This is a classic story tease from National Journal:

“Ways And Means Might Punt On Climate
House Ways and Means Committee Democrats are likely to punt on their opportunity to help shape climate-change legislation, given a tiny window for action, zero agreement among panel members and a desire to focus instead on health . . . “

But here’s the thing. The cat’s out of the bag, with the administration proposing in its budget to pay for its social engineering through the revenues from selling all of the “cap-and-trade” ration coupons, and even though the House Energy and Commerce Committee bought some corporate cover by giving away 85 percent of the ration coupons for free for a decade or so. Including to China and India to sell back to us. Really.

It’s simply unavoidable that the Congressional Budget Office among others remains correct: cap-and-trade is a tax –the Obama Energy Tax, as we’ve repeatedly called it in this space — and a revenue raiser. All revenue measures are supposed to go through Ways and Means.

Of course, that might not be such a good idea if, say, the Committee chose not to just rubber stamp what another committee produced and, worse, started an embarassing fight — among Democrats — over whether it might not be a little less mean to seniors and the poor to go the far less expensive, more efficient, less gamable route of a direct tax (which, of course, would pay off no constituencies and buy little corporate political cover). Besides, some Ways and Means members indicated they might have other ideas for paying off different constituencies that lobby W&M, as opposed to E&C. They might, you know, “vote for change.”

Oh, dear. Imagine how difficult the democratic process could get.

So the Dems have decided to just avoid such ugliness. The energy tax — sorry, the global warming tax — isn’t going to go through the tax-writing committee. That might draw attention, which is the one thing its proponents know it cannot survive.