Lack of Votes for Senate Democrats' Energy Bill may mean the End

rip-cap-and-tradeBy Perry Bacon Jr.

Conceding that they can’t find enough votes for the legislation, Senate Democrats on Thursday abandoned efforts to put together a comprehensive energy bill that would seek to curb greenhouse gas emissions, delivering a potentially fatal blow to a proposal the party has long touted and President Obama campaigned on.

Instead, Democrats will push for a more limited measure that would seek to increase liability costs that oil companies would pay following spills such as the one in the Gulf of Mexico. It also would create additional incentives for the development of natural gas vehicles and would provide rebates for products that reduce home energy use. Senate Democrats said they expected to find GOP support for the bill and pass it in the next two weeks.

Read the rest at the Washington Post.

57 Responses to Lack of Votes for Senate Democrats' Energy Bill may mean the End

  1. Hal Groar July 22, 2010 at 8:26 pm #

    This is cause for hope.

  2. NEIL F. AGWD/BSD July 22, 2010 at 8:42 pm #

    Pow!

  3. Rob N. Hood July 23, 2010 at 6:45 am #

    The sky is fall… er, not falling!

    What happened to that Liberal Juggernaut, the New Order, the Communist take-over spearheaded by that Kenyan??!!

    I guess Dan will have to shut down this wonderful site… oh but wait… more scary things will be pumped up all out of proporation…!!

  4. paul wenum July 23, 2010 at 11:56 pm #

    Good news.

  5. Rob N. Hood July 24, 2010 at 7:58 am #

    There are four sorts of men:
    He who knows and knows he knows:
    he is wise – follow him.
    He who knows and knows not he knows:
    he is asleep – wake him.
    He who knows not and knows he knows not:
    he is simple – teach him.
    He who knows not and knows not he knows not:
    he is a fool – shun him.
    — Arabian Proverb

    • NEIL F. AGWD/BSD July 25, 2010 at 5:52 am #

      A lie well stuck to is as good as the truth.

  6. Hal Groar July 24, 2010 at 7:44 pm #

    Ok Rob, consider your self shunned.

  7. NEIL F. AGWD/BSD July 25, 2010 at 4:18 pm #

    I still think there will be some kind of c&t bill pushed through before november rolls around. I hope I’m wrong about this but right now I think they are trying to find a compromise with the coal state Dems that will give them the votes they need. This is the brass ring for their agenda, don’t forget that, I seriously do not expect them to lay down now, not with only 100 days left until election day. Of course, there is a chance that they are going to wait until after the election to pass some lame duck legislation. Either way I don’t think this is over at all.

  8. paul wenum July 25, 2010 at 8:39 pm #

    It will never be over. Lame ducks push through everything the want knowing there are no longer consequences for their actions/or inaction. Will never change.

  9. Rob N. Hood July 26, 2010 at 8:29 am #

    Being shunned by you guys is a badge of honor.

    However, not much of one, I’ll admit. But I’ll take it and leave you to your own devices.

  10. Rob N. Hood July 26, 2010 at 3:21 pm #

    It used to be that Congress had outsourced its legislation to corporations such as the HMOs and the lending racket but actually it’s the opposite that’s true: It’s the corporations who have outsourced their agenda to a Congress that plainly works for them. Think about how many millions of us have to sign petitions, make phone calls, send faxes, emails and letters just to get the begrudging attention of a Congressman. Think it takes a million Lloyd Blankfeins or Ken Lays to get that same congressman’s attention? It takes only one because those are the individuals they represent, the individuals that the Supreme Court made of corporations.

    We live in a nation in which a man can get years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his family because, since Reagan, we’d found it easier and more expedient to criminalize and vilify poverty than to address the causes of it. But when the already-wealthy rig the gaming table that is Wall Street and cripple the housing market and tank the economy to make a few billion more, they get to negotiate with the SEC in climate-controlled rooms and no one ever talks about criminal charges let alone jail time.

    Then when we were told by our “representatives” that we the people have to bail out these same corporations that helped cost us 8-12 million jobs and cause millions of foreclosures, instead of rising up in a quivering, blood-curdling fury on Pennsylvania Avenue or Wall Street, we merely change the channel and see if Britney Spears is wearing her underwear today. And it’s up to the racist, post-literate Tea Baggers to do our protesting for us.

