It turns out that Big Coal and their Blue Dog allies attached provisions to the energy bill that repeal a key part of the Clean Air Act and removes the EPA's authority to fight global warming. From the LA Times:
Coal-fired power plants are the largest source of heat-trapping gases that cause global warming, but President Obama's plan to fight climate change would result in the nation burning more coal a decade from now than it does today.
MoveOn.org is fund-raising to launch a major campaign to get the bill fixed, and I have them to thank for the links that appear in this diary, but I'm not sure how a fixed bill could pass both houses. It appears that it would be better to have no bill at all than the one we wound up with, so it appears that Dennis Kucinich cast the correct vote. He was called a "purist prick" for that vote on this site, but he lays out very strong arguments for voting the way he did. As a trained engineer, I tend to reject "solutions" that make the problem worse, even if the proposal comes from friends and allies.
I'm sorry, but there is no such thing as "clean coal". This bill might even increase greenhouse gas production, by lifting barriers to coal use and delaying all the pain to the indefinite future. We might do better by having no bill and letting the EPA regulate greenhouse gases.