With odds for climate change legislation this year now hovering around zero, the Obama administration is looking for fallback positions that can ensure the United States has a strong negotiating hand at December's U.N. Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen -- where 192 nations are supposed to develop a follow-on pact to the Kyoto Protocol.

The administration had hoped enactment of a domestic cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions would send a strong signal to its negotiating partners, and enable it to strike a global-warming deal that's acceptable to both houses of Congress.

Officials are eager to avoid repeating the experiences of the Clinton administration -- which backed the Kyoto pact but never submitted it for ratification to the Senate after the chamber in 1997 passed a resolution stating it would only sign a deal that included commitments to cut emissions levels from developing countries like China and India.

The White House is in a real bind. On one hand, it can't really come up with a coherent negotiating position without concrete emissions targets. And if negotiators in Copenhagen fail to reach any substantive agreement, Congress will probably be more reluctant to move cap-and-trade legislation next year, right before the mid-term elections. The House in June narrowly passed a bill (HR 2454) that would limit emissions at 17 percent below current levels in 2020, 42 percent in 2030 and 83 percent in 2050.

The fuel economy and tailpipe emissions standards that the Obama administration unveiled on Tuesday essentially formalized a deal the White House cut in May that got the federal government, states, the auto industry and environmentalists more or less on the same track with respect to climate change.

But there were several important political statements embedded in the several hundred-page proposal.

The first is that even more sweeping regulations addressing global warming are on the way. Within weeks, the EPA is expected to issue an "endangerment finding" that would trigger a requirement for the federal government to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act (PL 101-549) -- even without new legislation. This wouldn't just cover emissions from "mobile sources" like cars and trucks, but from power plants, factories and other large facilities. That puts pressure on the Senate to begin moving a climate change bill and protect its favored industries, or watch from the sidelines while the EPA writes new rules.

Absence clearly isn't making hearts grow fonder in the health care debate.

The Obama administration on Monday showed its irritation with remarks Wyoming Republican Sen. Michael B. Enzi made as part of the weekly GOP address on Sunday -- particularly lines about how Democratic proposals in Congress would restrict medical choices and make the nation's "finances sicker without saving you money." Enzi, you'll recall, is part of the "Gang of Six" Senate Finance Committee members who've been meeting for months to craft a bipartisan health plan.

President Obama during recent town hall meetings singled out Enzi as one of a handful of Republicans who's still working constructively to achieve results. But Enzi on Sunday said town hall meetings he's held with constituents revealed widespread anxiety over Obama's efforts to reshape the U.S. health system.

Strong signs that the Obama administration is close to declaring that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are dangerous pollutants are prompting the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to request the EPA conduct a public hearing on the scientific evidence underpinning the belief that rising temperatures threaten public health and welfare.

Last week, the powerful business lobby filed a request that the agency provide a venue to rebut "largely undocumented and, in the chamber's view, insupportable claims" about the effects of climate change. Chamber officials said they are concerned that any rules capping greenhouse gas emissions could be unduly influenced by what it contends are spurious claims, including assertions that climate change may cause mental illness and that 150,000 people die every year from the effects of global warming.

The request is part of the widespread jockeying by business groups and environmentalists in anticipation of a finding that would trigger a requirement that the federal government regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act (PL 101-549), with or without new legislation.

Lost in all the tributes to the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy is the role he played asserting congressional prerogatives and curbing presidential power in the early 1970s, by limiting chief executives' ability to employ what has come to be known as the pocket veto.

Recall from civics class that the Constitution gives the president 10 legislative days (excluding Sundays) to sign a bill into law or return it to Congress. Bills that are neither approved or vetoed after 10 days automatically become law. But if Congress adjourns before the 10 days pass and the president has not yet signed the bill, the bill dies, forcing Congress to start over in its next legislative session, if it wants to try again. Taken literally, the president "pocketed" the bill rather than acted on it.