    And we’re OK with this. We get led by the noses to aid and assist our oppressors by the corporate owned MSM. We need to wake up.

  11. Wayne July 26, 2010 at 5:32 pm #

    Somehow I don’t think we’ve heard the end of this. Beware the wrath of the lame duck. Progressives/Liberals: your ideology does not work and it is all failing in Europe the sooner you realize this the sooner we can properly address the problems with our world. OR … you can just believe everything your TV says.

  12. NEIL F. AGWD/BSD July 26, 2010 at 7:19 pm #

    I have to drive for my job every day. Miles, and miles, and miles. I used to get really ticked off at people who exhibit poor driving skills, but I have learned to curb the urge to flip them the bird, or try to “show them” how stupid they are. They are not receptive to such communication anyway. I decided a long time ago that I am not going to get an ulcer, or have a heart attack because of some stupid jerk on the highway.
    I have decided to employ this philosophy to my posts at this website.
    Rob is the guy who does 20 miles an hour above the speed limit to get in front of you, only to slow down to 5 miles an hour slower than you were traveling.
    Rob is the guy that is driving in the left lane doing 10 miles an hour slower than the speed limit, and is pacing the guy doing the same in the right lane.
    Rob is the guy who comes down an onramp doing 30 miles per hour, talking on a cellphone, that doesn’t look at the traffic he’s merging into, until he is actually merging.
    And, Rob is the guy that will tailgate you for 30 miles, who will not pass you, even when oncoming traffic is non-existant.
    These things used to make my blood boil!!!! But I learned to just accept that I have absolutely no control, whatsoever, over how other people drive. And so do I have the same amount of control over what Rob posts.

    • NEIL F. AGWD/BSD July 27, 2010 at 8:32 pm #

      PS: He is also the guy that does 7 miles an hour under the speed limit until you pass them and then increase their speed to pace you in your blind spot. AAAARRRRGGGG!!!!

  13. NEIL F. AGWD/BSD July 27, 2010 at 8:26 pm #

    All that devastation from the oil spill is really weighing heavily on my mind. Man I weep when I think about all of those birds, and turtles, and high shrimp prices! I just……. I just……. huh?…….. what? http://abcnews.go.com/WN/bp-oil-spill-crude-mother-nature-breaks-slick/story?id=11254252 ………..never mind.

  14. paul wenum July 27, 2010 at 9:48 pm #

    Nature is taking care of the oil which is natural. It leaks out of the ocean floors naturally daily that is equal to or greater than the Gulf spill. The spill was bad, no question. Accidents happen. Let’s have them deal with it as they have and go on with life as well as the inhabitants in the area affected. Shutting down drilling in the gulf is the worst thing they can do. Leave it up to our “new” administration to shut down the economy for thousands of people and millions that depend upon the oil produced. The left wing environmentalists never change as they sit in their Mac Mansions and lecture the minions as they use more gas/electricity than the average city. Enough said.

  15. NEIL F. AGWD/BSD July 27, 2010 at 10:42 pm #

    I said all along that the oil would be broken down in the ocean. Now I would like to know what Rob thinks about it because, if you recall, Rob posted this on the subject:

    “What a thing we have created. What an extraordinary horror our rapacious need for cheap, endless energy hath unleashed; it’s a monster of a scale and proportion we can barely even fathom.

    Because if you’re honest, no matter where you stand, no matter your politics, religion, income or mode of transport, you see this beast of creeping death and you understand: That is us. The spill may be many things, but more than anything else it is a giant, horrifying mirror.”

    Now that it’s capped it’s pphhttt!
    I’m not saying that there is no environmental impact, or won’t be, but this is certainly not the “extraordinary horror” that Rob was hoping for.
    So, Rob, will you aknowledge that you were wrong about this?

  16. Rob N. Hood July 28, 2010 at 7:15 am #

    Yep I’m “that guy.” Not. Actually I slow down to allow the person to pass. And your cavalier attitude about the devastation in the Gulf is heartless to say the least. You swallow the MSM propaganda when it suits you. If nature does indeed mitigate the mess, which I’m sure it will (there is and always has been evidence of this, oil-eating bacteria for example) it still doesn’t cancel out BP’s criminality and carelessness, or the lives and businesses devastated by it. Go on and live in your bias-blinded hateful world. It’s your choice. Now this:

    Bush reduced top tax bracket from 39.6% to 35%, while in two wars, the only president to reduce taxes while at war, main reason debt increased $4.9 trillion in eight years. Where were McConnell and Republicans during that fiasco?

