The Blue Green Alliance — which includes among its membership the United Steelworkers, the United Autoworkers and the Union of Concerned Scientists — said passage of an RES is an essential step in creating new jobs and encouraging the development of clean energy technology. The group also called for passage of a number of other energy-related provisions during the lame duck including legislation to better protect mine and oil rig workers, provide incentives for home and building efficiency and expand energy manufacturing tax credits.

But prospects for passage of energy-related legislation during the lame-duck session are slim, as I reported today in our lame duck preview. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) talked last week about moving a renewable energy standard during the lame-duck session. But according to a senior Senate aide with knowledge of the conversation, it appears that Reid decided there isn’t enough support to do so.

Still, United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard said the alliance will push for passage of an RES and other energy provisions in the lame duck despite the potential uphill climb. “I don’t intend, as the leader of the steelworkers union, to take the path of least resistance,” he said on a call with reporters today. “I intend to take the path of the most jobs.”

And, in an apparent reference to Rep. John Shimkus’ (R-Ill.) comments about the Bible and climate change, Gerard added:

I don’t believe God’s going to step in and save global warming. I think we’ve got to step in and do something about it.

Update: Here’s a copy of the Blue Green Alliance’s seven “best job-creating policies” to pass in the lame-duck session.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) talked last week about moving a renewable energy standard during the lame-duck session. But according to a senior Senate aide with knowledge of the conversation, it appears that Reid decided there isn’t enough support to do so.

From the story:

Backers of a renewable energy standard, which would require that a certain percentage of the country’s electricity come from renewable sources like wind and solar, are keeping their fingers crossed that such a proposal can move in the lame-duck session. “We’re optimistic about the lame duck,” said one RES proponent who was not authorized to talk on the record.

Reid and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) spoke on the phone Tuesday about the possibility of moving an RES during the lame duck. Bingaman’s spokesman, Bill Wicker, would not discuss the call. “This was a private conversation between two Members, so I have to respect that,” he said in an email. “But we all should know more about the lame duck before much longer.”

But a senior Senate aide with knowledge of the conversation downplayed the possibility that an RES would be brought up for a vote during the lame-duck session. “They had a good conversation and agreed it will be challenging to get 60 votes for expedited consideration of an RES during the limited time left in the session,” the aide said of discussion between Reid and Bingaman. Indeed, RES supporters would need to secure the support of two to four Republicans in addition to the four who already support the bill in order to get 60 votes.

The lame-duck session could be the last chance for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to pass a number of bills. (Pete Marovich/ZUMApress.com)

The midterm hangover having finally worn off, the 111th Congress returns today to kick off the lame-duck session, its last hurrah before its successor takes over. And the 112th Congress will look radically different, with Republicans in control of the House and the Democratic majority in the Senate significantly reduced. These next few weeks, then, could be the last chance for major Democratic initiatives. But the hurdles are high, and Republicans see no reason to grant Democrats any victories after the populace voiced its discontent with the policies of the past two years.

[Congress1] The battle lines are drawn; here are the fields on which they’ll be fought:

Bush tax cuts:

The biggest question before the Senate — and the one that will likely receive the most attention — is the expiration of the 2001 tax cuts signed into law by President Bush. Facing Democratic resistance in the Senate at the time, Republicans set up the cuts to sunset after ten years. Now that they’re set to expire, however, GOP lawmakers have lined up shoulder to shoulder to make them permanent.

President Obama, on the other hand, ran for office on a pledge to extend the existing tax rates for families making less than $250,000 a year, while letting the tax cuts for those making over that number expire. But as the economy continued to falter and Democratic re-election prospects began looking bleak, Democrats in Congress put off addressing issues related to the tax code until after the midterm elections. Now that Republicans have made big gains in both chambers of Congress, Democrats find their confidence further weakened.

