Enter Common Cause, which, using figures gathered from Senate documents and the Center for Responsive Politics, reveals today that the gas, oil, mining and electric interests have combined to spend nearly $24 million lobbying Congress on the bill in the first three months of this year alone, while tallying another $4 million on direct campaign contributions over the same span.

“The energy industry is betting millions that they can buy influence in Congress and protect their profits, even if it means blocking an important step towards clean, renewable energy and a healthier planet,” Common Cause President Bob Edgar said in a statement accompanying the report.

House lawmakers passed their version of the controversial cap-and-trade climate bill last month, with Senate leaders hoping to take up their own (yet-unreleased) version later this year, even despite a tight legislative calendar. Leading the Senate charge is Environmental and Public Works Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who held a hearing earlier this week to guide the direction of the bill.

Proving that the energy industry knows where to turn the screws, members of the EPW panel have received more than $2.1 million in contributions from the oil, gas, mining and electric industries in the last 30 months. Leading the list of recipients is Sen. James Inhofe (Okla.), the senior Republican on the panel who for much of this decade fought the idea that global warming is real. Inhofe has toned down his message over the years — at this week’s hearing he merely accused Democrats of “subsidizing the East and West coasts at the expense of the heartland” — but his ability to pull in campaign cash from the nation’s biggest polluters has remained constant. Indeed, they’ve given him more than $630,000 since 2007.

As Roll Call (subscription) reported today, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), who’s leading the Democrats’ health care efforts in the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, told reporters last week that the August timeline for Senate floor passage isn’t likely.

Rather, Dodd indicated, the goal is to complete the tricky merger of the HELP and Finance Committee bills, with the floor fracas over a final bill put off until after Labor Day.

“One step at a time,” Dodd said Thursday during a conference call with reporters. “This is a long process.”

Dodd has some recent experience with legislative delays: It was his credit card reform bill that was tied up for a few extra weeks as Republicans stalled the process with a series of amendments — including the successful push to allow loaded weapons in the national parks. And that was a much easier sell politically than any health reform bill will surely be.

Indeed, the more accurate prediction of the length of this battle might have come from Sen. John Barrasso today. “I can tell you,” the Wyoming Republican told Fox News, “it’s not going to happen in August.”