    Top tax bracket, WW 1 was 73%; WW 2, 94%; Korea, 92%; and Vietnam, 77%; remaining high until war debt paid. (79% in 1939; never dropping below 70% until Reagan in 1982, to 31% under Bush 1) Budget deficits for FY’s 2010 and 2011 will be $1.5 trillion plus each year, meaning tax breaks for the rich and two wars will be paid for by borrowing predominately from China, Japan and Germany, again, increasing the deficit.

    Congress borrowed $4.5 trillion from trust funds, primarily Social Security and Medicare surplus funds to use as general purpose funds. Again, where were Republicans?

    • NEIL F. AGWD/BSD July 28, 2010 at 5:22 pm #

      Wow man, you just can’t admit when you’re wrong can you. What lives and businesses have been “devastated”? Where are they? Where is the oil?

      • NEIL F. AGWD/BSD July 28, 2010 at 9:26 pm #

        Yeah, thought so. But I guess you are comfortable being wrong. Oh, just change the subject and pretend like what you said was never said. Your answer to everything is Bush barbaques babies.

  17. paul wenum July 28, 2010 at 9:59 pm #

    It is what it is and always will be. Bacteria eats sweet crude oil as well as evaporation. Hope what happens with the residual oil in the marshes gets taken care of. It was an “accident.” Criminal actions Robbie Boy? Possible negligence? Only time will tell. Let’s not stop drilling to appease the ethanol users that sucks our vital aquifers dry and takes billions in subsidies to exist. Absent subsidies you would pay $4.00 + per gallon for ethanol mix. Now that is being “Green” isn’t it? Get with reality.

    • Dan July 29, 2010 at 2:58 am #

      TWO oil rigs in the Gulf blew in a matter of months. Has sabotage written all over it. How does a tug collide with a giant smoking, flaming oil rig by accident?! Fe Fi Fo Fum. I smell the blood of E.L.F.

      • NEIL F. AGWD/BSD July 29, 2010 at 6:40 pm #

        Dan you sound like Rob! What’s up with that? BTW are you going to moderate my post above thats been awaiting moderation for 3 1/2 days?

        • Dan McGrath July 30, 2010 at 9:32 am #

          I’m sorry. I’ve been rather busy lately and GCS had to go on the back burner. I’ve been working around the clock on election fraud.

          • NEIL F. AGWD/BSD July 30, 2010 at 5:29 pm #

            That’s ok

      • Rob N. Hood July 30, 2010 at 6:43 am #

        If it was “sabotage” then why wasn’t it in the news? I never heard about it… not very effective sabotage.

  18. paul wenum July 29, 2010 at 11:04 pm #

    Dan, That never entered my mind. That said. There maybe something going on that we are not aware of. Remember trees with spikes in them back in the seventies that caused numerous harm as well as houses going up in flame in the wilderness as well as “Hummers” taken down by ELF. I must ponder the theory you state. With the revolt from “Out of Stater’s” in AZ there may be merit in what you say. I never take anything lightly and always have been taught to think worse case scenario. By the way, I piloted a 56′ boat in Alaska with no problem with the sonar they have today as well as other electronics. Yes, I was aghast that a tugboat pushing freight hit the well?

    • Rob N. Hood July 30, 2010 at 6:45 am #

      Gosh Paul- I thought BP said the gusher that ruined the Gulf was an “accident.” Do you really beleive that if they had ANY way to blame ANYONE or ANYTHING else the wouldn’t have done so? Wow- looney tunes.

    • Dan McGrath July 30, 2010 at 9:35 am #

      And another oil spill! Pipeline break. http://news.discovery.com/earth/worst-oil-spill-in-midwest-raises-pipeline-concerns.html
      If it isn’t sabotage, at the very least, the anti-oil crowd that wants to shut down our economy and reduce the US to a third-world country must be squealing with glee.

  19. Rob N. Hood July 30, 2010 at 6:47 am #

    American tax payers have now paid over $1 trillion for the oil wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We won’t see a dime of that money for our schools, jobs, college grants or anything else. It was reported that “after a take-it-or-leave-it vote by the Senate, House Democrats faced little choice but to drop billions in aid for schools, college students and others that they had hoped could ride on legislation paying for President Barack Obama’s troop surge in Afghanistan.”

