With cap-and-trade, there would most probably be some Republicans who would vote for a bill (likely to include Snowe, Collins, Graham), and it might even be possible to get Murkowski’s support if the bill stops the EPA from being able to regulate emissions. Unfortunately, there are a similar amount of Democrats who are unlikely to support a bill. Some sort of political pressure (maybe an advertising campaign similar to the posters at Copenhagen airport) could be required to get these Senators to vote for a bill.

The difficulty with any legislation that puts a price on carbon is that it is easy for firms to pretend that a carbon price will cripple them, and they have an incentive to do this so that they get free permits. This continues to be a problem until the carbon price is introduced, and people realise that the adverse economic impact is negligible. This means that to get a good carbon pricing policy is an iterative process.

Maybe a way to get out of the mess that we are in is to get the Senate to pass a bill that places a low fixed price on carbon relatively soon (e.g. similar to the Kerry-Boxer floor price), with the intention being to pass some sort of cap-and-trade scheme later.