But now Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), one of the Senate climate trio, is telling her he’s not going to cave on this issue. The Hill reports:

“That is just not going to happen,” he told reporters in the Capitol. [...]

“We are looking at a lot of things, we are bending to bring people in, but that one is a no-no,” he said.

In order to keep another member of the triumvirate, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), on board, any climate bill will have to include expanded nuclear power and offshore drilling. But on the ANWR issue, it seems, Lieberman is drawing the line.

After being introduced as a man whose job dealt with oil and gas as much as railroads, he told an eager audience that there’s no greater threat to America than “the fantasy called global warming.”

“CO2 is a commodity,” he said, “It’s not a waste; it’s not a pollutant.”

He questioned the science behind global warming and said that Democrats who criticized President Bush’s preemptive warfare in Iraq had no right to flaunt “preemptive warming” now. He also received a standing ovation for a call to drill for oil in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

After the crowd’s tepid response to Rep. Steve King’s (R-Iowa) drawn-out allusions to President Obama’s “mojo,” it’s clear what kind of rhetoric this CPAC audience wants to hear.

It was no mystery that Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Cal.) was intent on making environment-friendly changes when he swept the chairmanship of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee from beneath auto-friendly Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) in November. And this week, that house-cleaning began in earnest.

In a reshuffling that will remove several Dingell allies from key environmentally sensitive posts, Waxman melded two E&C subcommittees — the Energy & Air Quality panel and the Environment & Hazardous Materials panel — to form the Energy and Environment subcommittee, of which Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) will be the chairman, the Boston Globe reported today.

Markey, who also heads the House committee on energy independence and global warming, has long been among the most fervent congressional environmentalists, pushing for increased fuel efficiency standards and protection of the Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, among a long list of pet causes.

Displaced in Waxman’s reorganization will be Rep. Rick Boucher, a Virginia Democrat who has long protected the interests of Big Coal. Boucher, who heads the soon-to-be-disbanded Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee, will instead take control of the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, a post currently held by Markey. Rep. Gene Green (D-Tex.), another Dingell ally who now heads the soon-to-be-extinct Environment & Hazardous Materials panel, is apparently out of a chairmanship.

Grist writer David Roberts has a nice wrap-up today of the implications of all this reshuffling:

This gives Markey a one-two punch: he can craft and help pass climate/energy legislation through the Subcommittee while using the Select Committee to educate other committee chairs about how the issue affects their jurisdictions. I can’t think of another committee chair who has the same kind of megaphone with which to drum up support for his own legislation, in the House and among the public.

With this move, Pelosi’s House further cements itself as the likely force for boldness on climate/energy issues in coming years. The Speaker is by all accounts a sincere and committed greenie. She has Waxman at the helm of the relevant committee. She has Markey running the relevant subcommittee and doing education/advocacy. Dingell and his allies — the go-slow lobby — have been cleared away. All systems are go.

While his push to control climate change and opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge appeal to some moderate swing voters, many conservatives say that the GOP nominee runs against his party base on these issues.

In the vice presidential debate last week, McCain’s running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, sought to tip the scale in the other direction. While winking “directly at the American people,” she said, “I’m gonna keep pushin’ him on ANWR.”

Since McCain has said that drilling in ANWR would be like drilling in the Grand Canyon, not even Palin’s cajoling folksiness seems likely to change the Arizona senator’s mind on this.