Well, I think I’ve been willing to compromise in the past and I’m going to be willing to compromise going forward on a whole range of issues.  Let me give you an example — the issue of energy that I just mentioned. I think there are a lot of Republicans that ran against the energy bill that passed in the House last year. And so it’s doubtful that you could get the votes to pass that through the House this year or next year or the year after.  But that doesn’t mean there isn’t agreement that we should have a better energy policy. And so let’s find those areas where we can agree.

Obama specifically mentioned a number of broad issues where he believes Democrats and Republicans can find consensus, including expanding the use of natural gas resources, incentivizing electric vehicles and developing a more robust nuclear power industry.

Obama continued:

Let’s go ahead and start making some progress on the things that we do agree on, and we can continue to have a strong and healthy debate about those areas where we don’t.

In that spirit, I thought I’d outline some of the policy proposals that could get bipartisan support in Congress.

At a press conference with environmentalists today, I asked Anna Aurilio, director of the Washington office of Environment America, what she thought could pass next Congress. She mentioned a renewable energy standard, which would require a certain percentage of the country’s electricity to come from renewable sources like wind and solar. Sens. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and Sam Brownback (R-Kans.) introduced an RES in late September. The bill gained a number of Republican co-sponsors, and proponents are convinced it can pass the Senate.

But Republican gains in the Senate could mean a renewed push to add nuclear power and so-called clean coal into the mix. Aurilio said that environmentalists are “concerned” about that potential scenario and stressed that coal and nuclear are outside the bounds of an RES.

Other possible bipartisan proposals include the Homestar bill, which would give consumers incentives to make their homes more efficient; a proposal on appliance efficiency; a bill to extend a Treasury grant program for renewables; and a bill to establish a land and water conservation fund.

Asked about the oil spill response bill — which was passed by the House, but was never passed in the Senate — Aurilio said simply, “It needs to happen.” League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski, asked by TWI about the oil spill response bill, said, “It should have already passed,” and acknowledged that it will be difficult to pass such a bill in the lame-duck session. While the prospects for passage in the next Congress are also unclear, Karpinski said the results of the national oil spill commission’s investigation may provide an incentive to move the bill forward.

For more on energy bills that could pass next Congress, see this piece by Dan Weiss, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

It was mostly bad news for House Democrats who voted for the chamber’s cap-and-trade bill. The two most stinging defeats were Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), who worked furiously behind the scenes to secure benefits for his coal-dependent state in the bill before finally giving his “yes” vote, and Rep. Tom Perriello (D-Va.), who became somewhat of a celebrity on the left for standing by the more liberal wing of his party on a number of key votes, including cap-and-trade. Boucher, from Virginia’s 9th district, lost to his Republican opponent, Morgan Griffith, and Perriello, despite a big last-minute push by environmentalists and President Obama himself, lost to state Sen. Robert Hurt (R).

Politico ran the numbers this morning. At least 12 freshman Democrats who voted for the cap-and-trade bill lost their re-election bids, while at least seven (I noted Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) last night) won, with some races still too close to call. In total, Politico notes, more than 30 Democrats who voted for the House climate bill fell to their Republican opponents last night.

In the West Virginia Senate race, Gov. Joe Manchin, a Democrat, managed to eke out a victory over Republican John Raese. While Democrats can technically put Manchin in their column, he campaigned against nearly every significant Obama administration policy, including cap-and-trade. In one now-infamous ad, he shot the House climate bill with a shotgun.

But there was some good news for environmentalists last night. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, won her reelection bid against Carly Fiorina. Boxer has always been a strong advocate for environmental protections, but her job is likely to get harder in the next Congress. She has already been accused of unwillingness to reach across the aisle, but with more Republicans in the Senate, she’ll have no choice if she wants to pass energy and climate bills.

At the same time, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) survived a tough race against Tea Party darling Sharron Angle. The big question going forward now is what will Reid do on energy and climate legislation next Congress. By now, it’s common knowledge that it will be next to impossible to pass comprehensive climate legislation in the next two years. So it seems Reid will focus on a series of low-hanging-fruit provisions that are popular on both sides of the aisle, including bills to incentivize electric vehicles, improve energy efficiency and weatherize homes.