Following the midterms, the White House has signalled that Democrats might be willing to compromise on the idea of a permanent extension of tax cuts for middle-class families and a temporary extension of cuts for the two percent of Americans families making more than $250,000, but it won’t stomach the approximately $700 billion in additional debt that would be required to extend those cuts permanently. Republicans, on the other hand, haven’t deviated from their position that the tax cuts for all Americans be kept together as a package deal.

If neither side blinks, taxes are set to rise for all Americans effective January 1. Neither party wants to be seen as responsible for a tax hike during difficult economic times, but Democrats have appeared far more worried at the prospect of getting blamed should negotiations break down. Polls favor the Democrats’ position that the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans should be allowed to expire, but without the votes of at least two Republicans in the Senate, the proposal is likely to fail. Barring momentum in Congress for the creation of a new tax bracket — for people making half a million dollars or a million dollars per year — in order to better rhetorically define the class of folks for whom Republicans are advocating tax relief, the easiest and most likely outcome will be a bill that temporarily extends all the tax cuts, simply kicking the decision of what to do to some point farther down the road.

Unemployment insurance benefits

As Congress frets over whether the marginal tax rate for incomes over $200,000 should be raised three percentage points, the Senate is also on the verge of allowing federal unemployment benefits to lapse — again. Extending the benefits before they expire on November 30 might seem like a no-brainer: It would prevent somewhere between 1.2 and 2 million unemployed Americans from having their subsistence checks cut off just in time for Christmas and would reduce the risk of a drop in consumer spending and economic growth as high as 0.4 percentage points from December to February.

Republicans might have trouble arguing that deficit reduction trumps other priorities, including unemployment benefits, when the only major initiative the GOP is pushing — extending the Bush tax cuts for the upper 2 percent of wage earners — would increase the deficit by $700 billion over ten years. That said, Republicans in the Senate, along with Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), are likely to vote against any extension of unemployment insurance benefits unless Democrats can come up with ways to offset their cost.

The last time unemployment benefits were set to lapse, back in early June, the Senate was unable to muster enough votes to renew an extension for 51 days. With Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine joining Democrats to vote for cloture, and Nelson joining with Republicans to vote against debate, Democrats had no choice but to wait for Sen. Carte Goodwin (D-W.Va.) to be sworn in as a replacement for the late Sen. Robert Byrd (D- W.Va.) in order to garner a 60th vote.

This time, assuming all the senators maintain their positions in the debate, the hurdle will be that much higher for Democrats after Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) takes the seat of Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.) on Nov. 29. With one fewer assured vote, Democrats would either have to come up with a package of equivalent spending cuts that satisfies Republicans’ demands or persuade one more Republican to join their cause. Neither scenario appears particularly likely, however, which is why many unemployed Americans are bracing for the worst come Nov. 30.

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

A long-awaited Pentagon study on ending the practice of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the 17-year-old law that requires military service members to keep their sexual orientation secret, isn’t due to President Obama until December 1, but early media reports indicate that it will buttress gay rights advocates’ arguments to repeal the law. More than 70 percent of the respondents in the Pentagon survey indicated that repeal would have either positive, mixed or nonexistent effects, leading the authors to conclude that the military can lift its ban on gay and lesbian Americans serving openly in uniform while incurring minimal risk in its current war efforts.

If the study brings good news to those hoping to repeal the law, however, the current situation in the Senate should not. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) attempted to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” before the midterm elections, tacking the provision onto a defense reauthorization bill that failed to overcome a Republican-led filibuster in the Senate. The bill was weighed down by many add-ons — including the DREAM Act, which seeks to extend a path to citizenship to some undocumented immigrants who attend college or serve in the military — giving too many senators excuses to vote against it, but advocates remained hopeful that repeal could pass along with the defense bill when Congress resumed for its lame-duck session.

Now Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, is said to be negotiating with Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the committee chairman, to remove the DADT repeal provision from the defense bill. McCain had previously voiced openness to authorizing a repeal of the law following the Pentagon’s review, but since that time his views have hardened. During his re-election battle earlier this year, McCain faced a primary challenger from the right and promised during his campaign to preserve the law.

