TW: Any joint Lindsey Graham/John Kerry article was bound to get attention. But the article speaks to the compromises necessary to achieve significant bi-partisan climate change legislation. Their piece called for more nuclear power (good idea), more off-shore drilling (mediocre idea but if that floats conservative boats so be it, I can think of far worse alternatives) and potential carbon import taxes (dubious but not non-sensical idea). I think Graham is a sleeper for POTUS in '16, he is very much a conservative but not blind to actually trying to govern in conjunction with Dems. More importantly if there were more joint editorials like this one many other issues could be tackled more effectively.
From Economist Mag:
"MANY commentators fear that Barack Obama’s plans for a cap-and-trade bill have got fatally stuck in the Senate. Their calculations were shaken up over the weekend when Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, joined John Kerry, a liberal Massachusetts Democrat, to write an article headlined “Yes We Can (Pass Climate Change Legislation)” in the New York Times.
...The part most likely to bring a few extra Republicans on board concerns nuclear power. The two call for streamlining regulations on new plant construction, and putting more money into research on handling waste. This sop to nuclear power is more likely than anything else to bring on board John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee and a strong nuclear supporter. Green Democrats are wary of nuclear, but the edge of their worry has been dulled by the even greater worry over climate change...
The second main provision of the Kerry-Graham agreement is renewed offshore drilling for oil and gas. Many conservatives want to mitigate America’s energy-security problems by looking to domestic fossil fuels. This has nothing to do with reducing carbon emissions, but it might help a bill that does contain carbon caps to pass.
The third announcement from Senators Kerry and Graham is that “we should consider a border tax” on goods from countries with lax environmental standards. This will cause righteous howls from the big developing countries, especially China and India, which note America’s historical responsibility for the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. If included in the final bill, it would make a deal at the climate summit in Copenhagen in December more difficult. But the weasel-word “should consider” may eventually mean giving the president a lot of discretion on whether to levy such “carbon tariffs”. In other words, a classic fudge.
...The maths is still daunting. But the leap by Mr Graham, who voted against two earlier cap-and-trade bills, may well mean something."
(Note Economist magazine but not blog articles are now behind a paywall)
http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14652475
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