Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) abandoned his effort to push a climate and energy bill Saturday, saying he would continue only if Democratic leaders promise to relinquish plans to bring up immigration legislation first.

Graham’s departure likely dooms any chance of passing a climate bill this year. He is the sole Republican working with Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) on a compromise proposal that they had planned to unveil Monday.

In a letter to leaders of the effort to enact climate and energy legislation, Graham wrote, “I want to bring to your attention what appears to be a decision by the Obama Administration and Senate Democratic leadership to move immigration instead of energy. Unless their plan substantially changes this weekend, I will be unable to move forward on energy independence legislation at this time. I will not allow our hard work to be rolled out in a manner that has no chance of success.”

He added, “Moving forward on immigration — in this hurried, panicked manner — is nothing more than a cynical political ploy.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) declined to assure Graham on Saturday that he would put immigration behind energy in the legislative lineup, saying he “will not allow” Graham “to play one issue off of another, and neither will the American people.”

“As I have said, I am committed to trying to enact comprehensive clean energy legislation this session of Congress. Doing so will require strong bipartisan support and energy could be next if it’s ready,” Reid said in a statement. “I have also said we will try to pass comprehensive immigration reform. This too will require bipartisan support and significant committee work that has not yet begun.”

The White House also declined to indicate whether it would address Graham’s concerns, issuing a statement by climate and energy czar Carol Browner saying, “We believe the only way to make progress on these priorities is to continue working as we have thus far in a bipartisan manner to build more support for both comprehensive energy independence and immigration reform legislation.”

Browner praised the three senators for their work on a compromise, adding, “We’re determined to see it happen this year, and we encourage the senators to continue their important work on behalf of the country and not walk away from the progress that’s already been made.”

Graham told reporters Thursday he was outraged at the idea that Reid had raised the idea of bringing up immigration before an energy bill, especially since he and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) had spent weeks working on a bipartisan immigration measure and had not been alerted to the change in plans.

“Am I supposed to write every bill for the whole country?” Graham asked. “This comes out of left field.”

Graham made a similar threat during the health-care debate, but he did not abandon the climate negotiating process. This new ultimatum poses a more serious danger to the bill’s sponsors, however, because there is less time left before the fall election.

Bracewell & Giuliani lawyer Scott Segal, who represents coal-fired utilities and other industries that would face federal regulation under a climate bill, wrote in an e-mail that while the compromise proposal already faced the challenge of squeezing into a crowded legislative calendar, “It goes without saying: if Senator Graham uses immigration as a reason to depart from climate discussions, the chances that Senator Kerry can find the magic number of sixty senators to cut off debate and pass a large climate package diminishes significantly. Graham’s active participation over the last several months had been the only real basis for needed Republican outreach.”

The text of Graham’s letter is after the jump.

April 24, 2010

Dear XXX,

I want to bring to your attention what appears to be a decision by the Obama Administration and Senate Democratic leadership to move immigration instead of energy. Unless their plan substantially changes this weekend, I will be unable to move forward on energy independence legislation at this time. I will not allow our hard work to be rolled out in a manner that has no chance of success.

Recent press reports indicating that immigration — not energy — is their priority have not been repudiated. This has destroyed my confidence that there will be a serious commitment and focus to move energy legislation this year. All of the key players, particularly the Senate leadership, have to want this debate as much as we do. This is clearly not the case.

I am very disappointed with this turn of events and believe their decision flies in the face of commitments made weeks ago to Senators Kerry, Lieberman and me. I deeply regret that election year politics will impede, if not derail, our efforts to make our nation energy independent.

I truly appreciate Senators Kerry, Lieberman, and their staff for the long hours of work. They have been tremendous partners who have negotiated in good faith and stood ready to make the tough choices necessary to bring forward a comprehensive energy bill.

I continue to believe our nation’s reliance on ever-increasing amounts of foreign oil poses a direct threat to our national security and economic well-being. I know we can create thousands of jobs by pushing for a renaissance in nuclear power, expanded offshore drilling, and unleashing America’s innovative spirit. One only needs to look to China and Europe, where 21st Century clean energy jobs are currently being created while we fail to act.

Like you, I share the belief that becoming energy independent and better stewards of our environment are complementary — not competing — standards. I was greatly looking forward to the opportunity to address these issues on the floor of the U.S. Senate as we pushed energy independence legislation forward into law. But it appears President Obama and the Senate Democratic leadership have other more partisan, political objectives in mind.

Moving forward on immigration — in this hurried, panicked manner — is nothing more than a cynical political ploy. I know from my own personal experience the tremendous amounts of time, energy, and effort that must be devoted to this issue to make even limited progress.

In 2007, we spent hundreds of hours over many months with President Bush’s Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, and nearly every member of the U.S. Senate searching for a way to address our nation’s immigration problems. Unlike this current “effort,” it was a good-faith attempt to address a very difficult national issue.

Some of the major provisions we embraced in 2007 — such as creation of a Virtual Fence using cameras, motion detectors and other technological devices to protect our borders — have been scrapped for the time. Other issues we found agreement on at the time, such as a temporary guest worker program, have unraveled over the past three years.