In the absence of support from McCain, advocacy groups have identified 10 senators who have indicated in the past that they’d like to see the Pentagon’s study before deciding on whether to lift the military’s policy. The list includes Sens. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), Oympia Snowe (R-Maine), George Voinovich (R-Ohio) and Jim Webb (D-Va.). Once the results of the study are known, gay rights groups hope these senators will take them to heart and vote for repeal. If they follow McCain’s lead and renege on their previous openness to getting rid of the law, however, it may be a long time before Congress can muster sufficient votes to repeal the policy.

Campaign finance reform

Following an election season that saw record amounts of cash — including a fair chunk from undisclosed sources — spent on political advertising by outside groups, campaign finance reform advocates are still hoping that Democrats in Congress might take advantage of their remaining time in charge of both chambers to pass legislation to shore up the loophole-ridden landscape of campaign finance law. The most popular effort, by far, during the last year has been a bill called the DISCLOSE Act, which would require all groups spending money on electioneering activities in future elections to disclose their major donors.

While premised on a fairly bipartisan concept of full disclosure, the bill soon ran into trouble in the Senate over additional components that had been added on to it. Measures to prohibit campaign spending by companies holding government contracts or those exceeding a certain threshold of foreign ownership were read by Senate Republicans as an attempt to privilege union speech over that of corporations. Traditional campaign finance reform advocates like Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) held onto such objections and voted against cloture for the bill when Democrats declined to take them out.

Now Democrats in the Senate are contemplating one last attempt to pass a stripped-down version of the DISCLOSE Act — one that sticks strictly to the principle of transparency that Republicans once advocated as their gold standard for effective campaign finance legislation. But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), a staunch opponent of nearly all campaign finance legislation, might prove an even bigger obstacle to the bill’s passage than any single aspect of the legislation. While Snowe or Collins, or even Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) or Senator-elect Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), might prove receptive to the measure in principle, it appears highly unlikely that any of them are willing to buck their party leadership for the cause.

Energy/environment

Even if the lame-duck session likely represents the best opportunity for Democrats to pass key pieces of energy legislation before a more Republican Congress comes to town, it seems unlikely that anything significant will move.

The House, for its part, has already passed a cap-and-trade bill and an oil spill response bill, and all eyes are now on the Senate. But it looks like major energy action in the chamber will have to wait until next year, if it happens at all.

One clean energy advocate with close ties to Congress downplayed the likelihood that energy legislation will pass during the lame duck. “Little will happen, probably,” he said.

The only energy-related bill that is likely to see the light of day during the lame-duck session is a proposal to encourage the production of electric and natural gas vehicles. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has scheduled a cloture vote for Wednesday on the bill, the Promoting Natural Gas and Electric Vehicles Act of 2010. The bill has bipartisan support.

Asked about the prospects for energy legislation during the lame duck in the Senate, Regan Lachapelle, a spokeswoman for Reid, said, “We filed cloture on a motion to proceed to a natural gas bill before we left. Other than that, we have many items that are possible for consideration during the lame duck.” Lachapelle did not elaborate on the pieces of legislation to which she was referring.

Backers of a renewable energy standard, which would require that a certain percentage of the country’s electricity come from renewable sources like wind and solar, are keeping their fingers crossed that such a proposal can move in the lame-duck session. “We’re optimistic about the lame duck,” said one RES proponent who was not authorized to talk on the record.

Reid and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) spoke on the phone Tuesday about the possibility of moving an RES during the lame duck. Bingaman’s spokesman, Bill Wicker, would not discuss the call. “This was a private conversation between two Members, so I have to respect that,” he said in an email. “But we all should know more about the lame duck before much longer.”

