The Next President WILL support climate legislation

As the tag line of this blog says, if you are not at the table, you are on the menu. Now that Romney has dropped out of the race, its practically a done deal that McCain will be the Republican nominee.

This means that regardless of who wins the presidential election this year, THERE WILL BE CLIMATE LEGISLATION NEXT YEAR !! Check out the quote from someone who worked for Pres. Bush at the White House Council for Environmental Quality -- he's calling it a "certainty."

The time to make sure agriculture gets its carbon market out of this bill is NOW before all the deals are cut and the environmentalists manage to cut ag out of the picture altogether!!
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Environment & Energy Daily

CAMPAIGN 2008: Climate debate shifts as Romney ends White House bid (02/07/2008)

Darren Samuelsohn, E&ENews PM senior reporter

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney suspended his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination today, a move that all but guarantees the 2008 general election will feature major party candidates who agree on the need for mandatory limits on emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases.

Romney's withdrawal cements Arizona Sen. John McCain as his party's front-runner. During the primary campaign, McCain repeatedly came under attack from Romney over his long-standing position in support of legislation to establish a cap-and-trade system for curbing greenhouse gases.

Appearing at the Conservative Political Action Committee's annual conference in Washington, Romney said the need for unity among Republicans led him to leave the presidential race.

"If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I'd forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win," he said, referring to the two leading Democratic candidates, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

McCain spoke two hours later. Without mentioning his position on global warming, which has been unpopular with conservative Republicans, the four-term senator acknowledged his stance on many issues has often put him out of step with his party's core constitutency.

"It is my sincere hope that even if you believe I have occasionally erred in my reasoning as a fellow conservative, you will still allow that I have, in many ways important to all of us, maintained the record of a conservative," McCain said.

'With what conditions?'

McCain's emergence as the likely Republican nominee sets up an intriguing dynamic for the general election.

Robert Stavins, a Harvard economist who tracks climate issues, said the basic agreement among McCain and his Democratic opponent on global warming could push the topic to the back of the debate agenda.

"It's good news for policy, it may not be good news for the drama of politics," Stavins said.

Still others see McCain's success as another sign that the United States within the next three years will set a mandatory limit on greenhouse gases.

"I've long thought it was very likely that we would have a climate bill of some sort in 2009 or 2010," said Sam Thernstrom, a former spokesman at the White House Council on Environmental Quality who now works as a scholar on environmental issues at the American Enterprise Institute. "McCain's nomination now makes that almost a certainty."

Yet McCain and his climate change position still remains a question mark in some eyes as rank-and-file Republicans start to define his campaign.

"He was specific enough for a Republican primary to distinguish himself from the other Republicans in the race," said Tony Massaro, senior vice president for political affairs at the League of Conservation Voters. "But over time, he's going to have to spell out even more for this to be the kind of thing that really propels it forward in a landmark way."

National Mining Association spokesman Luke Popovich predicted the climate debate was far from over.

"It's fair to say all the candidates that appear to be in the running favor mandatory controls," Popovich said. "But the question is going to become, 'With what conditions?'"

Popovich added, "That's where I think logic and fact have to have the opportunity to carry the day here, so that in the end we have a president who understands the limitations of this rhetoric and now starts figuring out how we make controls consistent with common sense."

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Texas Rep. Ron Paul remain in the Republican presidential contest, but neither is expected to pose McCain with a significant challenge. Primary and caucus contests continue Saturday in Louisiana, Kansas and Washington state.