Since the pocket veto is a classic passive-aggressive behavior and doesn't require direct action, it has become a periodic source of friction between the branches, usually because the president and Congress can't agree over what precisely constitutes "adjourment." Such was the case during President Richard M. Nixon's first term, when he pocket vetoed a bill that would have provided funds for medical training during the six-day Christmas recess in 1970, arguing that the short recess was akin to an adjournment sine die, marking the end of a two-year session.

Just five years after assuming his brother's Senate seat at age 30, Edward M. Kennedy helped enact the Medicare and Medicaid programs, beginning a 40-plus year involvement with federal health care issues. Kennedy was so passionate about extending coverage to the uninsured and fortifying the social safety net, that he made then-candidate Barack Obama pledge to make health care a first-tier priority in return for his support -- a promise the president fulfilled by staking much of his first-term agenda on an ambitious and controversial plan to retool the U.S. health care system.

Kennedy's colleagues in Congress -- including Obama's campaign opponent, Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain -- have lamented the progressive warrior's absence from the Senate during this year's health care debate and speculated how his presence might have by now helped forged consensus on the broad contours of a plan.

"Had his own health allowed him to fully participate, we would be far closer to consensus today on a path to health care in America," Sen. Thomas R. Carper, D-Del., said on Wednesday.

In the hours after Kennedy's death, progressive interest groups wasted little time invoking his legacy, in an effort to rally Congress to enact a sweeping health plan when lawmakers return on Sept. 8.

Kennedy's passing could yet alter the tenor of the debate, now mired in fierce partisan battles over how to pay for an overhaul and what role the government should play in a retooled health insurance market.

With prospects for a bipartisan health care agreement growing slim, the Obama administration is weighing the idea of splitting a health care overhaul into two pieces and passing more contentious provisions -- including those that would create a government-run health plan -- under a congressional procedure known as budget reconciliation that would make them immune to filibuster in the Senate.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs declined to comment on the possibility on Thursday, saying President Obama remains committed to working with Republicans and Democrats on a comprehensive plan. A bipartisan group of six Senate Finance Committee members that has been involved in talks for several months is scheduled to hold a conference call tonight to evaluate next steps.

However, individuals familiar with the administration's thinking say the White House is increasingly comfortable with a strategy that could push some aspects of an overhaul through the Senate without Republican votes. Administration officials began seriously considering the option last month, after the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee approved a health plan by a party-line 13-10 vote.

So did Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius get taken to the wood shed on the White House grounds for remarks she made Sunday that seemed to imply the Obama administration is ready to ditch the public option in the proposed health care overhaul?

Administration officials on Tuesday stuck to their contention there's been no change in White House policy, and that Sebelius was simply articulating a longstanding desire for any overhaul to bring choice and competition in private insurance markets.

Press secretary Robert Gibbs instead attributed any misunderstanding to media reports that overinterpreted the ex-Kansas governor's remarks, asserting "we've been boringly consistent" on the public option.

Charges that President Obama and House Democrats want to authorize "death panels" in their health care overhaul evoke a debate 19 years ago in which lawmakers first took up sensitive right-to-die issues.

The catalyst then was a controversial Supreme Court case, Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health, in which a 5-4 ruling upheld a Missouri Supreme Court ruling that it was acceptable to require "clear and convincing evidence" that a young woman in a persistent vegetative state would not want to remain on life support for years. The court held "that the evidence adduced at trial did not amount to clear and convincing proof of Cruzan's desire to have hydration and nutrition withdrawn."

Then as now, lawmakers who wanted to make sure people knew about their rights to execute "living wills" or other advance directives clarifying their wishes in such a situation tried to insert language in a sweeping bill dealing with Medicare and Medicaid policy. And opponents quickly charged that the effort would inject government into sensitive personal care decisions.

Cross immigration off President Obama's short-term to-do list.

At the the three-way summit with his counterparts from Canada and Mexico in Guadalajara, Obama on Monday predicted immediate priorities like health care and new financial regulations would crowd out a comprehensive effort to secure borders and figure out what to do about the 12 million people estimated to be in the country illegally this year.

