Nothing left to give away

From the NY Times on the Waxman-Markey climate bill:

[T]he energy legislation passed on Thursday still faces a tortuous path through several more House committees before it can be brought up for a vote later this year. In the Senate, leaders say they lack the votes to pass the bill as it is now written.

The (correct) view of the Republicans:

“This is the biggest energy tax in the history of the United States,” [Michigan Representative Mike] Rogers said.

Finally, the pathetic attempt by the Democrats to buy off support:

In weeks of closed-door negotiations with [coal-state and other hesitant] Democrats, Mr. Waxman doled out billions of dollars worth of free pollution permits, known as allowances, to cushion any price shock caused by imposing a cap on emissions of heat-trapping gases.

In the end, 85 percent of all pollution allowances were given at no cost for various purposes, including compensating energy-intensive industries, state governments, oil refiners and low-income households, at least in the early years of the program...

The truth is that it is not possible to "cushion" the "price shock" for everyone, and as it now stands the losers are... the middle class. Not promising in my opinion in terms of political viability.

Meanwhile, at the state level there was a rally yesterday at which Ecology head Jay Manning said that the state has been far ahead of Washington, DC, in making significant progress (in my opinion this is not true) and the enviros were joined by a small but vociferous group of vegetarian-promoters. Sigh.