Joe Lieberman angered a lot of liberals recently with his declaration of opposition to Harry Reid's opt-out public-option provision. But liberals who also care about climate-change legislation may want to temper their rage. Lieberman has long championed climate-change legislation in the Senate, and is emerging as a critical player in the current effort. Politico reported back in September that Lieberman had been busy meeting with a bipartisan group to figure out a path forward on climate change. In a recent interview with the National Journal, Lieberman gave some insight into his negotiating strategy.

Lieberman knows they won't get to 60 without concessions on four key areas: nuclear, coal, agriculture, and manufacturing. Satisfying a few senators with interests in each of those industries might be enough to get the bill across the line. It looks as though Lieberman and his pals have found people to champion each issue. Tom Carper from Delaware is working on coal; Debbie Stabenow from Michigan is taking the lead on agriculture; and Sherrod Brown from Ohio is active on manufacturing. It sounds as though Lieberman himself will be central to nuclear negotiations, which makes sense given that he's close to Republicans like Lindsey Graham and John McCain who care deeply about expanding the nuclear sector.

Lindsey Graham's actions on climate change in the last few days have set the greenosphere abuzz. First, he penned an op-ed, with John Kerry, where he committed to work with Democrats to pass a comprehensive climate-change bill. Then he got called a wussypants for his trouble (along with a lot of unwarranted and nasty things), and was yelled at by foamy-mouthed loons at a town-hall event in South Carolina. Environmentalists have heralded Graham's oped  as a game changer on the environment. They're probably right. Graham's advocacy of climate change legislation is a huge boost for the Boxer-Kerry bill (although he hasn't officially endorsed it). But it's not unexpected.

For starters, Graham, who has long demonstrated a willingness to work across the aisle, is starting to look more John McCain that John McCain these days. As Chuck Todd, et al. point out on First Read, "He, more than McCain, this year has shown a tendency to do two things McCain made famous over the last decade: buck his party (see Sonia Sotomayor vote) and talk bluntly about former President Bush ... Graham, himself close to McCain, has, at a minimum, set himself apart a bit as an unpredictable critic." Although Graham opposed previous attempts at comprehensive climate-change legislation, he's been slowly edging away from his old positions, even cosponsoring Democrat Senator Tom Carper's Clean Air Planning Act of 2006 that would have limited pollutants emitted by power plants.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has decided to pick a fight with Apple over climate change. This started after Apple quit the chamber this week and made it clear that it was doing so because it thinks the people running the chamber are a bunch of imbeciles when it comes to climate change. Yesterday, in an incredibly brazen move, the head of the chamber struck back, firing off a letter in which he criticized Apple and said the chamber really does care about climate change, and that Apple just didn't take the time to listen to its plans. (My colleague Daniel Stone blogged about the squabble earlier today here on Techtonic Shifts.)

Money quote from chamber president Thomas Donohue in his letter to Apple: “It is unfortunate that your company didn’t take the time to understand the Chamber’s position on climate and forfeited the opportunity to advance a 21st century approach to climate change."

I have a story out today about the uphill battle that Barbara Boxer and John Kerry will face when they drop their climate change bill in the Senate, which is likely to be any day now. The short version is that the politics are very complex and negotiations are likely to be drawn out. We probably won't see a vote on it this year. One political aspect I didn't discuss in the piece is public opinion, mostly because that's a whole different can of worms. Perhaps unsurprisingly, what the public thinks about climate change legislation like the Waxman-Markey bill depends almost entirely on messaging. Two recent polls show how disparate responses can be.

On September 1, the Benenson Strategy Group - those same polling gurus who advised the Obama campaign - wrote a memo explaining that, based on their polling, 63% of Americans support the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES, or the Waxman-Markey Bill.) Support peaked among Democrats, 85% of whom were in favor of it, but it also polled well among Independents (59% support) and did better than expected among Republicans (43% support). But just days earlier, Rasmussen conducted a separate poll and found only 35% of Americans support ACES. So why the enormous difference?

Last night The Washington Post reported Sen. Chris Dodd's decision to decline the chairmanship of the powerful Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee (HELP), previously chaired by Ted Kennedy. Dodd wants to stay put as chair of the Senate banking committee so he can have a strong hand in developing a robust new regulatory framework for the finance sector. As a result, the HELP chairmanship will likely fall to Iowa's Tom Harkin. The committee is a natural fit for the reliably liberal Harkin, who is best known for championing disabilities legislation. 

It's a tough, even mythical thing to do, to find middle ground for both environmental and business interests in one fell swoop. But both groups seem to be approving a move made late last night by Commerce Secretary Gary Locke. Addressing issues of collapsing fisheries and the decline of ocean health that is leading to and being caused by climate change, Locke made a sweeping move to limit the expansion of commercial fishing in U.S. waters in the north Pacific. Set to go into effect as soon as next year, the plan would halt increased industrial fishing over a 200,000-square-mile area in the icy waters of the Beaufort Sea as scientists can further research local species like Arctic cod and snow crab currently over sought by commercial vessels.

Issues of commercial fishing often come with intense economic undertones. Demand for scaled creatures currently stands at a worldwide high, especially for the species that humans eat most, like Atlantic cod and Bluefin tuna. But populations of both have hit near rock bottom over the past decade as loose fishing regulations have led to a virtual emptying of the seas. The situation paints the north Pacific in a unique and lucrative light: as permanent sea ice melts as an effect of climate change, waters that had formerly been locked up would now become open for business.

Locke, essentially, said no.