and eight reporter from politico. >> you took part in a meeting on energy and climate change and president obama parent -- apparently said he would like to see the senate passed legislation that requires companies to pay for the rights to emit greenhouse gases. what does the president need to do to get such a bill passed? >> i think he is doing all he is able to do at this point. the meeting was a very useful meeting. he encouraged us to work together to try to come up with a bill that could get bipartisan support and could pass the senate. that was his main focus. i think he has said again that he would like this to be comprehensive legislation and he would like to deal not only with eneegy but climate change.

he is certainly aware we have some real disagreement in the senate over what the elements of the bill might be. he understands political life and writing legislation is a matter of give-and-take. >> there has been some discussion among members about the possibility of scaling back this bill. not trying to regulate greenhouse gas emissions across the entire economy, maybe restricting it to targeting electric utilities. could you support such an approach and it is there enough support for such a measure? >> i could of -- i could support such an approach, but i do think when you look at the makeup of the senate today, there are quite a few senators who are going to be resistant to anything that could be labeled as cat and trade. anything that could be -- dave

prefer to attack it as a cap and tax, there clearly good proposals that could be put before the senate to restrict greenhouse gases, particularly in the utilities sector. i don't know if the votes are there. i'm somewhat dubious if the votes are there to do that piece. >> when do you need to see action on these bills? when will we see the actual bill that becomes the foundation for this debate and when does it need to come to the floor in order for you to stay on schedule? >> i think a lot of pieces of the bill are done and ready to be brought to the floor. we marked up a bill in the energy and national resources committee last week that is a good beginning response to the gulf oil spill and tries to restructure the department of

interior, put more focus on safety, ramps up penalties for violations of regulations. there are a lot of good proposals in there. there was a bill that came out of the environment committee which eliminates the limit on liabilities, which was in their jurisdiction. that is a useful part. we have a much larger bill we have worked on over the last year or two that we have reported out of committee in a bipartisan way. all of that is ready to go. the part we are not in agreement on is what would be done on the direct limitation and reduction of greenhouse gases. how that will evolve. >> you mentioned a larger energy bill that you moved through your energy committee last year. it contains some key pieces of obama's energy agenda, it has renewable electricity mandates and incentives for clean energy

developments and strong provision on transmission citing. but one reason the bill was bipartisan is that included new offshore drilling in the gulf and including offshore drilling close to the coast of florida. now looks like that were to come to the floor right now, democrats are saying clearly those drilling pieces are going to have to be taken out. if they are taken out, can you still get republican support for that bill? >> i think we can. adding both democrats and republicans realize that with what has happened in the gulf and with the investigation not yet complete as to what went wrong down there, it would not be reasonable for us to try to change the law with regard moratorium in the eastern gulf. i'm sure it's not something all senators would agree to, but

that would be my sentiment. i supported eliminating that statutory moratorium on drilling in the eastern gulf as part of the bill we reported over a year ago. i do not think it would be a good provision to have as part of an energy bill. there are a lot of other things we did related to offshore drilling that we should not continue to pursue it. but if you bring that to the floor now and take off the offshore drilling, can you still get 60 votes for that bill? >> i believe we can. the truth is, there is no statutory prohibition on offshore drilling anywhere in the country except the eastern gulf of mexico. it is essentially up to the department of interior and administration as to which areas they make available for leasing.

their decision making in that regard is obviously somewhat suspended until we figure out what went wrong in this spill and disaster and we are currently still experiencing. the big issue is not what is congress going to do about it, it's what is the administration is going to do about offshore drilling. that is still a few months down the road. >> on the other side of the debate about your energy bill are environmentalists and members of your party on the left to say -- left to say, to bring up an energy-only bill, even though they support the mandate to pass when more incremental piece of energy legislation could actually have a detrimental effect on ultimately passing comprehensive climate change legislation in the future. they fear that by passing these