The fate of two big-ticket items for environmentalists — a renewable energy standard and a much-delayed oil spill response bill — remains unclear. While there’s still time in the lame-duck session to try to pass both provisions, Republicans have more incentive to block the bills until next Congress, as they’ll have more sway later. There is Republican support for an RES, which would require that a certain percentage of the country’s electricity come from renewable sources like wind and solar, but GOP gains in the Senate could make it more likely that Republicans will push to add nuclear power and coal with carbon capture technology to the mix, a nightmare scenario for environmentalists.

It’s even less clear what will happen with the oil spill response bill. More than six months after the massive Gulf oil spill, Congress has yet to pass significant legislation to overhaul offshore drilling (on the regulatory side, the Interior Department has issued its own new drilling rules). A number of contentious issues, like how liable an oil company is for damages from a spill, are sure to take on new significance now that more Republicans are in the Senate.

In other key midterm results, Proposition 23, a California ballot initiative that would suspend the state’s landmark climate change law, failed. It’s a huge win for environmentalists, who funneled millions of dollars into the “No on Prop 23″ campaign, pitting themselves against two Texas oil refiners that campaigned heavily for passage of the initiative. California’s climate law is viewed by environmentalists as the gold standard. Passage of the ballot initiative would have been the icing on the cake of a disappointing year for climate activists.

At the same time, it looks like another California ballot initiative, Proposition 26, will pass. The measure would require a two-thirds majority vote in the state legislature and in local government bodies to impose new fees on industry. Environmentalists say the proposition will make it more difficult to implement key environmental rules, including parts of the state’s climate law. In the last days of midterm election campaigning, as it became clear that Prop 23 would fail, activists’ attention shifted to Prop 26. But it was apparently too late to make a significant difference at the polls.

It’s also worth noting that the powerful House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar (D-Minn.) was defeated last night. Obsertar worked for years to reform pipeline safety and was in the process of developing new legislation to do so in the aftermath of a massive oil pipeline spill in Michigan and a natural gas pipeline explosion in California.

Two other key Senate races remain too close to call this morning. In the Colorado Senate race, Sen. Michael Bennet (D) and Republican Ken Buck are still neck and neck. As I noted yesterday in my midterm preview, the League of Conservation Voters and the Sierra Club have trashed Buck in ads, highlighting his comments questioning whether climate change is man-made. Environmentalists have made Buck the poster child of Republican climate skeptics running this cycle. For his part, Buck’s spokesman said his official position is this: “Ken believes climate change is occurring, but that it’s natural more than man-made.”

Bennet does not support the House version of cap-and-trade, but his campaign said recently that he would support a “well-thought-out, market-based bill.” Buck’s campaign jumped on the comments, saying Bennet’s position on the issue is unclear.

Don’t hold your breath for results of the Alaska Senate race between incumbent and write-in candidate Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R), Tea Party favorite Joe Miller (R) and Democrat Scott McAdams. Murkowski appears to be winning, according to early results. Murkowski is the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Though she has opposed cap-and-trade bills in the past, she has a history of working closely with Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), the panel’s chairman, on key energy bills, including the comprehensive energy bill they passed in 2009.

Senate:

Alaska: Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) is facing off against Republican Joe Miller, a Tea Party favorite, and Democrat Scott McAdams. The Associated Press reports that all the candidates engaged yesterday in a last-minute push to gain votes. Even Bill Clinton got in on the action, doing a robocall for McAdams. This race is hugely important on the energy front because Murkowski is the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Despite her opposition to recent cap-and-trade proposals, she has worked closely over the years with committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), most notably on their comprehensive energy bill, which received bipartisan support in committee, but never made it to a floor vote (much to Bingaman and Murkowski’s chagrin). If Murkowski loses, Alaska loses a senator with seniority on energy issues, and that’s exactly the message Murkowski has been sending in campaign speeches.

California: Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) is in a tight race with her Republican opponent Carly Fiorina. Boxer is the head of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and has been a key player in drafting climate change legislation (remember the Kerry-Boxer bill?). But amid accusations that she is too partisan, Boxer played a largely behind-the-scenes role in the most recent Senate run at climate change legislation. Instead, a bipartisan trio of lawmakers — Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) and, for a while a least, Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) — took the lead. Fiorina, for her part, has raised questions about climate science.

