All The Energy's Been Sucked Out Of It

The Senate's new "Energy Bill" is just that: legislation that only deal with energy and the BP oil spill, and does nothing for the much larger problems of climate and carbon regulation.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will unveil as early as Monday a slimmed-down energy bill seeking to make offshore drilling safer and convert trucks to run on domestic natural gas.

The full Senate could begin consideration of Reid's bill on Tuesday and Democrats would like to pass it by the early part of the following week.

With time running short ahead of a month-long recess starting Aug 6, Democrats abandoned efforts last week to put climate-control measures in the bill. Reid said then that he had no Republican votes for items such as carbon caps and mandates requiring utilities to generate some of their power from alternatives sources such as wind and solar.

Reid said Congress could revisit climate legislation in September but lawmakers and analysts doubt there will be much appetite ahead of the mid-term elections in November.

Sadly, it is all we can expect from 59 Democrats in the Senate.  Of course it wasn't time for legislation when there were 60 Dems in the Senate either and they could beat a Republican filibuster too.  If now now, when, Mr Reid?