Waiting for the other shoe to drop

As they do so,protests—though nothing like as rowdy as those over health care—have begun. The largest have come from a group called Energy Citizens,which has sponsored rallies in a handful of cities around the country. As the campaign is backed by the American Petroleum Institute,these events have a whiff of corporate manipulation. Still,many voters are not faking their concern. At the kickoff rally in Houston several thousand people gathered peacefully to listen to speeches and eat hamburgers.

Back in the Senate,fear that cap-and-trade will be painted as a murky,confusing job-killer and a bureaucratic hassle makes Democrats in conservative states nervous. They include Ben Nelson of Nebraska,Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu and both senators from North Dakota. Head counts fall far short of the 60 votes required to ensure passage.

The gamut of committees that the bill must pass in the Senate may yet save it,though probably at a hefty price. Barbara Boxer,the chairman of the environment committee,plans to submit her version of the bill later in September. Her starting point may be the bill that passed the House energy committee,a greener bill than the one that passed the full House. This was weakened by concessions to farmers and other giveaways at the last hurdle in order to secure House passage.

Then the Senate committees can set about adding pork. The Senate (with two members per state,no matter how empty) represents agriculture more heavily than the House. Paul Bledsoe of the National Commission on Energy Policy reckons that extra incentives to farmers,at first pared back from House bill levels,may be added in higher amounts later in the process to help bring Senate moderates on board. (Tom Vilsack,the agriculture secretary,has been busily promoting action on climate as a way of boosting farm incomes,since farmers can earn “offsets” from polluting industries by reducing their own greenhouse-gas emissions.) More support for nuclear power (nearly emissions-free,but controversial) could bring back a few centrist Republicans. Attention to natural gas-nearly absent from the House bill,but produced in 32 states—could help as well.

Environmentalists have problems with the House bill’s concessions to coal and other special interests. But most of the main interest groups support it,including the Sierra Club,the Environmental Defence Fund and the World Wildlife Fund. Greenpeace is a notable exception. Phil Radford,the group’s executive director,says with disappointment that “You have the president really hiding behind Congress.” He complains that Mr Obama has sacrificed his vision to conservative “Blue Dog” Democrats,and that it would be better the other way around.

Joe Romm,a senior fellow at the Democrat-leaning Centre for American Progress,says that while the bill has its limitations,“Obama can’t pass a substantially stronger bill than Waxman-Markey. It’s not possible.” He notes that after Bill Clinton’s health-care reform fell apart it took 16 years to revisit the issue. Climate-change purists should bear in mind the consequences of failure. “If this bill goes down,” he says,“it will be a very long time before we come back to it. [And I don’t see how the international process survives.”

© The Economist Newspaper Limited 2009