Colorado: This race is mostly important because of the extent to which environmentalists don’t want Sen. Michael Bennet’s (D-Colo.) opponent, Ken Buck, to win. The League of Conservation Voters and the Sierra Club have trashed Buck in ads, highlighting his comments questioning whether climate change is man-made. Environmentalists have made Buck the poster child of Republican climate skeptics running this cycle. For his part, Buck’s spokesman said his official position is this: “Ken believes climate change is occurring, but that it’s natural more than man-made.” Bennet, for his part, has said he does not support the House version of cap-and-trade, but his campaign said recently that he would support a “well-thought-out, market-based bill.” Buck’s campaign jumped on the comments, saying Bennet’s position on the issue is unclear.

Nevada: Sen. Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) re-election bid has to make pretty much every one of these lists because, well, he’s the Senate majority leader. His opponent, Tea Party darling Sharron Angle, is slightly ahead in polls. While Reid has faced some criticism from environmentalists, often not in public, for being too hesitant to move forward on climate and energy legislation, most fear the implications of a loss by Reid. Though prospects for a comprehensive climate bill are next to non-existent in the next two years, environmentalists are hoping to pass a number of energy/environment bills next year, including proposals to incentivize electric vehicles, weatherize homes, respond to the oil spill and require that a certain portion of the country’s electricity come from renewable sources like wind and solar.

House:

VA-5: Freshman Rep. Tom Perriello is in a tight race against state Sen. Robert Hurt (R). The Perriello race is seen by many Republicans as a referendum on President Obama’s policies. Perriello, from a conservative Southern Virginia district, voted for both cap-and-trade and the health care bill and has been taking flack at home for it. In an attempt to come to Perriello’s rescue, environmentalists have run ads criticizing Hurt as a friend of big oil. Even President Obama got in on the action, campaigning for Perriello late last week.

MN-8: Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.), who chairs the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, is in a nail biter against his Republican challenger, Chip Cravaack. The latest polls show the race incredibly tight. Oberstar, as head of the transportation panel, is one of the key lawmakers charged with reviewing pipeline safety in the aftermath of a massive oil pipeline spill in Michigan and a natural gas pipeline explosion in California.

Proposition 23:

While the latest polling says that Prop 23, which would essentially overturn California’s landmark climate change law, will fail, it’s still on our radar.

Proposition 26:

The lesser-known California ballot initiative, Prop 26 would require a two-thirds majority vote for the state legislature to impose any new fee on industry. If it passes, it could also impact the state’s climate law because it would make it difficult to enforce through the legislature, the Los Angeles Times notes.

On the faux-Facebook page, Buck sets his relationship status as “it’s complicated” with “Big Oil,” writes a message on the Tea Party’s Facebook page and sends a message to Karl Rove, Sarah Palin and “Big Oil” that says, “Miss you guys! Hopefully I’ll be around in 2011! LMAO!! :).”

Buck is in a tight race with Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), though polling among likely voters puts Buck ahead. Buck has consistently said he believes climate change is not caused by human activity, earning him the ire of environmentalists. The League of Conservation Voters has spent record amounts of money on the upcoming midterm elections, and Buck has been one of its targets. The group put him on its Dirty Dozen list, which catalogs lawmakers in key races with poor environmental records.

LCV President Gene Karpinski told reporters today that Prop 23 is “the single most important race in the country.” Polling on the ballot measure has been tight.

If passed, Prop 23 would effectively overturn California’s landmark global warming legislation. Oil industry groups have spent millions of dollars lobbying for passage of the ballot initiative. Environmental groups have countered with their own campaign to reject Prop 23. LCV and its sister organization, LCV Education Fund, have spent more than $1.2 million to build opposition to the ballot measure.

LCV has also given more than $1 million this year to congressional candidates. That’s more than in 2008 and almost double the amount the group gave in 2006, Karpinski told reporters today.

The group has released a number of television ads targeting key candidates. Yesterday, LCV released an ad targeting Robert Hurt, the Republican running against Rep. Tom Perriello (D) in Virginia’s fifth district. And today it launched two new ads, one criticizing Ken Buck, the Republican candidate for the Colorado Senate seat, and another railing against Joe Heck, the Republican running against Rep. Dina Titus (D) in Nevada’s third district.

LCV’s Dirty Dozen list includes Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), Christine O’Donnell, the Republican nominee for the Delaware Senate seat, and Carly Fiorina, the Republican nominee for the California Senate seat.

