Apparently if this bill passes we will all pay more money for everything forever. These arguments are weirdly econ-alyptic.

This debate does not want for melodramatic statements in both directions. Even I think a few of the pro-bill comments have been over the top, and I'm one of those people worried the bill's too watered down.

There should've been a bingo game for this. Climate change denial, saving the planet, Nancy Reagan quote (WTF?), coal is good for us, hidden tax, economic apocalypse, ecological collapse.

A giant yellow box giftwrapped for China and containing a hardhat labeled JOBS would not have been on my bingo card.

Hope over fear! Obama bingo!

This is actually pretty terrible to watch. Supposedly Dems have the votes, but an awful lot of GOP Reps think all this science stuff is liberal hogwash.

There's now a long drawn-out thing about 300 pages (out of ~1200, the GOP keeps repeating the exact number) that are supposed to be in the official copy that everyone has. R says not in copy, D sponsors and presiding speaker say uh yeah it's in there guys, no recess to find the pages we already gave you.

It's really weird.

I had to turn if off. CSPAN is bad for my health.

Interestingly, it's not the moderate votes Obama and Gore are twisting arms to get today.

The House Floor Sumamry says this is what's going on now:

4:57 P.M. -
DEBATE - Pursuant to the provisions of H.Res. 587, the House proceeded with 30 minutes of debate on the Forbes amendment.

Amendment offered by Mr. Forbes.

An amendment printed in part B of House Report 111-185 to strike everything and insert the text of H.R. 513, the "New Manhattan Project for Energy Independence."

All I see is John Boehner questioning lots of details in this bill but just to say "OMG this is so many pages of details, it must all be a poorly thought out scheme to defraud taxpayers based on half-baked ideas."

On All Things Considered a few minutes ago (If you can stand listening through the pledge drive) When are our politicians going to get away from cheap applause lines like "an energy tax on every American" and start to frame taxes as the collective bill for the things we value-- good schools, clean air, modern infrastructure. Oh wait. Socialism.

This is usually why I prefer to watch the Senate. They're still crazy at times, but not as crazy. Watching the House debate anything makes me want to hand the keys over to the bees and say "Yeah, we've messed up pretty good, how about you guys take a shot?" At the very least there would be lots of honey.

Mmmm, honey.

It passed! The Senate will start its own bill in September.

Ah but if I hadn't watched the crazypants House, I would've missed the man who had a sheet of postal stamps and waved them around talking about how carbon cap and trade would raise their price!

Also John Boehner. I have no clue how what he was talking about related to the bill, but the people behind him cheered a lot.

What is good and what is bad about this bill?

That's what I was trying to get a sense of earlier, but all the links I found that broke down different parts of the bill were from earlier versions of it. The thing's big and the list of changes alone is a 6-page PDF.

From what I've been reading today, the cost has been a big point of contention from the opposition on the right, and the estimates differ. Opposition on the left has been to some things that they think will weaken the president's ability to affect energy policy long term and a disappointment with the goals set for reducing CO2 emissions.

Given the size of the thing and the sheer clout of the energy lobbies, I have no doubt there are some troubling things tucked into the language that will be nasty surprises later.

Here's a roundup of reactions from different sources for a first pass, anyway.

Green For All
Sierra Club
Greenpeace (they notably opposed the bill)
Yale Environment 360 (most dense discussion, from multiple viewpoints)

And yeah, I'm hoping to find better coverage by science journalists soon so I'm not just reading advocacy blogs for a sense of what's going on.

On reason, probably the main one, it's hard to find information on what the bill actually says.

So much for Obama's pledge to make bills available for 5 days before signing them.

Yeah I'm not exactly please to be getting emails from his grassroots machine only for certain things they need legislators pressured about, and then legislation I care about a lot gets handled this awfully.

Oh noes!

Oddly enough, Obama has a somewhat saner reaction to Democrats who voted for the bill. Can't find the link now, but he said their votes were understandable based on their populace, so it wasn't a big deal. I suppose that's easy to say since the bill did pass the House, but it fits his character.

I for one am not remotely surprised his reaction is both sane and suave. Man needs their votes on health care. Eye on the prize.

Teabaggers, on the other hand. Eye on the teabags.

I've talked briefly to a couple of actual environmental policy watchers (unlike my amateur self), and they say even the groups most vested in this bill are mostly quiet at the moment since they haven't gotten a chance to read it yet. And that it won't get really interesting until it goes into conference anyway.

Would they read it now, before it went to conference, or wait 'till then?

People are reading it now but my impression is they're more interested in what happens to it next. So while it's of interest, it's sort of like how you read a rough draft to get a sense of where things are headed for a final draft, knowing there are a lot of changes coming and wanting to be able to articulate how you think they should go.