Senate climate change bill crashes.(Inside Track)

On Monday, June 2, the U.S. Senate began deliberating on the Climate Security Act (S. 3036), in what many hoped would mark the start of a historic debate. But progress was thwarted by partisan bickering over judicial nominations and by procedural maneuvers, such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's insistence that all 492 pages be read into the record, which took more than eight hours. Finally, on Friday, June 6, Democrats failed to get the 60 votes needed to defeat any attempted Republican filibuster and bring the bill to the floor for a vote. While few expected that the legislation would pass in this Congress, many were surprised at how quickly the effort fizzled.

Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe was not surprised, however, commenting, "As I suspected, reality hit the U.S. Senate when the economic facts of this bill were exposed. When faced with the inconvenient truth of the bill's impact on skyrocketing gas prices, very few ...