But a senior Senate aide with knowledge of the conversation downplayed the possibility that an RES would be brought up for a vote during the lame-duck session. “They had a good conversation and agreed it will be challenging to get 60 votes for expedited consideration of an RES during the limited time left in the session,” the aide said of discussion between Reid and Bingaman. Indeed, RES supporters would need to secure the support of two to four Republicans in addition to the four who already support the bill in order to get 60 votes.

An oil spill response bill and various pieces of legislation to promote energy efficiency and home weatherization are all pending in the Senate. But it looks like consideration of those bills will have to wait until next year.

DREAM Act

Reid and Pelosi have vowed to push for a lame-duck vote on the DREAM Act, a bill that would allow some undocumented young people who came to the United States as children to gain legal status for attending college or serving in the military.

In the House, the vote could come as early as this week, Democrat sources told Politico. Reps. George Miller (D-Calif.) and Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) were reportedly tasked by Pelosi with determining whether the caucus would be able to pass the bill.

If the act does not pass in the lame-duck session, it has very little chance of passage before 2013. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who is expected to head the House subcommittee on immigration, refers to the DREAM Act as “amnesty” and promised he would use his authority in the GOP-led House to block the act. GOP gains in the Senate also lessen the likelihood of passing the bill next session.

Reid recently said he would need support from “a handful of Republicans” to pass the bill during the lame duck, echoing estimates by bill sponsor Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) that at least five Republicans would need to support the bill for it to pass. A spokesman for Reid confirmed last week that he plans to bring up the DREAM Act for a vote during the lame-duck session, although it is still unclear whether it would be as a standalone measure or as an attachment to another bill.

The problem is that Reid doesn’t have much time — or sure support for the DREAM Act from his caucus. The act last came up for a vote in 2007, and seven of the eight Democrats who voted against it then are still in the Senate. While a few might support the bill this time around, five told The Hill in September they are still undecided on the DREAM Act.

Complicating matters, Mark Kirk’s assumption of Roland Burris’ seat in the Senate turns a sure “yes” vote into a likely “no.” Kirk has been lobbied heavily by DREAM Act supporters, but said before the election that he would vote against the act unless border security measures were pushed first. “It’s not time for the DREAM Act right now,” he told reporters in October. “If the DREAM Act came up for a vote right now, I would vote ‘no.’”

All current Republican senators voted in September to filibuster the defense authorization bill after Reid announced plans to attach the DREAM Act. But given the additional controversy over that bill — it included a repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and would have allowed for only limited changes from Republicans — it’s tough to extrapolate much from it about how senators would vote on the DREAM Act as a standalone bill.

Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah) said he would support the bill if it were brought to the floor on its own, even though he opposed it as part of the defense authorization bill. Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), who co-sponsored the bill, would also almost certainly vote for it if it comes up in the lame-duck session.

Several other Republicans voted for the DREAM Act in 2007, but their support this year remains uncertain because of rightward shifts on immigration policy and the possibility of the bill again being attached to other legislation. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) was an original sponsor of the bill when it was first introduced in 2001 and voted for it in 2007. This year, he said the government should secure the borders before it focuses on the DREAM Act.

Written by Jesse Zwick, Andrew Restuccia and Elise Foley.

Even as many politicians, environmentalists and consumers want renewable energy and reduced dependence on fossil fuels, a growing number of projects are being canceled or delayed because governments are unwilling to add even small amounts to consumers’ electricity bills.

The reason these projects are being canceled is twofold. First, renewable energy (wind, solar, etc.) currently costs more than traditional energy sources like coal and natural gas. Second, the United States has created uncertainty among investors by neglecting to pass policies at the federal level that incentivize renewable energy use.

The Times has a nice example of the problem lower down in the story:

In April, for example, the state public utilities commission in Rhode Island rejected a power-purchase deal for an offshore wind project that would have cost 24.4 cents a kilowatt-hour. The utility now pays about 9.5 cents a kilowatt hour for electricity from fossil fuels.

