The Old Obama Climate Fold-O-Rama?

Apparently those reports that the Democrats were trying to attach climate legislation to a bill reforming offshore drilling and scorch the GOP on the optics of opposing cleaning up the spill and holding BP accountable? Those reports where Harry Reid specifically said the reason he was doing that because he didn't trust the GOP to play fair on either issue?

Yeah, Donks just threw that hand on the table and walked away from the pot.

In the latest blow to the prospects of climate and energy legislation, the third ranking Democrat in the Senate suggested today that Dems will start small, instead of bringing a comprehensive bill to the floor.

Appearing on MSNBC this morning, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) confirmed that Majority Leader Harry Reid will move an energy-only bill next month, based on a template authored by Energy Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman, and predicted that Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) will have a chance to offer their much farther-reaching climate change legislation as an amendment to the base package.

"Kerry has a proposal that has pretty broad support," Schumer said. "He's going, in my opinion, going to get a chance to offer it in the form of an amendment."

So as what little environmental protections were in Kerry-Lieberman die screaming as the GOP kills the agenda, killed the bill before it got a change to be voted on, and will now kill the even weaker amendment that remains, the Dems can say "Well we tried!" on climate change legislation and will expect progressives to do...what again?

Oh yes, shut their dirty f'ckin hippie mouths.

Where's the White House on this, you ask? K-Drum reminds us that the White House is still holding the EPA hole card, that is unless Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski doesn't murder the EPA's authorization to regulate greenhouse gases on Thursday.

It's going to be a bumpy ride if regulation goes down that path, because all of that EPA stuff vanishes the millisecond a GOP President gets back into power.

We'll see.