With congressmen on recess testing public sentiment in their home territories, opponents of the House-passed climate change legislation are gearing up to stage public rallies at key points across the country to stir up opposition before companion legislation shows up in September in the Senate. The first rally against the climate change measure and proposed producer tax hikes is scheduled to take place in Houston Tuesday.

The 19 rallies, which will be funded by the American Petroleum Institute (API), the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), the American Farm Bureau, 60 Plus and other groups, will seek to drive home the impact of “unsound energy policy” — the House climate change bill, proposed producer taxes and restricted exploration access for producers — on jobs and on consumer’s energy costs. API said it also is collaborating closely with allied oil and natural gas industry associations.

“And we will call on the Senate to oppose unsound energy policy and ‘get it right,'” API President Jack Gerard said in a recent e-mail to producer executives, alerting them to the rallies, which will occur during the last two weeks of Congress’ August recess. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) “reportedly has pushed back [Senate] consideration of climate change legislation to late September to allow senators to get their constituents’ views during the August recess. It’s important that our views be heard,” Gerard said.

While President Obama’s heath care reform plan has dominated the news and town hall meetings, FreedomWorks — which is chaired by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey of Texas — said “it is equally important that we don’t let up pressure against another threat: cap and trade.” It urged the public to attend the rallies.

At the same time the American Energy Alliance (AEA), a nonprofit advocacy group, Monday kicked off a four-week bus tour to inform the public that climate change “will kill jobs, force our manufacturing base overseas and significantly harm our already struggling economy.” The bus will spend several days in western Pennsylvania, then head to Ohio and Indiana and return through West Virginia and Virginia. The group chose these states because of their coal production and their senators are considered on the fence with respect to climate change, said AEA spokesman Patrick Creighton.

The climate change bill (HR 2454), which cleared the House in late June, seeks to cap heat-trapping greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that contribute to global warming (see Daily GPI, June 29). The legislation (HR 2454) would substantially change the direction of the energy industry from conventional oil, natural gas and coal to renewable fuels. The House measure calls for GHG emissions to be cut by 83% by 2050 and is backed by Obama. It was authored by House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA).

“While such efforts [the rallies] are never easy and the risk of failure is always present, we must move aggressively in preparation for the post-Labor Day debate on energy, climate and taxes,” Gerard said. “The measure of success for these events will be the diversity of the participants expressing the same message, as well as turnouts of several hundred attendees.” In May Obama proposed striping away more than $26 billion in tax credits and incentives from producers between 2010 and 2019 (see Daily GPI, May 8).

In addition to Houston, some other tentative sites for the rallies include Detroit; Greeley, CO; Nashville; TN; Tampa, FL; Fairfax, VA; Anchorage, AK; and Philadelphia. “We have identified 11 states with a significant industry presence, and 10 other states where we have assets on the ground. We also have attracted allies from a broad range of interests: the Chamber of Commerce and NAM, the trucking industry, the agricultural sector, small business and many others, including a significant number of consumer groups,” the API e-mail said. The rallies intend to target states where the Democratic senators don’t support a stringent climate change policy.

“The objectives of these rallies is to put a human face on the impacts of unsound energy policy and to aim a loud message at those states’ U.S. senators to avoid the mistakes embodied in the House climate bill and the Obama administration’s tax increases on our industry,” according to the e-mail. Producers claim the House climate change bill discourages, rather than encourages, the production of domestic natural gas and oil. They especially took issue with a provision that would restrict producer access to over-the-counter markets.

“Recent opinion research that Harris Interactive conducted for API demonstrates that our messages on Waxman-Markey-like legislation work extremely well and are very persuasive with the general public and policy influentials. After hearing that Waxman-Markey-like legislation could increase the costs of gasoline to around $4 and lead to significant job losses, these audiences changed their opinions on the bill significantly,” API’s Gerard said in the e-mail.

“Opposition to the bill within the policy influentials [sector]…grew 23 points, from 40% to 63%…The data clearly demonstrate the softness of support of the current [climate change] approach and very strong opposition when people are educated about the potential job losses and energy cost increase.”

In a related development, an API-commissioned study released Monday reported that there would be 2 million jobs wiped out nationwide by 2030 if the Waxman-Markey becomes law, with 341,000 of the job losses coming from the producing state of Texas.

The average U.S. household would see its purchasing power fall by $910 in 2015 and by $1,170 by 2030, while the average Texas household would see its real household income drop by $1,430 a year in 2015 and by $1,790 a year by 2030, according to the analysis conducted by CRA International.

The House climate change bill would lead to a 1.3% decline in the national gross domestic product in 2030, the study said. And the economic growth of Texas would be hobbled as the estimated gross state product would decline by 0.5% in 2015 and by 1.6% in 2030, the CRA noted.

©Copyright 2009Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. The preceding news reportmay not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, in anyform, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.