The state legislature responded by passing a bill allowing the regulators to consider factors other than price. The commission then approved an agreement to buy electricity from a smaller wind farm, although that decision is being challenged in the courts.

In the example, the cost differential between fossil fuels and offshore wind is staggering. But because cost is not the only factor involved in these decisions (others include public health and welfare), the state legislature passed a bill to broaden the discussion beyond the price issue.

Passing such legislation has proven difficult at the federal level. As it stands now, states offer a patchwork of regulations, but uncertainty abounds without federal rules. This drives investment to China.

The Times said:

In its most recent quarterly assessment of the renewable energy sector, the accounting and consulting firm Ernst & Young identified China as the most attractive market for investment in renewable energy.

Well, I think I’ve been willing to compromise in the past and I’m going to be willing to compromise going forward on a whole range of issues.  Let me give you an example — the issue of energy that I just mentioned. I think there are a lot of Republicans that ran against the energy bill that passed in the House last year. And so it’s doubtful that you could get the votes to pass that through the House this year or next year or the year after.  But that doesn’t mean there isn’t agreement that we should have a better energy policy. And so let’s find those areas where we can agree.

Obama specifically mentioned a number of broad issues where he believes Democrats and Republicans can find consensus, including expanding the use of natural gas resources, incentivizing electric vehicles and developing a more robust nuclear power industry.

Obama continued:

Let’s go ahead and start making some progress on the things that we do agree on, and we can continue to have a strong and healthy debate about those areas where we don’t.

In that spirit, I thought I’d outline some of the policy proposals that could get bipartisan support in Congress.

At a press conference with environmentalists today, I asked Anna Aurilio, director of the Washington office of Environment America, what she thought could pass next Congress. She mentioned a renewable energy standard, which would require a certain percentage of the country’s electricity to come from renewable sources like wind and solar. Sens. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and Sam Brownback (R-Kans.) introduced an RES in late September. The bill gained a number of Republican co-sponsors, and proponents are convinced it can pass the Senate.

But Republican gains in the Senate could mean a renewed push to add nuclear power and so-called clean coal into the mix. Aurilio said that environmentalists are “concerned” about that potential scenario and stressed that coal and nuclear are outside the bounds of an RES.

Other possible bipartisan proposals include the Homestar bill, which would give consumers incentives to make their homes more efficient; a proposal on appliance efficiency; a bill to extend a Treasury grant program for renewables; and a bill to establish a land and water conservation fund.

Asked about the oil spill response bill — which was passed by the House, but was never passed in the Senate — Aurilio said simply, “It needs to happen.” League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski, asked by TWI about the oil spill response bill, said, “It should have already passed,” and acknowledged that it will be difficult to pass such a bill in the lame-duck session. While the prospects for passage in the next Congress are also unclear, Karpinski said the results of the national oil spill commission’s investigation may provide an incentive to move the bill forward.

For more on energy bills that could pass next Congress, see this piece by Dan Weiss, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

It was mostly bad news for House Democrats who voted for the chamber’s cap-and-trade bill. The two most stinging defeats were Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), who worked furiously behind the scenes to secure benefits for his coal-dependent state in the bill before finally giving his “yes” vote, and Rep. Tom Perriello (D-Va.), who became somewhat of a celebrity on the left for standing by the more liberal wing of his party on a number of key votes, including cap-and-trade. Boucher, from Virginia’s 9th district, lost to his Republican opponent, Morgan Griffith, and Perriello, despite a big last-minute push by environmentalists and President Obama himself, lost to state Sen. Robert Hurt (R).

Politico ran the numbers this morning. At least 12 freshman Democrats who voted for the cap-and-trade bill lost their re-election bids, while at least seven (I noted Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) last night) won, with some races still too close to call. In total, Politico notes, more than 30 Democrats who voted for the House climate bill fell to their Republican opponents last night.

