Sierra Club’s Pierce Weighs Chances of Energy Bill Passage Next Year

In an interview with The Washington Independent, Sierra Club Deputy National Campaign Director Melinda Pierce said prospects for passage of significant energy legislation in the lame-duck session or next year are unclear.

On the lame-duck session, Pierce said: “It can either all collapse and they’re in and out of here very quickly based on the political paralysis or there are a few things that have a glimmer, a glow of life left.”

Pierce said the renewable energy standard proposed by Sens. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and Sam Brownback (R-Kans.) has a chance of passing, though she notes that the introduction of a competing bill that would expand the mandate to include nuclear and coal with carbon capture and storage technology could pose a problem for the fate of the Bingaman bill.

Of the competing bill, authored by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Pierce said:

Once Graham raised that specter, it offered a bit of a way out for people who were sort of on the fence like a Landieu or a Nelson who we probably could have gotten on a stand-alone bill.