**Uniqueness- Will Pass**
Energy reform will pass- bipartisan support emerged from oil spill
Sabochik June 29th ( Katelyn, New Media Director at the Department of the Interior,The White House Blog, http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/29/next-steps-comprehensive-energy-reform , 6-29-10) ET
Today, President Obama met with a bipartisan group of Senators to discuss the need for comprehensive energy and climate legislation. Carol Browner, Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change, sent this email to the White House email list after the meeting. If you didn't get today's email from Carol Browner, you can sign up for the White House email list here. Yesterday I returned from my fifth trip to the Gulf Coast region since the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig burned into the sea and left the worst oil spill this country has ever seen in its wake. A team of Administration officials met with Governors, mayors, parish presidents and other local officials from four states and reiterated President Obama's promise to the people of the Gulf Coast region: We will not be satisfied until the leak is stopped, the oil in the Gulf is cleaned up, and the livelihoods of the people in the Gulf Coast region have been fully restored. There's another important message for every American: The disaster in the Gulf is a wake-up call that we need a new strategy for a clean energy future, including passing comprehensive energy and climate legislation. A lot of Americans are asking what this comprehensive energy reform will look like and whether we can really move towards a clean energy future. This afternoon at 4 p.m. EDT, Heather Zichal, Deputy Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change, will host a live chat on WhiteHouse.gov to talk about this issue:
Energy reform has bipartisan political support but Obama needs political capital to overcome small opposition
Weiss and Lyon 1/28 [Daniel J, Senior Fellow and the Director of Climate Strategy at American Progress Susan, Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change Policy Carol Browner, 2010, http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/01/sotu_energy.html] KLS
Clean-energy reform has united many Democrats and some Republicans, progressives and conservatives, blue states and red states. A poll released last week by Republican pollster Frank Luntz found that 43 percent of Republicans “definitely” or “probably” “believe climate change is caused at least in part by humans.” Another poll out last week by Joel Benenson, President Obama’s 2008 pollster, found that 58 percent of likely 2010 voters support comprehensive global warming legislation as well. Respondents also said they were much more likely to vote for senators who supported such legislation and more likely to oppose those that do not. These two polls and others are evidence that Americans across the political spectrum want clean-energy and global warming legislation.
UQ- Will Pass- Brink- Obama
Energy legislation is on the brink- only obama pushing it will ensure it passes
Sohn July 2nd (Darren, Politico, http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39309_Page2.html , 7-2-10) ET
Climate and energy legislation is expected to hit the Senate floor when lawmakers return from their July 4 recess. But it’s going to have to find its way out of no man’s land first. President Barack Obama and Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada — the Democrats holding the reins of the bill — have not given clear public signals of what they want in the measure beyond making broad-brush calls for a “comprehensive” package that caps greenhouse gases and reduces U.S. dependence on foreign oil. Lawmakers say the silence from the top is making their job harder. “We can’t really negotiate pieces because we don’t know where it starts yet,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). “We don’t know what the vehicle is going to be.” “It’s not that nothing is happening on Capitol Hill,” said Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change and a former Clinton administration climate official. “There’s some work going on here. But not a lot is happening because no one knows which direction to go.” Obama, Reid and Vice President Joe Biden met in the Oval Office on Thursday to discuss their legislative strategy for the rest of the year, from energy to the upcoming confirmation vote on Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan. But as he returned to the Capitol, Reid told POLITICO that no decisions came out of the meeting on the shape of the climate legislation or the contours of the floor debate. “We’re still thinking about it,” Reid said. “We have no set plans.” Speaking to reporters just before the Reid meeting, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the president wants the Senate to pass a broad climate bill after the July 4 recess. “We think that’s the right thing to do,” he said, adding that “putting a price on carbon has to be part of our comprehensive energy reform.” But even with Gibbs’s remarks, environmental groups are antsy as they see what might be their last, best chance for capping greenhouse gases slipping away — with little they can do but pressure the president whom they helped elect. “Without his leadership, then everything he’s done so far will lead to nothing,” said Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, who cited Obama’s work to date setting climate-friendly rules for motor vehicles, as well as his all-night negotiations last December at U.N. climate negotiations in Copenhagen.
Energy legislation will pass- only with obama support
Sohn July 2nd (Darren, Politico, http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39309_Page2.html , 7-2-10) ET
Krupp said Obama needs to get into the details of a climate bill and fast. “For all the good things he’s done, which we acknowledge, he’s now got to roll up his sleeves and do the drafting of the bill.” Some activists are privately planning for failure. They doubt Obama and Reid can muster 60 votes for the sweeping, economywide legislation the president campaigned on. And they expect the Senate next month to move forward on “energy-only” legislation that would focus on a new national renewable electricity standard and measures related to the BP spill. Even some longtime
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