Sorry for the few days' blog absence—was wrapping up a piece for the print mag. In any case, all's still quiet on the Senate energy front. The latest news suggests that the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman climate bill won't drop until April 26th. Why don't they release it on, say, next Thursday—Earth Day? Ah, well, here's Lindsey Graham: "We don't want to mix messages here. I'm all for protecting the Earth, but this is about energy independence." In case that wasn't clear, here he is in the Post: "We're not going to do it on Earth Day. It's going to be offshore drilling day when it's introduced."
Er, offshore drilling day? No doubt that appeals to swing Republicans, but it's awfully odd that the sponsors of a bill that's intended to avert a looming climate crisis want to talk about anything but that. It'd be like if the sponsors of the health-care bill had only wanted to talk about closing the Medicare donut hole and nothing else.