incremental clean energy bills, one after the other, they are laying the groundwork and eliminating the big moment to move a comprehensive bill. i'm sure you are familiar with senator lindsey graham's comments about passing the energy only bill. he said that would be a half- assed move and it could hurt further chances for something bigger. are you concerned about that or concerned about the votes? >> i have certainly heard that point of view, but i think it is misguided. my experience in the senate is you need to do what you can do when you can do it if you want to make progress. if we can get the support, which i think we can become a bipartisan support, to pass renewable electricity standards, to strengthen our ability to build out a national grid, substantially increase

efficiency -- increase efficiency with appliances, set up a clean energy deployment administration to help finance renewable energy projects, if we could do all that, we ought to do it. the issue of what to do about capping and reducing greenhouse gas emissions is one we need to come to grips with. i am ready to support efforts to do it right now as part of this larger package. if we do not have enough senators ready to do it, we need to do what we can do and keep working to do it as we move ahead. >> your committee yesterday passed legislation aimed at tightening regulation of offshore drilling. could you talk about what the bill would actually do to reduce the likelihood of future accidents and how you can be sure this bill will be effective when we still do not know the causes of the gulf oil spill. >> the committee's work was on

wednesday. >> that is right. the bill makes provisions for the restructuring of the minerals management service, which the department of interior has already announced they want to pursue. that is taking the responsibility for safety of offshore drilling activities and putting it in a separate entity away from the part of the government worried about leasing and gathering revenues and all of that. that is a substantial step forward. it also contemplates increased requirements on the department of energy -- excuse me, the department of interior to insist upon extensive -- extensive safety precautions being taken before these plans are approved, before these drilling plans are approved.

it also ratchets up the penalties on companies that might violate some of the regulations of the department. it puts into place fees on those who drill to provide the revenue needed to hire the additional inspectors so that we can increase the capabilities of the government to inspect on a frequent basis, what is going on in these drilling operations. there is a lot in there that is good. there's a lot that needs to be done, but it's a significant improvement over the current law. >> i was wondering if you could talk about some of the recent controversy over deepwater drilling. the obama administration announced a temporary ban on deepwater crawling. a federal judge struck that down, saying it was arbitrary and capricious.

some experts say this moratorium could be detrimental for safety in the gulf when drilling resumes because they say it will cause the more modern equipment and qualified personnel to lead the gulf, to go to other markets, it will take awhile to get them back because you will have a marginal decrease in safety. what do you think the administration should do? should it allowed drilling to resume at this point? >> i think it should do what it is in the process of doing trade secretary salazar has announced he is going back to the drawing board and trying to develop another moratorium, but a much more targeted moratorium, one that would be appropriate to ensure the safety of drilling operations to the extent the administration has concerns about that. but not have it in the blank form that was struck down by the

court. i think that is the right way to proceed. the administration has authority to do that. i think the administration has the responsibility to ensure these drilling operations are done in a safe manner, to the extent they don't have that insurance now. they are well within their rights and responsibilities to put in place a moratorium to get control of the situation. i don't think that has to be a six month moratorium. i don't think that has to be any particular time frame. i think the administration is doing what it needs to do to refine their moratorium and hopefully shortness and ramp up their ability to insure the safety of these operations. >> how quickly do they need to allow deepwater drilling to

resume? there are a lot of jobs at stake, depending on how long it takes. how soon do you think it should be? >> it time frame needs to be driven by the safety issues, not by the jobs issues. i don't think anybody who thinks about would say that we ought to allow drilling operations to proceed even though we don't have confidence that they are safe because we're worried about jobs being lost if we do not allow drilling. if we can assure these drilling operations are safe, which allow them to proceed. >> one of your democratic colleagues, george miller, has called for banning bp from doing drilling for a period of several years. because of the numerous safety problems this company has had. would you support such a proposal? >> i do not think congress

should legislate ban on any particular company. i do the deed is appropriate that the department of interior look at the record of performance of every company that wants to engage in these drilling activities and make a judgment as to whether they have the necessarily -- the necessary management structure to do this in a safeway. if they determined bp or any other company do not have the management structure to get this done in a safe way, then it is appropriate for them to deny them from committing drilling. there was -- >> there was a column last week that said another way congress should respond to this incident or the government should respond is to perhaps reward companies that have good safety records when it comes to drilling, possibly by reducing the amount of royalties they have to pay.

