'Cap and trade' may be back after Nov. 2 (Atlanta)

Worried that congressional leaders may not be content with health-care and financial-services reform, some Georgia business advocates are bracing for a "lame-duck" session this fall.

Opponents of legislation targeting secret ballot union elections and requiring heavily polluting industries to “cap and trade” emissions linked to global warming are warning that Congress could return to Washington after the Nov. 2 midterm elections to revisit those controversial measures once thought dead.

"It’s what the president has said he would do ... some folks in his administration have said so, [House] Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi has said so and [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid has said so," said U.S. Rep. Tom Price, R-Roswell.

"All of [the Democratic] leadership at one point or another has said to their base, 'Don’t worry that we haven’t passed cap and trade. We’ll have an opportunity to do it in a lame-duck session.'"

Lame-duck sessions have become a perennial fixture of the post-election landscape in Washington, occurring at the end of every two-year congressional term for more than a decade and less frequently before that.

But they typically have been limited to completing action on appropriations bills and other non-controversial legislative business.

A glaring exception came in December 1998, when the House of Representatives voted to impeach then-President Bill Clinton. The 42nd president was later acquitted after a trial in the Senate.

Critics of the Democrats’ agenda say 2010 could become another exceptional year under certain circumstances.

Shannon Goessling, executive director of the Atlanta-based Southeastern Legal Foundation, said divisions among Democrats that have prevented passage of either the cap-and-trade or pro-union "card-check" bills probably would resurface in a lame-duck session, even if Republicans gain seats in the House and Senate.

"If you’ve got a Democrat in a state where they represent agriculture or manufacturing, even if they lost [the election], they still have a duty to their community and a political awareness," said Goessling, whose organization is challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s bid to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions.

"They wouldn’t want to defeat their reputation and influence when they return to their state."

Read the full story in the Atlanta Business Chronicle.