In the West Virginia Senate race, Gov. Joe Manchin, a Democrat, managed to eke out a victory over Republican John Raese. While Democrats can technically put Manchin in their column, he campaigned against nearly every significant Obama administration policy, including cap-and-trade. In one now-infamous ad, he shot the House climate bill with a shotgun.

But there was some good news for environmentalists last night. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, won her reelection bid against Carly Fiorina. Boxer has always been a strong advocate for environmental protections, but her job is likely to get harder in the next Congress. She has already been accused of unwillingness to reach across the aisle, but with more Republicans in the Senate, she’ll have no choice if she wants to pass energy and climate bills.

At the same time, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) survived a tough race against Tea Party darling Sharron Angle. The big question going forward now is what will Reid do on energy and climate legislation next Congress. By now, it’s common knowledge that it will be next to impossible to pass comprehensive climate legislation in the next two years. So it seems Reid will focus on a series of low-hanging-fruit provisions that are popular on both sides of the aisle, including bills to incentivize electric vehicles, improve energy efficiency and weatherize homes.

The fate of two big-ticket items for environmentalists — a renewable energy standard and a much-delayed oil spill response bill — remains unclear. While there’s still time in the lame-duck session to try to pass both provisions, Republicans have more incentive to block the bills until next Congress, as they’ll have more sway later. There is Republican support for an RES, which would require that a certain percentage of the country’s electricity come from renewable sources like wind and solar, but GOP gains in the Senate could make it more likely that Republicans will push to add nuclear power and coal with carbon capture technology to the mix, a nightmare scenario for environmentalists.

It’s even less clear what will happen with the oil spill response bill. More than six months after the massive Gulf oil spill, Congress has yet to pass significant legislation to overhaul offshore drilling (on the regulatory side, the Interior Department has issued its own new drilling rules). A number of contentious issues, like how liable an oil company is for damages from a spill, are sure to take on new significance now that more Republicans are in the Senate.

In other key midterm results, Proposition 23, a California ballot initiative that would suspend the state’s landmark climate change law, failed. It’s a huge win for environmentalists, who funneled millions of dollars into the “No on Prop 23″ campaign, pitting themselves against two Texas oil refiners that campaigned heavily for passage of the initiative. California’s climate law is viewed by environmentalists as the gold standard. Passage of the ballot initiative would have been the icing on the cake of a disappointing year for climate activists.

At the same time, it looks like another California ballot initiative, Proposition 26, will pass. The measure would require a two-thirds majority vote in the state legislature and in local government bodies to impose new fees on industry. Environmentalists say the proposition will make it more difficult to implement key environmental rules, including parts of the state’s climate law. In the last days of midterm election campaigning, as it became clear that Prop 23 would fail, activists’ attention shifted to Prop 26. But it was apparently too late to make a significant difference at the polls.

It’s also worth noting that the powerful House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar (D-Minn.) was defeated last night. Obsertar worked for years to reform pipeline safety and was in the process of developing new legislation to do so in the aftermath of a massive oil pipeline spill in Michigan and a natural gas pipeline explosion in California.

Two other key Senate races remain too close to call this morning. In the Colorado Senate race, Sen. Michael Bennet (D) and Republican Ken Buck are still neck and neck. As I noted yesterday in my midterm preview, the League of Conservation Voters and the Sierra Club have trashed Buck in ads, highlighting his comments questioning whether climate change is man-made. Environmentalists have made Buck the poster child of Republican climate skeptics running this cycle. For his part, Buck’s spokesman said his official position is this: “Ken believes climate change is occurring, but that it’s natural more than man-made.”

Bennet does not support the House version of cap-and-trade, but his campaign said recently that he would support a “well-thought-out, market-based bill.” Buck’s campaign jumped on the comments, saying Bennet’s position on the issue is unclear.

Don’t hold your breath for results of the Alaska Senate race between incumbent and write-in candidate Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R), Tea Party favorite Joe Miller (R) and Democrat Scott McAdams. Murkowski appears to be winning, according to early results. Murkowski is the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Though she has opposed cap-and-trade bills in the past, she has a history of working closely with Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), the panel’s chairman, on key energy bills, including the comprehensive energy bill they passed in 2009.

