Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo.

Barrasso’s American Energy and Western Jobs Act (pdf) is co-sponsored by Republican Sens. Mike Enzi of Wyoming and Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee of Utah. It would require U.S. Interior Secretary and former Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar to set oil and gas production goals for federal lands and repeal his onshore leasing reforms from last year as well as this year’s Wild Lands Order, which seeks to identify U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands appropriate for wilderness protection.

Critics, including Republican members of Colorado’s congressional delegation, have blasted Salazar’s Wild Lands plan, calling it a federal land grab that would shut down oil and gas production around the West. But conservation groups point to the economic benefits of wilderness areas in terms of hunting, fishing, outdoor recreation and tourism, countering that the oil and gas industry is sitting on huge swaths of leased but undrilled public lands.

“Higher energy costs continue to make it harder for families across the country to make ends meet,” Barrasso said in a release. “The federal government controls vast energy resources in the Western United States. Responsible energy exploration in the West will create American jobs and promote American energy security. In order to increase energy production, we must streamline the process and repeal this administration’s policies that are making the pain at the pump worse.”

Barrasso’s stance couldn’t be more divergent from the positions of his Senate colleagues in neighboring Colorado, where Democrats Mark Udall and Michael Bennet voted to end subsidies for big oil. Both argue that removing environmental hurdles for companies drilling on public lands won’t lower the price at the pump or significantly promote energy independence.

“Like most Americans, I’m frustrated that once again politics are getting in the way of progress,” Udall said in a floor speech before Tuesday’s vote on subsidies. “I’d much rather that we be debating a comprehensive energy policy this week that includes a renewable electricity standard, promotes energy efficiency and encourages responsible development of domestic resources like safe nuclear power and natural gas.”

A group calling itself Taxpayers for Common Sense today launched an ad campaign against Republican Colorado Reps. Scott Tipton and Cory Gardner demanding they support ending tax breaks for the nation’s top oil and gas companies, which pulled in a record $32 billion in first quarter profits this year as gas prices have soared to more than $4 a gallon.

“We need to move beyond partisan fights and blame games,” Udall said. “Instead, we need to work toward what we all can agree are key priorities: developing energy that brings affordable prices to American families and businesses; building a sustainable long-term energy future; and doing it in a way that protects our clean air and water for future generations.”

Besides other measures aimed at streamlining the leasing process for companies looking to drill on federal lands, Barrasso’s bill also would force an immediate lease sale for oil shale development in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming and implement the Bush administration’s 11th-hour oil shale leasing rules. Oil shale proponents say Salazar has been slowing a process they admit is still at least a decade away from ever producing oil.

Critics, including Udall, say oil shale production requires far too much scarce Western water and will industrialize large areas of northwestern Colorado.

“Sen. Barrasso intends to let the oil and gas industry get whatever they want, whenever they want. Ending common sense protections for our air and water would make American families pay the price,” said Matthew Garrington, Denver-based deputy director of the Checks & Balances Project. “Big Oil reported $32 billion in profits last quarter, but that doesn’t seem to be enough for Sen. Barrasso.”

http://checksandbalancesproject.org/

That’s not yet a majority, but it’s about double the number who have come out against the measure, so nearly all the senators now sitting on the fence would have to vote ‘no’ for DeMint’s moratorium to fail. Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) emailed me the following statement on Friday:

The message from the 2010 election was unmistakable: Washington spends too much and borrows too much.  I want to take every possible step to reduce spending, decrease the debt and limit the size of the federal government.   Since joining the Senate in 2007, I have voted consistently for earmark reform.  Banning earmarks will not on its own put our fiscal house in order.  It will however send a strong message that we need to do something different and I plan to continue to vote for it.

And the momentum isn’t coming just from Republicans. Following President Obama’s call for Congress to reform the earmark process, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) released the following statement:

“Earmark reform has been a lonely fight for a long time, so it’s encouraging to have others taking this issue seriously, especially among Democrats since I will be the only senator from my party opposing earmarks after the new year,” McCaskill said.  “The bottom line is that tax dollars shouldn’t be doled out based on politics or secret deals, and it’s time both Democrats and Republicans join together to stop them.”

Earmark reform, and perhaps other open government and congressional ethics rules, might be a rare place of ideological overlap between President Obama and the Tea Party agenda. Teaming up on something like more aggressive lobbying reform or shoring up the Office of Congressional Ethics — which some Republicans have indicated they would like to see scrapped — would require a real setting aside of partisanship, however, and I haven’t seen anything so far to indicate that it’s in the works.

