To see how the mood in Congress is changing on global warming, look no further than America's Climate Security Act (ACSA). This is a bill that seeks to limit and ultimately slash America's emissions of greenhouse gases. For one thing, it is sponsored by John Warner, a Republican who once opposed all such measures. For another, it has won the support of Max Baucus, a senator from Montana, whose coal-mining constituents hate the idea. It has already cleared more legislative hurdles than any of the many previous bills on global warming.
So will a law pass soon? Probably not; the Senate and the House of Representatives are already struggling to reconcile rival bills on energy, and will doubtless find global warming even tougher. The House is not yet properly up to speed on the subject, and in the Senate a global-warming sceptic has vowed to filibuster any bill that places firm limits on America's emissions—a tactic that can only be overcome with 60 of the chamber's 100 votes. Even then, George Bush, another critic of caps, would probably veto such a bill. Nonetheless, the current debate provides a good indication of the sort of horse-trading that will be needed to push a bill through in future.
Past bills have foundered either because they seemed too ambitious to Republicans worried about the effects of a cap on American industry, or too feeble to environmentally-minded Democrats. But Mr Warner and the bill's co-author, Joe Lieberman, an estranged Democrat, have included something for almost everyone.
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