Bill Scher: [In praise of paying off politicians to vote for the climate swindle bill]

Because in the aftermath of the House vote, right-leaning Senate Dems and right-wing Republicans acted as if Reps. Henry Waxman and Ed Markey hadn't spent the last three months painstakingly piecing a compromise with Dems sympathetic to coal companies, power companies and agribusiness.

These senators are the new global warming deniers. Not denying the climate crisis is happening, but denying the climate bill compromises that just happened.
...
If we want to have any hope of holding the line, let alone trying to strengthen the bill, in the Senate, it must be known far and wide that House leaders have done the hard work. They have taken the risks and cut the deals.

If fossil fuel-friendly Senators want to criticize the substance of those deals, fine. Do so and have a public debate about it. Certainly environmental groups want to.

But to pretend those deals don't exist is flat dishonesty. And if we let it stand, the Senate process will be even uglier than the House.