increasing royalty payments for those who do have less than perfect safety records. what do you think of that idea? >> as a general matter, i think we have not aired on the side of providing too few incentives for companies to do drilling in the elder continental shelf. we have the deepwater royalty relief act in place in our legislation that we have reported out of committee where we propose to repeal -- at the get should be repealed -- that was put in there as an incentive to get companies to do more of this drilling. clearly, that has outlived its usefulness. i tend to think the american taxpayer deserves a reasonable royalty for the exploitation and production of these resources which are owned by the taxpayer, owned by the united states.

i think that royalty ought to be paid. there are plenty of ways to provide incentives for companies to operate safely. my wife's father had a business and he's to jokey had an incentive program also -- his incentive program was one mistake and you are fired. i think the federal government needs to have more strictness in its regulation of these activities. that's the main thing that is needed. >> some republicans say it is an appropriate -- say it is inappropriate to have proposals aimed at the oil spill with subjects related to climate change. should these different bills all be merged into one or should

they be passed separately? >> frankly, the pressure to merge everything into one is driven by the unwillingness of the republicans in the senate to cooperate with the majority in bringing legislation and allowing it to be voted on. the majority leader is left with the circumstance that there is a limited amount of time, we have about eight weeks left in the schedule of the senate before congress adjourns prior to the election. he's not going to have time to bring up a whole series of bills. for that reason, i think he is considering the possibility of putting some of these energy- related matters together and bringing that to the floor. >> there are a number of members of your own caucus tuesday they

oppose that strategy. they see a lot of momentum for your drilling regulation bill and say this is something that can move quickly and give members something to vote on, to respond to this bill and cut into their election campaigns. they fear that attack gene these drilling reform rules to the broader, contentious climate legislation could sink the whole package. is that a concern for you? >> it way that it has been discussed with me, people are generally agreeable to the idea of bringing the bill to the floor like the one we reported out of our committee this week that responds to the oil spill. they agree to doing the type of bipartisan bill we reported out of our committee last year. the place where the disagreement

occurs is with regard to limiting and reducing greenhouse gases. i think the majority leader is going to have to decide what can be done on that issue as part of energy bill if -- and still get the votes necessary to proceed. >> one year ago, the house passed a comprehensive cap and trade bill that limits greenhouse gases across the entire economy. is one possibility to pass something that would have a renewable energy standard and would not address any type of carbon cap and then take that to conference with the house bill and come back to the senate with something with a carbon cap? would that be realistic? would it be possible to pass something like that in a lame duck session? >> we have run this experiment before. i think it was in 2004 when i

was very involved in a conference with house of representatives on an energy bill. we had passed when the senate and they had passed one in the house. as soon as the election occurred and the republicans gain some seats, they lost all interest in completing the conference. i think any plan that contemplates let's just get something through the senate and allow conference to occur while we are on recess and people are campaigning and come back and all of us agree on something, i think that is not likely. >> does the senate have to pass something before the august recess? you are saying yes to get something done before november. that means you get something done by september because of the need to go on resources -- to go on recess for members who want to campaign. when does that need to have a vote? >> realistically, to a bill to

the present, the senate has almost got to pass something it could go to conference with the house on before we take the august break. >> how hard are you going to be working to make that happen? what sort of thing do you envision doing? >> i have been advocating for moving ahead with the energy legislation we have come out of our committee with for some time now. i continue to do that. i think realistically that senator reid has something on him to bring different things to the floor. he is going to have to choose which items to bring up and how much time to devote to them on the senate floor. that's a very difficult job and i do not envy him that job. if we are going to get legislation to the president for signature in this congress, i

think the senate is going to have to act before the august recess. >> you have said that you have to act before the august recess. after november, there is likely to be more republican seats in both chambers. not only does that make it difficult to impossible to pass something in a lame-duck session, but it makes it more difficult to talk about bringing up something else in the next session of congress. the senate cannot pass something that has a carbon price in the next month, is that the last best chance for putting a price on carbon, given the likely make up of the next congress? >> i do not know that is necessarily the case. for the last eight or 10 years around washington, there has been debate about a 3p bill,

