Brent Blackwelder, president of Friends of the Earth, said Democratic leaders should have dared Republicans to filibuster the bill and, if necessary, made their opposition to clean-energy measures an issue in the 2008 campaign.
"It's clear that Democratic capitulation isn't limited to Iraq," he said.
Joan Claybrook, president of the watchdog group Public Citizen, noted that the oil industry has donated $7 million since 2001 to the senators who voted against the tax measure. "Apparently, lawmakers didn't want to bite the oil-industry hand that feeds them," she said.
Democrats are expected to use the vote in next year's campaign to portray Republicans as tools of Big Oil, while Republicans are expected to use it to paint Democrats as tax-raisers.
Democrats promised to try again next year to pass the renewable-electricity standard.
"This is not the last that we will hear of the renewable-electricity standard," Reid said. "The Senate passed a similar bill before. We'll do it again."
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richard.simon@latimes.com
Times staff writer Janet Wilson contributed to this report.
