The Senate will soon be getting its own bipartisan caucus focused on addressing climate change.
A bipartisan duo of Sens. Mike Braun of Indiana and Chris Coons of Delaware are organizing the new caucus, which is still in the planning stages and will be formally unveiled in the coming weeks, according to the senators’ staffs.
The caucus would be the first bipartisan group on the Senate side dedicated to climate change discussions. Democratic senators currently have a special climate committee and Republicans have formed a conservation caucus, but neither include members across the aisle.
The group’s formation comes as some Republican lawmakers are becoming more engaged in climate policy discussions and as polls show voters paying more attention to the issue.
Climate change should be a “bridge issue,” Braun told the Washington Examiner in an interview, adding that many Democrats are also looking for a change in dynamic and Republican partners on climate policy.
He said he is hopeful several of his colleagues will join the caucus with him. Republicans have been “stigmatized as a party as not in the game” on climate policy, Braun said. That’s because conservatives have either not spoken up in an attempt to protect the status quo or because they worried they’d lose business support, he said.
“And then we regret it down the road because we were mum and we should have been involved in the process,” Braun added.
Braun and Coons hope the caucus will offer a forum for finding common ground on climate change measures. And the caucus is a recognition that significant, durable climate policy will require agreement between the two parties.
“Combating climate change will require all of us — Democrats and Republicans — to come together around bipartisan solutions,” Coons said in a statement to the Examiner. He noted he has already worked with Republicans on measures to boost energy efficiency and renewable energy, hold polluters accountable, and spur innovation.
“I look forward to continuing to work with Senator Braun, our colleagues, business leaders, and others to explore ways in which we can work together to curb the growing impacts of climate change,” Coons added.
The Republican-controlled Senate thus far has lagged behind the House in setting up opportunities for bipartisan dialogue on climate change.
The House Climate Solutions Caucus was formed in 2016 by Florida Reps. Ted Deutch and Carlos Curbelo. That caucus currently has 63 members — 22 Republicans and 41 Democrats. Initially, the House caucus had an equal number of lawmakers from each party, though several of the group’s Republican members, including Curbelo, lost their seats in the 2018 midterm elections.
Lawmakers from both parties also sit on the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, created by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The pending caucus in the Senate is a welcome addition for groups working on climate policy.
“The Senate caucus will be an effective platform for members to learn more about climate change and share ideas on how to address it, so the formation of it is important and timely,” Bud DeFlaviis, government affairs director for the Alliance for Market Solutions Action, which advocates for conservative policies related to climate change, said in a statement to the Examiner.
Daniel Richter, vice president of government affairs for the Citizens’ Climate Lobby, told the Washington Examiner there’s an opportunity for the new Senate caucus to have a positive effect on policy discussions, just as the House caucus has. He urged the senators, as they’re setting up the caucus, to seek the advice of Deutch, Curbelo, and Republican congressman Francis Rooney of Florida, who took over as co-chair of the House caucus.
The formation of the caucus will be Braun’s first big foray into climate policy.
The freshman senator chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works subcommittee on clean air and nuclear safety, and he has co-sponsored bills to boost advanced nuclear energy development and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from industrial manufacturing.
“I’m not afraid to talk about climate change. I’m not afraid to talk about the science,” Braun said. “I mean, we’re obviously pumping more CO2 into the air and there is a thing called the greenhouse effect.”
But he also criticized some of the Democratic plans to combat climate change, including the Green New Deal, that he said would severely hamper the economy. Coons, on the other hand, has already built a reputation working across partisan lines on climate policy.
Coons introduced one of the first bipartisan carbon pricing bills in over a decade in 2018 with former Republican Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona. Coons is seeking bipartisan partners to re-introduce that bill in this Congress, though he also introduced in July separate carbon pricing legislation with Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California.
Richter said as the senators work out the details for the caucus, they should bear in mind “the more we can make this an issue that bridges the parties, the more successful we are going to be in addressing it.”
And he wants to see the caucus prompt significant strides on moving climate legislation through Congress.
“This shouldn’t just be a place for discussions,” Richter said. “My hope is it will also be a place for action.”
