear and Energy Independence. And it will set up new nationwide standards for energy efficiency and renewable energy, as well as ideas on carbon market regulation crafted by Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine).

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It is still expected that some sort of draft summary will be available to other senators next week, even though Sen. Kerry would not confirm that.

According to the National Wildlife Federation, the support picked up in the states as well:

In South Carolina, Sen. Graham’s efforts earned support from two key constituencies. As Grist reports, the Christian Coalition and a veterans group are backing efforts to pass clean energy & climate legislation.

Support for clean energy and climate legislation is diverse and strong. Now, as we move closer to having a Senate bill, more details will become known and the true support in the Senate will be tested.

Courtesy: Politico

The New York Times had a great piece today, breaking down where the wavering Senators on comprehensive climate legislation park their interests.

Citing E&E, the article assumes there are 41 “yes” votes and 29 “no” votes in the upper chamber, leaving exactly 30 to be had, of which 19 are need to reach the magical number of 60.

Most of the fence-sitters call states with significant coal interests home, something probably not good given attempts to curb greenhouse gas pollution in the bill. The leader has to be Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), who has introduced legislation to prevent the EPA from enforcing regulations itself. Obviously the senior senators from that state, Robert Byrd, is also a question mark, as well as Montana’s Max Baucus.

But others have been much more hostile. Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) disagrees with the push for a climate bill and instead prefers an energy-only approach. Sens. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) and Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) have questioned the economic costs of moving too fast and too aggressively.

And Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) has even unveiled a campaign ad touting her opposition to cap-and-trade legislation, a point not lost on Democratic leadership.

Many sit firmly in the nuclear field as well, none more than one of the leading trio, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Graham is not a fence-sitter, but his ability to please some others that feel nuclear energy is the best way to go carbon neutral (the French plan), will prove invaluable.

My favorite of this group is Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), listed as being on the fence. He is of course the same Senator who wants to build 100 nuclear plants in the U.S.

Eighteen of the 30 senators on E&E’s list come from states that are home to commercial nuclear industries: Arizona’s John McCain (R), Arkansas’ Lincoln and Mark Pryor (D), Florida’s George LeMieux (R), Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu (D), Massachusetts’ Scott Brown (R), Michigan’s Levin and Stabenow, Missouri’s Claire McCaskill (D), Nebraska’s Ben Nelson (D), New Hampshire’s Judd Gregg (R), Ohio’s Brown and George Voinovich (R), Pennsylvania’s Specter, Tennessee’s Lamar Alexander (R) and Bob Corker (R), Virginia’s Jim Webb (D), and Washington’s Maria Cantwell (D).

Beyond tax incentives and loan guarantees, it is Graham’s idea of a renewable energy standard that allows power sources to use nuclear capacity to reach targets that will draw many of these members.

When it comes to trade-intensive industries, one big question remains: how do we protect American business?

[Sens. Bayh, Specter, Rockefeller and Byrd], for example, took the lead last summer in writing to Obama with a pledge to oppose any climate legislation that did not come with a “border adjustment mechanism” that would allow for trade sanctions on carbon-intensive goods from developing countries that do not have strong enough climate policies.

The big worry is that business will just produce elsewhere because they won’t have to deal with any regulation. No party wants to see that happen, meaning provisions in the bill preventing it are very likely.

But save the biggest, most financially influential industry for last: oil and gas. Home of 13 Senators according the story, the range of items on the wish list of this group is large, if not diverse. Sarah Palin hit it on the head: “Drill, baby, drill.”

Just last week, Sen. Lisa Murkowski said her vote was contingent on the opening of ANWR to drilling, something highly unlikely, but sure to be debated again, just to continue beating a dead horse.

Sen. Mary Landrieu, of Louisiana, is sure to call for the drills as well, but in the Gulf of Mexico, where she already 8.3 million acres of untapped water.

There is a difficult balance when drilling is involved, as it is mostly included to gain votes, but can cost votes if the actually activity is off the coast of a different state where a reliable “yes” vote lives.

While there will be also be issues about how to apply a carbon cap, something which has been a major part of the conversation recently, these have been the main issues since the debate began. The idea of regulating different industries differently will surely continue to be discussed.

With 30 votes sitting out there and 19 needed, much work clearly still needs to be done. By all accounts, the trio of Kerry, Lieberman and Graham are not only working tirelessly, but have enlisted the help of several other members. Lieberman has said he is aiming to have something out before Easter break, which is less than three weeks away.

After a huge week here in Washington, when our Organize to be Heard winners made their way throughout the city, rallying, protesting and most importantly meeting with Congressional staff, we are ready to move forward fighting for comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation.

So, apparently, are the three key Senate figures: Sen. John Kerry, Sen. Joe Lieberman and Sen. Lindsey Graham.

The New York Times reported today that talks around climate legislation will intensify this week, specifically where the carbon cap is concerned.

“It’s time,” said a Senate aide close to the process. “Game on.”

According to the story, staffers are saying that the trio has agreed on a list of ideas they will start pushing around the Senate to gauge feedback. Sen. Kerry has at least eight climate-related meetings scheduled this week, while the other two have several Senators from both sides of the aisle on tap.

The conversations will certainly include nuclear energy, carbon capture and storage technology and agriculture offsets. The three plan to leave no stone unturned, but know that there will be a cap on carbon and investment in clean energy.

To kick off the effort, Sen. Graham had some of his strongest comments on the issue to date, speaking in a frank manner in yesterday’s Times.

“I have been to enough college campuses to know if you are 30 or younger this climate issue is not a debate. It’s a value. These young people grew up with recycling and a sensitivity to the environment — and the world will be better off for it. They are not brainwashed. … From a Republican point of view, we should buy into it and embrace it and not belittle them. You can have a genuine debate about the science of climate change, but when you say that those who believe it are buying a hoax and are wacky people you are putting at risk your party’s future with younger people.”

But it was perhaps his statement later that will carry the issue through to the needed 60 votes.

“If we try to clean up the air and become energy independent, we will create more jobs than anything I can do as a senator.”

There are still a few dozen meetings to have before this becomes a full bill, ready to be scored and sent to the floor. However, as we are saying out here, that means it is our time to shine.

Our work steps to another level of importance right now. We have to convince members that this is a good issue, an important issue and an urgent issue. It seems as if the train is leaving the station in the Senate, finally. Now we have to make sure all of the tracks are down.