Obama said that he expects to see draft legislation for immigration overhaul by the end of the year. But anything resembling a fix will likely come in piecemeal fashion. Witness the Senate's decision last month to use the appropriations process to require federal contractors to use an electronic employee eligibility verification system and to set construction standards for the fence now going up along the border with Mexico.

President Obama will host the entire Senate Democratic caucus for lunch at the White House Tuesday in what's likely to include a renewed pitch for his health care overhaul and an appeal to refinance the popular "cash for clunkers" program.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs on Monday said the gathering was in lieu of Democrats' customary weekly Senate caucus lunch on Capitol Hill and predicted a wide-ranging discussion before the chamber breaks for its August recess.

The gathering will be "to continue to talk about the priorities that they have . . . I don't doubt health care will be discussed . . . the economy will be discussed," Gibbs said.

One front-burner issue is the cash for clunkers program, which was left in limbo after the House on Friday passed a bill (HR 3435) to transfer $2 billion to the program from renewable energy loan guarantees in the stimulus bill enacted earlier this year (PL 111-5). The money would be available until the end of fiscal 2010.

Just weeks ago, President Obama characterized a public insurance option as an almost essential component of any health care overhaul and an important tool with which to discipline insurance companies. Nevermind that a government-sponsored alternative to private health plans was already emerging as a stumbling block to serious health care overhaul. The president, at a June 23 White House press conference, said an government-run plan that isn't profit-driven, provides quality care and keeps down administrative costs simply "makes sense."

"The notion that all these insurance companies who say they're giving consumers the best possible deal, if they can't compete against a public plan as one option, with consumers making the decision what's the best deal, that defies logic, which is why I think you've seen in the polling data overwhelming support for a public plan," Obama said.

Fast forward to today. With health care talks bogged down in the House and Senate, the administration appears more receptive to fallbacks to the government-run option, including a consumer-owned "co-op" health plan that's being discussed in the Senate Finance Committee. But aides don't appear to be in a rush to learn all the messy details.

Sure, the president's consumed with health care, climate change and plans to re-regulate the financial markets. But the series of cyberattacks that shut down some government and financial Web sites this month exposed what many experts believe to be an Achilles' heel in the federal bureaucracy: a shortage of qualified workers who can fend off hackers, virus writers, criminal groups and even terrorist organizations intent on commandeering specific cybernetworks.

The Partnership for Public Service detailed the extent of the manpower shortage in a new report it released on Wednesday, citing the cumbersome federal hiring process, the lack of government-wide certification standards and low salaries as reasons.

Lest anyone think Team Obama is rattled by new Congressional Budget Office analyses concluding the health care plans Congress is drafting will drive up, not reduce, long-term health costs, think again.

Lawrence Summers at the Peterson Institute for Internal Economics today. (Getty Images/Win McNamee)

Never mind that one of the administration's point men on health care, Budget Director Peter R. Orszag, is himself a former CBO director. Summers said the findings -- articulated on Thursday by current CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf in testimony to the Senate Budget Committee -- don't take into account wellness programs, preventive care, health information technology, research into the effectiveness of treatments and other improvements he said will deliver meaningful, if as-yet-unquantifiable cost savings.

Grim news Thursday for backers of the foreclosure prevention program (PL 111-22) that the Obama administration promoted and Congress enacted in May. Midyear statistics compiled by the online marketplace RealtyTrac found a total of 1.9 million foreclosure filings were reported on more than 1.5 million properties across the country -- a 9 percent increase over the previous six months and a 15 percent jump over the first half of 2008.

The numbers were further proof that the real estate downturn hasn't ended, and that the administration's economic relief efforts have yet to tamp down a dramatic rise in default notices, auction sales and bank repossessions. The numbers were particularly disturbing because big lenders including Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of America Corp. had agreed to suspend foreclosures while the administration worked out its plan to modify mortgages for troubled borrowers.