talking about three different pollutants. there has been talked about a 4p bill to the gut carbon as well. i remember when former president bush was running for office, he campaigned on a platform of supporting a 4p bill and change his mind after he was elected. i think that there can be restrictions on each of these pollutants, including carbon. i think we can do it probably in the next congress as well as this congress, but it has to be done in the right way. the process becomes very important. it is a difficult live to accomplish, but i do not think it is impossible. >> what do you see as the main trade off in scaling back the ambition of a climate and energy

bill and focusing just on utilities? some of the opponents of that approach say it means you will be generated less revenue for other important causes. other industries want to get because they see it as a way to avoid regulation by the epa. they fear that will be more costly. what do you see is the trade-off as you try to scale back this bill? >> the key determinant is what can you get 60 people to vote for in the u.s. said that? that is the practical challenge we have got. if we could limit greenhouse gases and put in place a mechanism for reducing greenhouse gases in one sector of the economy, that would be major progress in my view. there are other ways to deal with it. there may be ways to provide

incentives for the retirement of coal plants which would substantially reduce greenhouse gases or accelerate the reduction of greenhouse gases over the next several years. there is the multi-pollutant legislation as a way to incentivize a modernizing of the power production that goes on in this country and reduce greenhouse gases as part of that. there are a lot of different ways to approach that problem. >> isn't there a bit of a trade- off between the different goals we are trying to achieve? the proponents of the legislation cast it as something that will get us off of foreign oil but that's not the same as climate change. as you scale back, could be about reducing emissions for one particular sector like utilities, argues sacrificing the goal the proponents talk

about which is more politically popular with the public -- reducing dependence on foreign oil? >> there are so many different proposals out there and it all gets lumped together in the rhetoric. we have some provisions in the bill that we have reported out of our committee that we think will help significantly in reducing the need to import foreign oil. others have been introduced. there is a bill that we have had a hearing on that i would like to see us be able to move ahead with. that would emphasize the importance of the electrifying our transportation sector and moving us to electric cars and trucks. >> given the warnings from the scientists about the urgency of doing something about climate change, you even saw the national academy of sciences recently endorsed the idea of putting a price on carbon and that's something they don't normally do -- they don't

normally endorse a prescription like that. how essential is it for the u.s. to pass something where you start to limit greenhouse gases through a hard cap or a tax or something like that? >> that will have to be the last question. >> i think it is very important that we try to do that. but we need to do what we are able to do. there is a big gap between what the scientists say we should do to deal with climate change and what the politics of the congress today, particularly the congress of the set, will allow us to do. it is unfortunate there is a big gap, but there is a big gap but that's just the reality we live with. >> chairman jeff bingaman, thank you for being c-span's newsmaker. we are back with our to reporters. -- back with our two reporters.

what did you hear about the chairman about one some sort of bill might come to the floor? >> senator bingaman is a pragmatist and a master of the art of the possible. he says there has to be built by the end of july. they leave for august recess on august 6th, so that's the last possible date. that last week is for the elena kagan confirmation. there needs to be something in the next few weeks or there will not be anything. >> you pressed him on if it does not happen -- you both did -- if it does not happen before the end of july, then what? >> it could really be the last best chance because as the senator himself pointed out, there will be more republican seats in the next congress. people are saying if it is not possible to move something like this with this congress and this president and the momentum

provided by this moment with this environmental disaster, if all of those forces together are not enough to push through something on climate change and carbon pricing, it is really hard to see how the be the votes for that in another congress. he did not spell out quite like that, but that is the picture that emerges. >> what did you hear about what sort of bill will come to the floor? do you hear him rule things out? >> for the democrats, the best case scenario and when he says is unlikely is putting a cap just on greenhouse gas emissions from the electric utility sector. right now, that's the last best hope for those who favor such policies. even that is going to be a very hard left. -- a very hard left. -- a very hard left.