Well look at this. Goes to show that not everything is so terrible right now:
"I'm quite optimistic there will be action," Jonathan Pershing, the U.S. Deputy special climate change envoy, told a panel on Wednesday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"I don't think its a plausible scenario" that Congress would not pass a bill aiming to lower emissions of heat-trapping gases, but passage would be more likely over the next year than the next month, he said.
The article goes on to talk about the work that Lieberman, Kerry and Graham are doing on the bill in order to get it ready for a spring floor debate:
Democratic Senator John Kerry is working with independent Senator Joe Lieberman and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham on a compromise climate bill that would include more incentives for nuclear energy and offshore drilling than a climate bill passed in the U.S. House of Representatives.
At the recent climate summit in Copenhagen, Kerry left open the possibility of not including an emissions cap and trade market in the climate bill.
But the legislation's future is uncertain amid opposition from lawmakers in coal states and others who say a cap and trade market on emissions would raise energy costs.
"We will have to see how it plays out and we will have to start working on alternatives if it doesn't happen," Pershing said.
He did not say what the alternatives might be.
Presumably the alternative is EPA action, but I think he thinks quite rightly that most congressfolks and senators would prefer a tax or emissions trading bill to pass rather than the less cost-effective EPA regulations under the Clean Air Act.
This also suggests quite strongly to me that President Obama will push hard for an economywide bill coming out of the State of The Union. Unlike health care, this is an issue that can be won with some intense Presidential focus in a short period of time.
So a little good news for a shitty day.
May those poor folks in Haiti find food and shelter soon.