The program attempts to aid homeowners on the brink of foreclosure by helping them refinance into 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration. It changed the yearly insurance premiums that participating homeowners must pay to the FHA from 1.5 percent of the value of the mortgage to "up to 1.5 percent," essentially giving the government the flexibility to lower the premiums. And it extended through Dec. 31, 2013, an increase in deposit insurance coverage by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and National Credit Union Administration.

President Obama dropped a few hints about how he intends to lobby Congress on health care during a news conference Friday following the G8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy. And if we're parsing his remarks correctly, lawmakers can expect firm prodding through the August recess, flexible timetables on a final agreement and one barnburner of a House-Senate conference.

President Obama at press conference after G8 summit. (Getty)

"Whatever bill is produced has to be paid for, and that creates some difficulties because people would like to get the good stuff without paying for it," Obama said.

Aides believe focusing on the dollars-and-cents aspect expands the health care debate beyond the approximately 48 million uninsured Americans, to those who have health coverage but are concerned about losing benefits during the economic downturn. The administration is wagering that economically stressed workers will appreciate a bottom-line approach that squeezes new efficiencies out of the health delivery system and doesn't reek of expensive social engineering.

It's never too early to think about sensitive White House personnel appointments that lie on the horizon. Which is why speculation is building inside and outside the administration over whether President Obama will reappoint Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke when his four-year term expires on Jan. 31.

Ben Bernanke (Scott Ferrell/CQ)

Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Chairman Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., among others, has been critical of Bernanke's stewardship at the central bank and is fighting portions of a White House draft overhaul of financial regulations that would give the Fed responsibility for overseeing "systemically risky" financial institutions whose collapse would threaten the broader economy. The Hill generally is divided among skeptics who question the Fed's ability to to spot bubbles in housing or other sectors, and others who believe the economy melted down because of a failed regulatory structure, not incompetent regulators.

Though Republicans portray climate change legislation as a costly energy tax that would cost families thousands of dollars a year, the worsening economy and budget woes in dozens of states are increasing chances the Senate will enact a bill this year.

The White House is hoping billions of dollars worth of free emissions allowances that would be part of a cap-and-trade system will persuade undecided senators to support the bill, which is one of its top domestic priorities.

The climate change bill (HR 2454) the House passed on June 26 would distribute allowances from 2012 to 2025 to each state to protect consumers from energy price hikes, help utilities and other industries transition to clean energy and to spur conservation efforts and new technologies.

Analysts say if the allowances are incorporated into a House-Senate compromise, they could deliver between $120 billion and $330 billion worth of assistance to states, which would have substantial leeway to spend the money as they see fit. The largesse could prove to be a potent enticement at a time when national unemployment stands at 9.5 percent and many states are experiencing even higher jobless rates.

President Obama and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev on Monday signed a framework for further nuclear weapon cuts that increases the likelihood their nations can finalize an accord to replace the Strategic Arms limitation treaty that expires on Dec. 5.

President Obama and Russian President Dimitry Medvedev walk past an honor guard in the Kremlin today.

Administration officials are weighing a backstop that would allow them to authorize key inspection provisions by executive order, then submit the complete agreement to the Senate some time in 2010.

"We'll have to look at arrangements to continue some of the inspection provisions, keep them enforced in a provisional basis, while the Senate considers the treaty," Gary Samore, Obama's coordinator for weapons of mass destruction, told reporters at a briefing prior to the leaders' meeting in Moscow.

If President Obama hopes to make good on his promise to retool the U.S. health system, he'll almost certainly have to talk Congress into changing the tax treatment for employer-sponsored medical coverage.

The tax exclusion exempts health insurance premiums paid on workers' behalf from federal income and payroll taxes. It dates to World War II, when employers subject to wage and price controls decided to plow excess profits into health benefits in order to attract and keep workers.

The question now is how would Congress reel in the tax exclusion?

