This morning, President Barack Obama is meeting at the White House with “a bipartisan group of senators to discuss passing comprehensive energy and climate legislation this year.” The 23 attendees include severalclimate peacocks, but not Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who said last year that “the green economy is coming,” and told administration officials in May, “I’m in this to win.”
Graham has chosen instead to attend the hearings for Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan and for Gen. David Petraeus, where he can continue to talk before the cameras. The other notable non-attendee is Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), yet another indication that the Republican caucus will pursue the same strategy of obstruction they followed with the stimulus, health care, and financial reform.
The “climate peacocks” — senators who tried to block the EPA from acting on greenhouse pollution because they claim it’s Congress’s job — attending today’s White House meeting are:
Lamar Alexander (R-TN)The other sixteen attendees include Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and key actors on climate and energy, including the chairs of the energy, environment, foreign relations, and finance committees:
Susan Collins (R-ME)
Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Agriculture Chair
Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Commerce Chair
Olympia Snowe (R-ME)
George Voinovich (R-OH)
Harry Reid (D-NV)Strikingly, the only Gulf Coast senators attending the White House meeting on day 70 of the greatest oil catastrophe in United States history are the two Democrats from the region, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) and Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA).
Max Baucus (D-MT), Finance Chair
Mark Begich (D-AK)
Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Energy Chair
Barbara Boxer (D-CA) , Environment and Public Works Chair
Sherrod Brown (D-OH)
Maria Cantwell (D-WA)
Tom Carper (D-DE)
Byron Dorgan (D-ND)
Judd Gregg (R-NH)
John Kerry (D-MA), Foreign Relations Chair
Joe Lieberman (I-CT)
Richard Lugar (R-IN)
Jeff Merkley (D-OR)
Bill Nelson (D-FL)
Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)
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