Climate Bill

— Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) ratcheted up the fight to pass legislation to combat global warming Wednesday, unveiling a bill as the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster complicates the measure's already slim chances of passage. Kerry and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) took the wraps off their bill, but a Republican supporter was conspicuously absent. Most of the details of the bill, which aims to cut planet-warming emissions in the United States by a modest 17% in the next decade, already have been leaked.

WASHINGTON - Tennessee is poised to adopt a law that would allow public schoolteachers to challenge climate change and evolution in their classrooms without fear of sanction, according to educators and civil libertarians in the state. Passed by the state Legislature and awaiting Republican Gov. Bill Haslam's signature, the measure is likely to stoke growing concerns among science teachers around the country that teaching climate science is becoming the same kind of classroom and community flash point as evolution.

So much for the climate bill. President Obama's big speech last week on the BP oil spill was expected to mark the start of a major White House push for legislation aimed at clean energy and climate change, but the second part of that package went down like a crude-coated pelican. Obama's failure to mention cap-and-trade, or any other scheme to price greenhouse-gas emissions, suggests he doesn't intend to pursue it. You can't fault Obama's political instincts. He can count votes as well as anybody, and it's clear that the 60 votes needed to overcome a Senate filibuster on a climate bill just aren't there.

Nero probably didn't really fiddle while Rome burned; for one thing, fiddles as we know them today didn't exist yet, and for another, historians at the time dismissed the story as a rumor. Moreover, it's hard to believe that even a tyrant as petty and murderous as Nero would be foolish enough to watch the burning of his city-state and do nothing about it. But we Americans are. Climate change is no longer a theoretical concept to be debated at symposiums by science nerds.

In mid-spring, when the prospect of a global warming bill passing Congress seemed like an Al Gore pipe dream, President Obama invited Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills) down to the Oval Office. "He realized that this was a very tough bill to get through," Waxman remembers.

Seldom have we encountered a bill that we hated to love as much as the American Power Act, the long-awaited climate and energy bill unveiled last week by Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.). It is simultaneously a gift to polluters and the most significant step ever taken by this nation to solve the world's most pressing environmental problem. It is a gorgeous mess. Despite the increasingly shrill denials by conservatives who are allowing their traditional distrust of government to trump common sense, there is overwhelming scientific evidence that climate change is happening and that the greenhouse gases resulting from industrialization are the cause.

Two of President Obama's top domestic policy initiatives — energy and immigration — appeared on the brink of collapse on Saturday after a Republican senator at the center of both efforts threatened to jump ship in a dispute with Democrats over timing. Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said Saturday afternoon that they would postpone the introduction of their long-anticipated energy and climate bill, which they had planned to roll out on Monday.

As thousands of activists rallied on the National Mall on Sunday for federal legislation to curb global warming, Obama administration officials and leading senators worked behind the scenes to rescue a climate bill that appeared close to flat-lining over the weekend. By day's end, supporters said its prospects were brightening slightly, with the Republican coauthor of the legislation, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, again discussing it with Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.

As he toured union halls and factory floors in his 2006 Senate campaign, Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown repeatedly railed against the "prescription bill the drug companies wrote," the "energy bill the oil companies wrote" and all the other policy decisions dominated by special interests. Now halfway through his first Senate term, Brown seems to see at least one major Washington policy push differently. Brown is one of a handful of senators trying to line up support for a climate bill that would put new limits on greenhouse gas emissions and spur production of renewable energy.

After months of promoting President Obama's climate plan as a vehicle for creating millions of clean-energy jobs, supporters of the legislation are increasingly pushing another strategy -- touting its benefits for national security. It's a deliberate, anxiety-themed effort to press a handful of fence-sitting moderates to support a bill that is likely to be the Obama administration's next great legislative push after healthcare. A coalition backing the energy and climate bill pending before the Senate has enlisted war veterans to pressure senators in person.

Among the more speculative of the proposed solutions to global warming is the notion of capturing the carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants and pumping them underground. Still, the collapse last week of one of the nation's most high-profile experiments with so-called carbon capture and sequestration technology is bad news for future generations and further evidence of the need for climate legislation. American Electric Power, one of the biggest utilities in the U.S., announced Thursday that it was tabling its plans to complete a commercial-scale carbon capture system at a coal-fueled plant in West Virginia — despite the fact that up to half of the project's $668-million cost would have been covered by the U.S. Department of Energy.

So much for the climate bill. President Obama's big speech last week on the BP oil spill was expected to mark the start of a major White House push for legislation aimed at clean energy and climate change, but the second part of that package went down like a crude-coated pelican. Obama's failure to mention cap-and-trade, or any other scheme to price greenhouse-gas emissions, suggests he doesn't intend to pursue it. You can't fault Obama's political instincts. He can count votes as well as anybody, and it's clear that the 60 votes needed to overcome a Senate filibuster on a climate bill just aren't there.

The Gulf of Mexico oil spill should inspire the U.S. to cut its reliance on fossil fuels, President Obama said Wednesday, issuing his strongest promise yet to fight for Senate passage of a climate bill. The only way the country will ever transition to clean energy is if the private sector has to pay a price for carbon pollution, Obama told an audience of students and faculty at Carnegie Mellon University. The House has already passed a bill designed to do that, and a similar plan is pending before the Senate, but passage is imperiled by a flood of issues competing for attention this election year.

Seldom have we encountered a bill that we hated to love as much as the American Power Act, the long-awaited climate and energy bill unveiled last week by Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.). It is simultaneously a gift to polluters and the most significant step ever taken by this nation to solve the world's most pressing environmental problem. It is a gorgeous mess. Despite the increasingly shrill denials by conservatives who are allowing their traditional distrust of government to trump common sense, there is overwhelming scientific evidence that climate change is happening and that the greenhouse gases resulting from industrialization are the cause.

— Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) ratcheted up the fight to pass legislation to combat global warming Wednesday, unveiling a bill as the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster complicates the measure's already slim chances of passage. Kerry and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) took the wraps off their bill, but a Republican supporter was conspicuously absent. Most of the details of the bill, which aims to cut planet-warming emissions in the United States by a modest 17% in the next decade, already have been leaked.

After months of negotiations and weeks of delay, Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) will unveil their plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions and spur clean energy growth Wednesday — and the biggest challenge will be selling the notion that the bill has any chance of passage. Kerry and Lieberman's efforts took a major hit when their Republican co-architect, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, walked away from the bill shortly before its scheduled rollout last month.

Leading voices in the Senate are considering a new tax on gasoline as part of an effort to win Republican and oil industry support for the energy and climate bill now idling in Congress. The tax, which according to early estimates would be in the range of 15 cents a gallon, was conceived with the input of several oil companies, including Shell, BP and ConocoPhillips, and is being championed by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. It is shaping up as a critical but controversial piece in the efforts by Graham, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.

Less than 24 hours before the House approved its landmark energy and climate bill last month, Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) got several paragraphs added to the 1,200-page measure -- additions expected to be worth millions of dollars to companies that install solar panels. About the same time, Rep. Melissa Bean (D-Ill.

Some environmentalists and liberal lawmakers believe the BP oil spill has handed President Obama a significant political opportunity to renew his stalled energy and climate bill, and are urging him to push for sweeping legislation to move the country away from reliance on oil and other fossil fuels. "He needs a response which is as big as the spill is," said Wesley Warren, program director for the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington. The climate bill that White House officials have been negotiating called for limited greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, transportation fuels and eventually factories.