Expecting these major issues to be addressed in three weeks — which appears to be their current plan based upon media reports — is ridiculous. It also demonstrates the raw political calculations at work here.

Let’s be clear, a phony, political effort on immigration today accomplishes nothing but making it exponentially more difficult to address in a serious, comprehensive manner in the future.

Again, I truly appreciate the tremendous amount of time you have committed to the effort to make our nation more energy independent. I look forward to continuing to work with you so that when the U.S. Senate finally decides to address this issue we will be prepared for battle and confident of a successful outcome in the effort to make our nation energy independent once and for all.

Lindsey O. Graham
United States Senator

In a great old episode of The West Wing, the president’s chief of staff, Leo McGarry, is schmoozing up a politician the White House wants to win over. After their chat, McGarry puts the ultimate power move on the pol: he casually ushers the dazzled man into the Oval Office, where the president is waiting to greet him like a dear friend.

The allure of the Oval Office drop-in isn’t lost on Rahm Emanuel, the real-life White House chief of staff. Not long after Barack Obama took office, Emanuel staged a McGarry maneuver of his own. Hoping to make good on his campaign promise of a kinder Washington, Obama was looking for influential Republicans he could team up with. There weren’t many obvious choices in the House. But there was one in the Senate: Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Emanuel invited Graham to the White House for a one-on-one about national-security issues (the senator is a former military prosecutor who sits on the Armed Services and Homeland Security committees). After their chat, Rahm ushered Graham into the Oval Office, where Obama was waiting to greet him like a dear friend.

Obama and Graham made small talk and joked about the president’s still-bare desk. Graham, a bachelor who lives on Coke Zero and Burger King, recalls telling Obama, “I can help you with detainee policy and world stuff, but don’t call me for decorating advice.”

Since then, Emanuel and Obama have invited Graham back several times. To the dismay (and sometimes outright anger) of his fellow Republicans, Graham has advised the president on how to handle touchy political issues, including closing Guantánamo Bay and bringing terror suspects to justice. Joe Biden invited him over for steaks at the vice president’s residence, where he asked Graham for help winning Republican support for the surge in Afghanistan. “We’re really going to need you, because we’re going to lose a lot of [Democratic votes],” Biden told him, according to Graham’s recollection of the meeting. Emanuel calls Graham “a worthy opponent and a valuable ally.”

The senator enjoys the attention, but he is not naive—he was one of the Republican revolutionaries who stole Congress from the Democrats in 1994, and he helped manage the impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton. And he is not dazzled by Obama’s charm. Neither does he have much interest in being the president’s best friend. During the 2008 campaign Graham was John McCain’s traveling companion, confidant, and occasional alter ego. He has excoriated Obama as an extreme liberal and accused him of “folding like a cheap suit” on immigration policy back in their Senate days together. Graham is pro–tax cut, pro-gun, pro-drilling, and anti-abortion. He opposes Obama’s health-care plan (and hasn’t offered to help on the issue). He was against the stimulus package and the jobs bill.

But he is also impatient with his own party leaders’ determination to thwart Obama at every turn instead of working with him to see that Republicans get some of what they want. A seasoned haggler who takes pride in the give-and-take of dealmaking, Graham sees no sense in the all-or-nothing ethos that now defines politics in Washington. “I’m trying to keep the tradition alive that you can fight for your causes and effectively engage with your colleagues,” Graham says. “I didn’t come here to talk about what I won’t do.”

Graham was the only Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee to vote in favor of confirming Sonia Sotomayor, Obama’s first Supreme Court nominee. He had grilled the judge about her temperament and disagreed sharply with many of her rulings, but in the end he said he couldn’t deny that she was qualified for the job. Most Republicans claim global warming is not an urgent threat. Hedging, Graham says he’s not sure, but thinks either way it’s common sense that pollution is a problem. He’s spent months working with Democrat John Kerry to find a way to reduce carbon emissions that both parties can live with. On immigration, Graham talks tough about securing the border to keep illegals out, but supports limited amnesty for those already here. It would be impossible, he says, to round up and deport 12 million people.

Sen. Lindsey Grahamnesty has been working for six months with Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on an “immigration reform” framework. Their plan, which hasn’t been introduced yet, includes a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants (a.k.a. “amnesty”) and proposes “tough new safeguards,” including a biometric national ID card for workers.

Graham and Schumer are meeting Thursday (3/11) at 3PM with Obama to discuss their plan.

WSJ: ID Card for Workers Is at Center of Immigration Plan
Politico: Graham to Obama: ‘Time to Step It Up’

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham said today that keeping Guantanamo Bay open puts U.S. troops in greater danger and he is working on a plan to help President Barack Obama replace it with a new prison that will project a better public image.

In a bipartisan compromise effort that almost seems old school in today’s contentious Washington, the president in return is considering Graham’s proposal to try Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-conspirators in a military tribunal rather than in civilian court.

