A handful of senators from both parties who could be swing votes on a climate strategy have asked the Energy Information Administration to analyze a cap-and-dividend bill sponsored by Sens. Marie Cantwell, D-Wash., and Susan Collins, R-Maine.

In their June 3 letter to EIA Administrator Richard Newell, five senators asked the agency for help in "determining the most efficient and effective policies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, protecting consumers from associated energy price increases, minimizing both regional disparities and carbon leakage, increasing the diversity and resiliency of our nation's energy mix, and reducing our use of foreign sources of energy."

Cantwell and Collins both signed the letter, as well as Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, committee ranking member Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio.

In the meantime, the EIA's analysis of the climate and energy bill sponsored by Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Joe Lieberman, I/D-Conn., should be complete in a couple weeks, a spokesman said. The EPA is expected to issue its own analysis of that bill to senators on Wednesday and to the public on Thursday. The Kerry-Lieberman legislation would phase in cap-and-trade systems for most of the economy, while the Cantwell-Collins approach avoids setting up such a massive new carbon trading market.

Another potential alternative to the Kerry-Lieberman legislation is an energy-only bill sponsored by Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., that was scheduled to be rolled out today. Lugar, the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, has postponed his press conference because his flight back to D.C. was canceled, a spokesperson said. According to a draft released in March (subscription), the bill gathers together previously released initiatives, including higher Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards and requirements for electric utilities to make greater use of renewable sources. Click here for a May 27 version of the bill draft.

Some progressive and environmental organizations have criticized Lugar's plan despite the canceled press conference. "Sen. Dick Lugar's bill is far too little, far too late," Daniel J. Weiss, climate expert at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, said in a statement today. "It would achieve little reduction in oil use beyond what President Obama has already announced."

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