The numbers, reported by the American Wind Energy Association, indicate that the third quarter of 2010 was the worst since 2007 for the industry. In total this year, the industry has installed 1,634 megawatts of electric generating capacity, the lowest since 2006.

At the same time, the numbers show that coal outstripped wind in new installed capacity this year. According to an AWEA statement:

Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration and other third-party sources show that wind accounted for 39 percent of new installed capacity in 2009, versus 13 percent from coal; in the first nine months of 2010, however, the ratio flipped, and wind accounted for only 14 percent, versus 39 percent from coal.

AWEA President Densie Bode called on Congress to pass a renewable energy standard, which would require that a certain percentage of the country’s electricity come from renewable sources like wind and solar. Though an RES has picked up a number of Republican supporters in the last month, it’s unclear when such a proposal will come up for a vote in the Senate.

Here’s an graph from the report that sums things up nicely:

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.

In an interview today, Marchant Wentworth, legislative representative at the Union of Concerned Scientists, echoed much of what I wrote.

“A lot of us are looking at the lame duck and we would see this as one of our last big chances to move a lot of this stuff,” Wentworth says. He adds that Republican gains in the Senate or House could reduce the chances of Republicans cooperating on legislation even in the lame duck. “If the Republicans take over the house, some folks believe that that would reduce any sort of impetus to deal in anything,” Wentworth says.

Wentworth says the only things that have a chance to come up for a vote in the lame duck are bills that can get 60 votes. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), he said, does not want to try to pass controversial bills in November. “The general answer we get from Bingaman and others is that they will proceed on things that appear to have the greatest amount of support,” Wentworth says. “If you can demonstrate 60 votes, it increases the likelihood of it happening.”

The renewable energy standard proposal introduced by Sens. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and Sam Brownback (R-Kans.) has enough support to pass, Wentworth argues. The bill currently has 33 co-sponsors, including four Republicans. Wentworth says he is in discussion with other lawmakers to support the bill. “As it looks now, it looks that there’s enough interested to get past 60,” he says.

Wentworth also downplays the impact of a “clean energy standard” proposal being circulated by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). The bill would allow nuclear and coal with carbon capture and storage technology to count toward the standard. “I don’t think it’s going to pull support away,” Wentworth says. “Some of the people looking at Graham are people that wouldn’t necessarily be a ‘yes’ vote on an RES.”

Wentworth took some comfort in President Obama’s announcement that he will push for comprehensive energy legislation in 2011. He notes that passing energy bills in “chunks,” as Obama said, is probably the best way to make progress. But Wentworth says there’s little chance a cap-and-trade bill can pass next year. “I don’t think so,” he says when asked about it. “That’s our sense right now.”

Graham’s “clean energy standard” is a potential threat to the support that Sens. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and Sam Brownback (R-Kans.) have garnered for their renewable energy standard legislation, which would require that a certain percentage of the country’s electricity come only from renewable sources like solar and wind. Republicans have long called for including nuclear and coal with CCS in the standard, but environmentalists and many liberal Democrats have bristled at the idea.

A summary of Graham’s proposal from his office says that the Bingaman-Brownback bill  ”short changes nuclear power.” Graham’s proposal, the summary says, will “lead to a renaissance in nuclear power.”

Graham continues:

When it comes to clean energy I have an ‘all of the above’ approach.  I believe the CES I have introduced will reinvigorate our nation’s nuclear energy sector, create jobs, make us more energy independent, and produce a cleaner environment than other standards which have been discussed.

The standard can also be met through increased energy efficiency and retiring old coal-fired power plants. Wind, solar and ocean energy, like in the RES, are also eligible.

The proposal would require that 13 percent of the country’s electricity come from the sources by 2013 and 20 percent by 2020, ratcheting up by five percent every five years.