Rahm Emanuel: Looking at the legislative process in quarters. (Getty)

Over in the west wing, top aides and advisers manage the task by breaking the year down into four quarters, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel explained to reporters at a press breakfast on Thursday.

Kind of like a football game. Or a longish opera.

The first quarter was focused on winning enactment of the $787 billion economic stimulus package (PL 111-5), reauthorizing and expanding the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP (PL 111-3) and rolling out the president's fiscal 2010 budget plan. Emanuel said he's particularly pleased that the SCHIP expansion allowed legal immigrant children who have been in the United States for less than five years to enroll in the program, fulfilling a priority of Hispanic groups and immigrant advocates.

Arne Duncan (Getty)

But the former CEO of Chicago Public Schools and sometimes pickup basketball partner of President Obama's told a White House press briefing that other, potentially bigger changes are in the works, including new financial incentives for colleges that keep tuition affordable.

The Obama administration wants to lean on colleges to control costs while it proposes more financial assistance for poor students. For good reason.

President Obama has regularly paid homage to ailing Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., for showing leadership trying to revamp the U.S. health care system. But now that the Congressional Budget Office has put a $1 trillion price tag on a preliminary draft of a Kennedy health bill and concluded it would reduce the ranks of uninsured Americans by about one-third, or 16 million, administration officials are trying to put just a bit of space between the White House and the liberal icon.

Team Obama is acutely sensitive to concerns that it is creating an expensive government-supervised health system -- a charge that congressional Republicans are lobbing with glee.

Obama had barely finished addressing the American Medical Association on the need for an overhaul plan Monday when GOP senators and members pounced on the CBO forecast, charging that "the Democratic plan" Kennedy crafted would force millions of working Americans to lose the care they get now, by creating a public insurance option that would compete with private health plans.

The Obama administration usually shows disdain for chronological milestones and what top officials derisively refer to as "Hallmark holidays." But with concern mounting that stimulus dollars aren't flowing fast enough to make a difference in economically stressed communities, the White House on Monday issued a new spending plan to guide the second hundred days of the implementation the economic recovery package (PL 111-5) that Congress passed in February.

The so-called "Roadmap to Recovery" spotlights ten major initiatives the administration says will save or create 600,000 jobs. The projects, enumerated on the White House web site recovery.gov range from creating 125,000 summer jobs for youths to breaking ground on 2,300 construction projects at military facilities around the country. Other steps include expanding service at more than 1,100 community health centers and accelerating maintenance repairs at 98 airports and on more than 1,500 highway projects.

"Our measure of progress is the progress the American people see in their own lives," said President Obama, who was presented the list by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. at a Cabinet meeting . "And until that progress is steady and solid; we're going to keep moving forward. We will not grow complacent or rest."

To get any kind of positive return on the money it loaned, the Obama administration is hoping GM shares will rise in value when the company emerges from its Chapter 11 proceeding.

But there's also the added complication of pensions.

GM has made pension promises totaling about $100 billion in current dollars. Thanks to the financial crisis, investments in the company's pension funds are worth about $20 billion less than the obligations.

Perhaps one of the networks will decide to package all the back-and-forth about Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor and create a new reality show. Call it "Judging Sonia."

The White House on Wednesday continued its multi-day unveiling of President Obama's Supreme Court pick by hosting a conference call with six legal experts and continually pumping up the 54-year-old jurist's personal story and her legal and academic bona fides.

Spokesman Robert Gibbs said Sotomayor had made courtesy phone calls to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., as well as to the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., and Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. Face-to-face meetings will take place as soon as the Senate returns to work on June 1, Gibbs said.

Administration officials acknowledge the need to control the narrative of Sotomayor's life story, in order to muffle fusillades from conservative talk-radio hosts and bloggers that portray the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals judge as a closet racist and a judicial activist intent on making policy from the bench.

