Oil Spill Dooms Climate Bill

Energy reform advocates scrambled yesterday to rescue the bill that's been slogging its way through the Senate, but the Gulf oil spill appears to be the final, ironic nail in its coffin, Politico reports. Republicans will only vote for the bill if it includes an expansion of oil drilling, something that now looks, according to one Democrat, “almost both unconscionable and impossible.”

“I have got to believe I'm going to get this done,” said T. Boone Pickens, who was trying hard to push for the bill behind the scenes yesterday. But liberal groups were pushing hard on the offshore drilling issue—MoveOn.org even called for a full ban. “I think the bill was dead before,” said the head of Clean Air Watch. “I just think this adds a lot of oily dust on top of the corpse.” (More cap and trade stories.)