With most of the focus this month on health-care reform, the other extremely controversial bill (Waxman-Markey) — which would dramatically alter the nation’s energy policy — is likely to start ramping up again next month when the U.S. Senate reconvenes from its August recess.

A Washington Post article (below) discusses how both sides of the issue are already gearing up for the debate:

Next month, the Senate is expected to take up legislation that would cap greenhouse-gas emissions. That fight began in blazing earnest last week, with a blitz of TV ads and public events in the Midwest and Mountain West.

It seems that environmentalists are struggling in a fight they have spent years setting up. They are making slow progress adapting a movement built for other goals — building alarm over climate change, encouraging people to “green” their lives — into a political hammer, pushing a complex proposal the last mile through a skeptical Senate.