New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand had urged Obama to pick an Hispanic. (Getty)

Newly minted Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., from Sotomayor's home state, said she got word early Tuesday when President Obama rang. Gillibrand, who's courting Hispanic voter support for her 2010 Senate race, had urged Obama to name a Latino to diversify the high court's lineup and went as far as drafting a May 1 letter with Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., to the president recommending the president consider Sotomayor or his interior secretary, Ken Salazar.

"I spoke with President Obama this morning and told him that he had made a historic and fantastic decision," Gillibrand said in a statement on Tuesday, adding, "Judge Sotomayor will bring invaluable experience and much needed diversity to our nation's highest court."

All the talk resonating through the Congress and the White House about energy efficiency, clean energy investments and green jobs begs the following question: Exactly where is the money going to come from?

Probably not via the cap-and-trade plans circulating in the House and Senate, which focus on curbing carbon emissions and forcing utilities to draw on more existing renewable energy sources. And likely not from the credit markets, which are only functioning these days thanks to massive intervention by the Federal Reserve.

For all their social utility, next-generation energy projects are a somewhat risky investment because of fluctuating fossil fuel prices, an incomplete national transmission grid and the lack of a proven track record for the technologies involved. The government can offer loan guarantees and tax credits to reduce some of the risk, but those incentives are always subject to the whims of Congress.

Which is why there is an intensifying push to create a so-called Green Bank, which would provide a dedicated source of funds for renewable and energy efficient initiatives.

President Obama flanked by Tom Priselac of Cedars-Sinai Health System and George Halverson of the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan (Getty)

Chief among these is that Obama is likely to prevail in his efforts to expand access to public insurance and allow the government to negotiate Medicare outpatient prescription drug prices.

In speeches and policy pronouncements, Obama has successfully twinned an overhaul of the health system with the broader economic recovery. And with fortified Democratic majorities in both houses, the administration is working hard with Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and other allies to move legislation in the next two months.

Flashback to the 2005 Senate confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Chief Justice John R. Roberts Jr. Then-Democratic Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. pursued an aggressive line of questioning in trying to get the jurist and former Reagan administration lawyer to give his views on the Reagan White House's policy regarding Title IX discrimination. So aggressive that Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Specter, the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, became irritated and admonished Biden and fellow Democrats for not giving the nominee a fair shake.

Specter pointedly told Biden to give Roberts a chance to answer, prompting Biden to complain, "his answers are misleading, with all due respect."

"They may be misleading, but they are his answers," Specter shot back, eliciting laughter from the audience.

Though they've frequently taken opposite sides during high-stakes debates, the veteran senators from neighboring states long enjoyed a cordially cantankerous relationship, chiding each other about their politics and their parties. Specter on occasion would pause on Nov. 20 to publicly wish Biden happy birthday on the Senate floor. And the pair collaborated on disparate efforts such as a diplomatic mission to China, legislation to punish governments that carry out violent attacks against religious believers and even a long-shot attempt to force Major League Baseball and the National Football League to contribute more to the financing of new stadiums.

It’s been a long time since the power trio of John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Joe Lieberman made music together. Since the election, the former Republican presidential nominee and his Senate colleagues have been mostly working on solo projects, with McCain and Graham teaming up to send the occasional joint letter to the White House.

Today, they got the band back together — to ask President Obama not to prosecute the Bush administration lawyers who wrote the “torture memos.”

It’s been a long road for Obama, from ruling out prosecutions to passing the buck to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. But to the McCain trio, Obama’s first position was the correct one.

President Obama's call for Senate ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty during his April 5 stop in Prague has set off a round of armchair quarterbacking in the arms control community about the salesmanship the administration might employ to win over reluctant lawmakers.

Obama is keen to avoid the experience of Bill Clinton, who signed the pact in 1996 and made its ratification one of his top foreign policy goals only to see it soundly rejected by a Republican-led Senate, 48-51, in October 1999. Sixty-seven votes are needed for ratification.

While the political composition of the chamber has changed quite a bit, some experts say Obama's best tack might be to go slow and encourage extensive hearings, to avoid politicizing a national security issue and boxing senators into a corner.