Apparently, the latest complaint from what is supposedly the world’s most exclusive deliberative body is that it’s just too damn much for the American public to expect that their elected representatives deal with more than one big issue – health care and climate – at the same time. As the WashPost reports in a story on the state of play of the Senate climate bill:
But other legislators wonder if, when the health-care debate finally ends, the Senate will have the stomach or the attention span [!!] for another complicated fight.
And it remains unclear how much clout President Obama will have left to sway wavering lawmakers. “It’s very hard for Congress to do one big thing, much less do a couple of really big issues at the same time,” said Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.), whose state produces coal as well as wind power.
Yes, Senators exhausted from a few weeks of talking to other senators, taking a month break, and receiving large sums of money from lobbyists will need months and months of recuperation doing … what? a bunch of really small, inconsequential things, before addressing the biggest threat to the health and well-being of all Americans. Seriously!
The good news is that while Dorgan continues to raise concerns about carbon market manipulation, he actually seems to have softened his position on the bill:
Dorgan, who could be a swing vote on a climate bill, said he believes in capping carbon emissions, but not this way. He fears that cap-and-trade will create a market open to manipulation, like existing securities markets.
He remains noncommittal about his ultimate vote. “We have a whole mountain range to climb before we get there,” he said.
We’ve seen that the market manipulation issue is overblown and addressable (see “When Sen. Dorgan finds out what’s in the climate bill – hint, hint, White House – he might just support it” and Krugman’s Fear of carbon markets and speculation is “99% wrong and bad for the planet”).
I’m gonna Dorgan down as a definite “Maybe” [a big step up from Nate Silver’s “Probability of Yes” vote (PrY) of 22%], especially on cloture to end the inevitable, immoral conservative filibuster.