  20. NEIL F. AGWD/BSD July 30, 2010 at 5:38 pm #

    I’m sticking my tounge out at you.!!!

  21. paul wenum July 30, 2010 at 9:24 pm #

    By the way, there was also a pipeline spill in Utah about the same time as the Gulf. Old pipe they said. Never heard much thereafter. Our country, as others, is vulnerable to anyone that wants to do us harm. Is it ELF, terrorism, or simply the multiplier of three? I have no idea but an interesting thing to ponder as to is there an agenda that we are not aware of? Makes one thing out of the box doesn’t it?

    • NEIL F. AGWD/BSD July 30, 2010 at 9:30 pm #

      It don’t matter because oil is as natural as water, or air. It might be a pain in the rear, and kill a few Pelicans, but it isn’t going to do much more harm than that to anything else. Let er’ flow who cares.

  22. paul wenum July 30, 2010 at 10:14 pm #

    I sense we all have had a long week? The “Strong economy” must be catching up to us? Later.

  23. Rob N. Hood August 1, 2010 at 7:57 am #

    Baby Neil and Aged Paul- the MSM is owned and operated by big business, so of course they aren’t going to cover stories very well or at all that may harm them in any way. That’s the reason THEY OWN THE MEDIA. This is just Reality 101, and you guys failed, again.

    Fantastic misgovernment is not an accident,” he writes, “nor is it the work of a few bad individuals. It is the consequence of triumph by a particular philosophy of government, by a movement that understands the liberal state as a perversion and considers the market the ideal nexus of human society. This movement is friendly to industry not just by force of campaign contributions but by conviction; it believes in entrepreneurship not merely in commerce but in politics; and the inevitable results of its ascendance are, first, the capture of the state by business and, second, what follows from that: incompetence, graft, and all the other wretched flotsam that we’ve come to expect from Washington.

    The conservatism that speaks to us through its actions in Washington is institutionally opposed to those baseline good intentions we learned about in elementary school. Its leaders laugh off the idea of the public interest as airy-fairy nonsense; they caution against bringing top-notch talent into government service; they declare war on public workers. They have made a cult of outsourcing and privatizing, they have wrecked established federal operations because they disagree with them, and they have deliberately piled up an Everest of debt in order to force the government into crisis. The ruination they have wrought has been thorough; it has been a professional job. Repairing it will require years of political action.

    • NEIL F. AGWD/BSD August 1, 2010 at 9:02 am #

      You know what is hillarious? You think that our opinions are formed from Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck, and such, but you are the one that does not have an opinion that was formed in your own mind. You always post things that you leave anonymous. With no credit whatsoever going to the person that actually wrote it, presenting it as your own thoughts. You say that we have failed reality 101, but you can’t get past pre-reality 001. I wonder if Thomas Frank appreciates you disseminating his work?

      • Rob N. Hood August 6, 2010 at 5:10 pm #

        Poor Neil and his rehashed peeves. And his two year old ranting below.

        • NEIL F. AGWD/BSD August 7, 2010 at 5:11 pm #

          What are you talking about? Not sourcing your comments is not a peeve, it is a matter of ethics. Or, your lack of ethics. Is that how you got through college?…..
          Actually, that would explain a lot.

  24. NEIL F. AGWD/BSD August 1, 2010 at 8:46 am #

    This thread in this post is supposed to be about the death of the climate legislation. I marvel at the way it gets off track. But this time it really is not so far off track because the oil spill crisis is being used as a political tool to destroy the oil producing capacity of our nation.
    There is no doubt that oil is every bit as demonized as CO2. The truth is that the spill, not that there is anything good about it, has turned out to not be the mega disaster that our dear friend Rob the hood had predicted it would be. I pointed out stories, when this first happened about the oil spill from the Valdez, about the clean up efforts, saying that it was probably a mistake to use, and more damage was caused by, the chemical dispersants. And what do we have people now saying about the gulf spill? That it was probably ill advised (or STUPID), to use chemical dispersants because they have caused more damage than the spill itself, and that the oil in the gulf is breaking down due to natural processes faster that anticipated.
    We had people running around like Chicken Little screaming that the sky was falling, and it has not fallen. Isn’t it interesting though that the administration is proceeding as though it has?