“I know how images are used against our troops in the Mideast,” Graham said on CBS’ Face the Nation. “When you talk about waterboarding here at home it may get some applause and make you feel good and make you feel tough, but it spreads like wildfire in the Mideast.

If you’re a young soldier walking the streets of Afghanistan and Iraq, you’ve just been put in (greater) danger.”

Graham, who opposes Obama on domestic issues such as health-care reform, said he is taking heat from the right for wanting to help find a way to close Guantanamo Bay, but it’s the right thing to do.

“I will stand by my president to make rational detainee policy,” he said. “We’ve got 50 people at Guantanamo Bay that are too dangerous to let go through a normal criminal trial. Let’s create a new legal system so they’ll have their day in court.”

Graham said that he cannot rally Republican support by himself for closing Guantanamo Bay. He said he’d seek support from people outside of Congress, such as Gen. David Petraeus, head of the United States Central Command.

Of course, Obama would have to make some concessions on how to prosecute accused terrorists to win Graham’s wholehearted support.

“Where we’re at now is can this administration reverse course on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, which I think would be an act of leadership well-received by the public,” Graham said.

Obama is “getting beat up badly from the left but the ACLU theory of how to manage this war I think is way off base,” he said. “And those who want to waterboard on the right and believe we should keep Guantanamo Bay open forever and use any technique to get information I think they’re equally off base.”

By advocating for a renewable energy bill on the eve of the demise of the man-made global warming theory and for its legislative offspring, economy killing cap-and-trade legislation, progressive Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is simultaneously seeking to bail out GE and to rescue Obama’s energy policy.

Graham is working with GE lobbyists to draft the ‘‘Clean Energy Act of 2009’’ – legislation to establish a federal mandate requiring that an increasing amount of electricity must be derived from so-called “clean energy” sources over the coming decades.

Specifically, the draft bill demands that 20 percent of electricity come from “clean energy” sources by 2020 and 50 percent by 2050.

Coincidentally or otherwise, Graham’s definition of clean energy matches GE’s business strategy in clean coal technology and renewable and nuclear energy.

The nexus between GE’s influence and its business interests was exposed by the New York Times, which reported, “Several sources said General Electric Co. helped Graham in crafting the legislative language. GE has the world’s largest gas turbine manufacturing plant, in Greenville, S.C., and the company also is leading development of new nuclear reactors and a ’clean coal‘ technology known as integrated gasification combined cycle, which has the capacity to capture and permanently sequester carbon emissions.”

GE’s wind and solar power products could also be used to meet Graham’s renewable energy mandates.

By helping GE, Graham is undercutting our free market system, propagating the notion that fossil fuels are contributing to the demise of our planet and guaranteeing higher energy prices for all Americans.

The fact is, we don’t need renewable energy mandates, but GE and Obama do.

Under the leadership of CEO Jeff Immelt, GE has made a huge bet on making money on global warming fears by developing energy-generating products that compliment Obama’s left-wing attack on fossil fuels.

Nuclear energy, wind and solar power and clean coal are energy sources that eliminate or reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emissions released into the atmosphere.

Disturbingly, Immelt does not want to compete in the open marketplace. Rather, he wants to game the political system by working with Congress to mandate demand for GE’s products, either by increasing the price of fossil fuels through a cap-and-trade system or via a Graham-type bill that requires power generation from renewable energy sources.

Because the global warming tidal wave has been reduced to a mere splash, Immelt’s grand plan is in jeopardy. Climategate and the scandal surrounding the scientific basis of the latest UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report on global warming is eroding both public and political support of costly emissions restrictions.

Congressional backlash against new global warming laws and/or regulation is also reducing support for proposed actions by the EPA. Democratic Congressmen Ike Skelton and Collin Peterson have introduced a bill to strip the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases, and Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) has Democratic co-sponsors for a legislative override of EPA’s effort to regulate carbon emissions under the Clean Air Act.

Immelt is also seeing defections from the showcase cap-and-trade lobbying coalition – the United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP). Just this week, three founding members, BP, Caterpillar and ConocoPhillips, decided to leave the group. Additionally, Marsh and Xerox have mysteriously disappeared from the roster of member companies on the USCAP website.

Desperate and perhaps panicked over the prospects of imminent failure, Immelt and a band of CEOs and environmental group allies have unleashed a last-minute lobbying push. They recently met with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Climate Change Czar Carol Browner on global warming legislation.

While the outcome of the Administration’s lobbying fest remains unknown, it seems Immelt must have hit pay dirt with Graham.

Perhaps Graham is willing to accept undesirable aspects of the renewable energy bill in order to get broad political support for nuclear power, which our country needs. Regardless of his intentions, this deal comes at too great a cost.

Yielding to the demands of a corporate interest, sacrificing free-market principles and legitimizing unsustainable “clean” energy technologies is unacceptable. This is especially true at this critical time, when the entire basis for reducing carbon emissions is in jeopardy.

Graham should not snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by buttressing Immelt’s failed business strategy or Obama’s war on fossil fuels. Let them deal with the consequences of their actions.