Who are some of the senators who are still wavering? Raju collects some of their comments:

Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the vice chairman of the Senate Republican Conference who voted for the ban in March, said he’s “going to go at every angle possible to cut spending and limit the debt.”

Asked if that meant he’d vote for the DeMint proposal, Barrasso told POLITICO: “I want to see everything that comes up. I don’t know how many different proposals we’re going to have.”

Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, the No. 2 GOP senator in leadership, won’t make any earmark requests this year and didn’t last year. But his spokesman said the senator would wait until next week to view all the ideas on the table before taking a position on the moratorium.

South Dakota Sen. John Thune, a prospective 2012 presidential candidate and No. 4 in GOP leadership, has “supported in the past and continues to support an earmark moratorium,” a spokesman said. But it’s unclear if that means he’ll back DeMint’s plan on Tuesday.

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, who voted for the ban in March, said through a spokeswoman that he had just received the plan and was still reviewing it.

It’s clear from the quotes above and a review of the senators’ past records that their stance on requesting earmarks is only one part of the equation in their decision-making process about whether to speak their mind before Tuesday’s vote. Kyl, for instance, is no friend of earmarks, but he’s also a part of Republican leadership. A number of senators are clearly weighing the cost of openly defying McConnell against the cost of appearing to disavow the desires of the Tea Party.

The language, authored by Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), is similar to a proposal offered by Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and passed (with the support of five Democrats) by the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee last month, The Hill reports.

Republicans, and some Democrats, have criticized the the White House-appointed commission for being too weighted toward maintaining a moratorium on deepwater drilling, focusing their criticism on commission member Frances Beinecke, who is president of the Natural Resources Defense Council and has publicly supported the moratorium.

The commission conducted its first meeting in New Orleans this week.

Following the “Climategate” scandal, which global warming skeptics say casts doubt on the science behind climate change, four GOP leaders today sent a letter (PDF) to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson calling on the EPA to withdraw its Endangerment Finding, which would allow the agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions that have harmful effects on the climate.

The letter, signed by Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), argues that because the scientists involved in the scandal “played prominent roles” in some studies that highlighted the dangers of climate change, the EPA must reassess the threat posed by greenhouse gas emissions. The Endangerment Finding came after a 2007 Supreme Court ruling mandated that the EPA determine whether greenhouse gases were a pollutant under the Clean Air Act.

“The EPA’s climate change regulations are based on compromised scientific reports and heavily flawed data,” Barrasso said in a statement. “The EPA must now withdraw all proposed climate change rules and regulations and conduct their own research.”

He and the co-signers did not mention the overwhelming evidence — and broad scientific consensus — that the climate is indeed changing. But they did use some choice words to describe scientists who believe in the dangers of climate change.

“These [hacked] e-mails [at the center of the scandal] betray the true thoughts and motives of many leading climate scientists,” Sensenbrenner said. “It shows a pattern that’s closer to scientific fascism than the scientific method.”

Issa added, “This Administration used flawed science created by a community of bullies to push through ideologically based policies.”

Each of the four co-signers is the ranking Republican on a committee or subcommittee related to environmental issues or government oversight.

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) opened the hearing with a shot at her colleagues across the aisle. “Today, I expect you will hear fierce words of doubt and fear and worse from the other side of the aisle regarding our legislative efforts to move forward with clean energy jobs legislation,” she said. “This is consistent with a pattern of ‘No, we can’t.’”

Committee ranking member James Inhofe (R-Okla.) countered, “You can be sure of this: once the American public realizes what this legislation will do to their wallets, they will resoundingly reject it.”

None of the so-called swing senators on this legislation — with the possible but unlikely exception of Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) — are present at the hearing right now, so I don’t think we’ll be seeing much common ground between the two sides in this debate.

But on the plus side, in keeping with the GOP’s newfound love of inscrutable charts, Sen. Kit Bond’s (R-Mo.) staff just pulled out the hearing’s first inscrutable chart. It’s a huge blue webbed number with the title “Waxman-Markey: A Bureaucratic Nightmare.”

More updates to come.

Update (as promised): Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), reading from his opening remarks, just stumbled over the GOP’s word of choice to describe the administration’s global warming fears. “A-pa-ca… A-pa … A-pa-ca…” he attempted, emphasizing the first syllable, confusing himself in the process and reddening visibly. A chorus of senators and audience members came to his aid.  “Apocalyptic,” they said in unison.