  25. paul wenum August 1, 2010 at 7:34 pm #

    Interesting. I may be “aged” but this “Rob the hood” is impervious to all trained thought. Plagiarizing other peoples writings is beyond the pale. He has no other personal things to say other than to cut and paste.? Neil, I agree.

  26. Hal Groar August 1, 2010 at 8:50 pm #

    Something caught my eye…Paul you asked the rhetorical question whether these oil spills, leaks were the result of ELF, terrorism or a multiplier of three? I think ELF is a terrorist organization. All the info I have seen points in that direction. The multiplier effect may well be apart of it also. I do not know if it was ELF(a terrorist group) or just bad things come in three’s. I think it should be looked into. My first thought when the rig blew-up was some sort of sabotage. Even my far left friends thought there might have been a human factor in the disaster.

    • Rob N. Hood August 6, 2010 at 5:04 pm #

      There was Hal- greed and avarice.

  27. paul wenum August 2, 2010 at 8:56 pm #

    Al, Interesting theory on the gulf conundrum isn’t it?

  28. Hal Groar August 2, 2010 at 9:28 pm #

    Yes, I think it is interesting. I heard Cuba is buying an oil rig from China to drill in the Gulf of Mexico…I wonder if they will run into this kind of bad luck.

  29. NEIL F. AGWD/BSD August 4, 2010 at 4:27 pm #

    Reporting live from Denver! The mountains are cool.
    I don’t know if it is terrorists or what. I think that maybe there are a lot of minor spills that happen all the time that go unreported in the national media, perhaps?

  30. paul wenum August 4, 2010 at 10:01 pm #

    Al, Neil, there are items/issues I assume that the our main media (I hate the word “Mainstream,” not mainstream to me, sorry I digress) does not report. Nothing changes other than the weather that is “natural.” Let’s get back to the subject at hand. By the way it’s “tongue.”

  31. Rob N. Hood August 6, 2010 at 5:13 pm #

    More right-wing intelligence from Neil. You should work for Rush or Glenn.

  32. Rob N. Hood August 7, 2010 at 8:16 am #

    Oval Office, Feb 2009

    Mr. Obama: Listen here, Mr. Banker, you’d better get a good lawyer because we’re coming for you and all your red-handed little friends.

    Bankster: Go ahead and arrest us. We’ll shut down this economy in a heartbeat even further than we already had. We saw McCain’s defeat coming and we collapsed the economy so you couldn’t give all your supporters free health care, free tuition and all the other things the world’s richest nation can easily afford. You think it’s bad now, just slap some cuffs on us.

    Mr. Obama; Ok, what do you want me to do?

    Bankster: We need about 850 billion in zero interest loans to begin with…

  33. NEIL F. AGWD/BSD August 7, 2010 at 5:32 pm #

    Sorry, I’ve been a little distracted. I was on vacation this week with my mom and my neice. We drove to Denver to see my sister. The trip was all fine and dandy until, on the trip home, my mom fell down at a rest stop in Sterling Colorado and broke her hip. Fortunately they have a regional medical center there, about two miles from the rest stop. The only good thing about it was that this medical center was top notch. My mom could not have been in better hands. They even had an orthopedic surgeon on staff there, and they were able to get her into surgury and repair her hip the next day. She is doing well in recovery now. The only problem is that we don’t know if she will be able to come home and do her rehab here, or if she has to stay in Denver with my sister and do rehab there.
    But things should be settling back to normal for me this week. I am back home, and back to work Monday.

  34. paul wenum August 8, 2010 at 11:03 pm #

    Gentlemen, it is about the demise of “Cap and Trade,” not about tirades.

  35. paul wenum August 9, 2010 at 12:28 am #

    Neil, Hal,

    Have at him. I’m tired of this “B as in B S and S as in S” as Souchary says. Let the Robbie Boy’s of the world pass on their negative comments infinitum until “the cows come home.” I’m not leaving due to Robbie Boy, I have better things to do with my life like “get active in what I believe in.” Enough said. By my the way Neil, it is “tongue.” As for you Rob, I strongly suggest that you channel your energies toward your family. I sense a disconnect? Play catch with your children and take less time on the internet! Trust me, it will be worh it’s weight in gold.

  36. paul wenum August 9, 2010 at 10:01 pm #

    Neil, we all hope that your Mother will be well taken care of in Denver or here. Take care.

  37. Rob N. Hood August 11, 2010 at 7:14 am #

    I rest my case. Nutjobs abound.

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