Reports Political Wire:  Senate Democrats said they “had abandoned hope of passing a comprehensive energy bill this summer and would pursue a more limited measure focused primarily on responding the Gulf oil spill and including some tightening of energy efficiency standards,” the New York Times reports.  Explained Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: “We don’t have a single Republican to work with us.

The question I have is whether this is a good or bad thing.  Absent Congressional legislation, pursuant to the Supreme Court case of Mass. v. EPA, and in light of the EPA’s “endangerment finding” under the Clean Air Act that identifies greenhouses gases as an air pollutant, EPA regulation of carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act could, if the Obama administration chooses to push it, be far more environmentally successful than any climate change legislation that passes Congress.  But how far is Obama willing to go?

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