What's Your Opinion on the Climate and Energy Bill?

When the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) on May 21, that was just the end of Round One. Several other House committees have jurisdiction over the bill, and any one of them could kill it for good simply by burying it in a subcommittee, or never bringing the legislation to a full committee vote.

At the least, more concessions to those industries implicated in the bill's provisions are sure to be made.

Grist's Kate Sheppard has a good committee-by-committee round-up of what's next for ACES:

The House parliamentarian has referred the bill to nine committees, though only four have signaled that they intend to review it in the next weeks. Some estimates of how many committees may want a chance to modify the legislation go as high as 11, and it’s certain that the Ways and Means, Agriculture, Science, and Natural Resources committees will all play some role in the development of the bill.

All of this will take place before the bill goes up for a vote in the full House, which could come by the end of June, if some reports are to be believed.

Those reports, which surfaced last week with Joe Romm, on Climate Progress, are that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) wants the bill on the floor of the House for a vote by the last week in June:

That is consistent with what Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said (see “House Majority Leader says climate bill will see fast action“). But it will require a lot of speedy deal-making.

Still, it suggests the speaker does not see any deal breakers in the path to House passage, even though, as Wonk Room reports, “Brown Dogs Poised To Block Green Economy Legislation.”

And Sen. Boxer (D-CA) can certainly get something close to the Waxman-Markey bill out of the Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee by the fall. And let’s assume for now it doesn’t get mired in any other committees.

Meanwhile, over at the Senate a group of legislators dubbed the "climate champions" is reported to have begun laying the groundwork to move the bill through the Senate.

The average climate-aware citizen should be forgiven if she or he confesses to confusion on how to react to and act on this bill, which is a policy wonk's dream involving pollution credits, carbon offsets, clean energy mandates, pollution cap and trade mechanisms, and much more. Advocates of action on global warming are not marching in lockstep support for the measure, so one actually needs to hunker down and decide for one's own self what's wrong and what's right.

My thoroughly unscientific and cursory glance around the green scene finds among the bill's supporters: the League of Conservation Voters, the National Wildlife Federation, the Audubon Society, Sierra Club, and NRDC.

Al Gore is said to be rallying the volunteerswith The Climate Project, his global warming action organization, to get behind the bill.

Influential climate policy blogger Joe Romm, mentioned above, continues to advocate intensely for the bill -- both for its domestic impacts, and how it will strengthen America's hand up to and during this December's "Son of Kyoto" climate treaty talks in Copenhagen.

MoveOn is taking a middle ground stance -- asking for campaign donations to "help us make sure President Obama can fight global warming" by removing concessions to the fossil fuel industry from the bill.

A Siegel of "Get Energy Smart Now" says the bill has become fatally flawed. He's called it "table scraps" on three different blogs, and a failure on three different fronts: It's no longer scientifically sound; there are too many giveaways to polluters; and it's not clear yet what it will mean for poorer Americans, who might need assistance offsetting increased energy bills.

Greenpeace rejected the bill immediately upon its referral out of Energy and Commerce. SolveClimate seems to be leaning against it. And two groups, the Carbon Tax Center and the Climate Crisis Coalition, say the bill's become too watered down to work -- echoing the opinion of climate scientist James Hansen. They oppose a cap-and-trade market system for curbing carbon emissions, in favor of a pollution tax.

Are the supporters of Waxman-Markey on target, or are they succumbing to cynical political pragmatism?

Are the ACES opponents within the climate activism scene standing up against a bad bill, or getting carried away with political idealism, instead of embracing a big win for action to curb global warming?

What's your stand on the bill, and what are you doing about it? Discuss it in the comments.