Dan, that is indeed good news. But we shouldn’t forget that the EPA is moving ahead with carbon caps anyway. This is the scenario I predicted a few months ago, and it always seemed like the obvious play for Democrats: Pass a grab bag of goodies for Al Gore and his buddies in the green-energy lobby, and then let the EPA do the dirty work of making energy more expensive. I doubt that Congress will enact a cap-and-trade bill any time soon, but that doesn’t mean that emissions won’t be capped.

Meanwhile, on Planet Gore, Chris Horner is worried that the passage of any energy bill in the Senate would leave the door open for the Democrats to add carbon caps to the bill in conference committee. I’ve heard a number of conservatives voice concerns about this, and I honestly don’t get it. The Senate would still have to approve the conference report, and conference reports can be filibustered. If the Democrats don’t have the votes for cap and trade in the Senate, then they don’t have the votes. Is there some sort of procedural trick they could use — a deem-and-pass or reconciliation-style maneuver — that I’m missing here?