Here’s a list of the Senate and House candidates who have received the most money from LCV:

Senate Candidates
Robin Carnahan (MO) $63,053.56
Barbara Boxer (CA) $58,977.93
Harry Reid (NV) $58,008.17
Michael Bennet (CO) $44,948.51
Paul Hodes (NH) $44,724.18
Joe Sestak (PA) $39,961.41
Russ Feingold (WI) $34,864.85
Patty Murray (WA) $30,381.74
Alexi Giannoulias (IL) $21,536.16

House Candidates
Tom Perriello (VA-05) $51,941.42
Betsy Markey (CO-04) $37,735.10
Martin Heinrich (NM-01) $32,188.41
Dina Titus (NV-03) $24,553.03
Carol Shea-Porter (NH-01) $24,525.41
Mark Schauer (MI-07) $23,789.48
John Boccieri (OH-16) $22,955.18

Protesters advocate for climate change legislation in front of the Capitol. (Flickr/UOPowerShift09)

This year, Congress passed the most ambitious agenda in recent memory, overhauling how the nation regulates banks and financial products and dramatically reforming the health-care system. President Obama had hoped to add comprehensive energy legislation — with a cap-and-trade program — to that list, but the Senate failed to move even a slimmed-down version of the bill this summer.

[Environment1] Environmentalists are increasingly realistic about the dwindling chances for ambitious legislation, despite a recent pledge by Obama to move a comprehensive energy bill in 2011. Next session, they fear, Congress will be more conservative, whether Republicans control either house or not. As a result, environmentalists hope that Senate Democrats might try to move energy bills during the crowded lame-duck session. And, they are carefully watching key races, to see how next year’s Congress might deal with environmental priorities.

Dan Weiss, senior fellow and director of climate strategy at the Center for American Progress, says the fate of energy and climate legislation will be decided on Nov. 2. “Depending on what happens on Election Day, during the lame duck there could be a strong push by [Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)] to not do anything because Republicans picked up more members,” Weiss says, noting that Democrats can’t pass any bill without a “dedicated cadre of Republicans.”

He said he is pleased with Obama’s promise to push for a bill next year, but said it is mostly out of the president’s hands. “I think that remains to be determined based on who gains seats in the mid-terms,” Weiss says. “One of the challenges is that some climate deniers could be elected.”

Weiss points to a list of six close Senate races that could have climate change implications, a list put together by the Wonk Room. “Even if half of them get elected, it’s going to be much more difficult to do anything in the Senate,” Weiss says.

Included on that list is the Senate race in Pennsylvania, where Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) is trailing in the polls behind Pat Toomey. The Colorado Senate race is another one to watch, Weiss says, where Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) is behind his Republican challenger, Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck. Both Buck and Toomey have been named to the League of Conservation Voters’ “Dirty Dozen” list for, among other things, their opposition to comprehensive climate change legislation. The Cook Political Report predicts a “7 to 9 seat net gain for Republicans” in the Senate.

Obama, speaking with Rolling Stone, said that it may be best to pass energy and climate legislation in chunks rather than as one big, comprehensive bill. There are a number of pieces floating around the Senate that environmentalists are hoping to move in the coming months.

The lowest hanging fruit are the less-controversial proposals, like a bill to provide incentives for natural gas and electric vehicles. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) this week filed cloture for the bill, setting an initial vote for Nov. 17. Electric vehicle advocates say they are confident the bill can pass because it has gained support from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

At the same time, Sens. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and Sam Brownback (R-Kans.) have offered renewable energy standard legislation that would mandate 15 percent of the country’s electricity come from renewable sources like wind and solar by 2021. The proposal has been co-sponsored by 33 lawmakers, including at least four Republicans. One renewable energy advocate closely involved in efforts to move the RES who is not authorized to speak on the record says backers of the bill remains “laser-focused on the lame duck.”

“The votes are there for the RES. All that’s needed is floor time. And Senate leadership — Reid, Durbin, Schumer, Dorgan and Stabenow – are co-sponsors,” the RES advocate says. Reid has said he won’t bring the bill to the floor until lawmakers show him it can pass.

In a move that could complicate efforts to move an RES, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is circulating a so-called “clean energy standard” bill that would include in the mandate nuclear and “clean coal” technology, something that liberal Democrats say they can’t support. Graham’s bill may throw a wrench in plans for passage of an RES this year and next year, as Republicans could be lured away from supporting the Bingaman proposal in favor of Graham’s. The RES advocate dismisses the Graham bill as a distraction that could not garner 60 votes in the Senate.

In addition, Bingaman, who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), ranking member on the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, have introduced an energy tax incentives package they want to move before the end of the year.

Looming over all of this are efforts to respond to the Gulf oil spill. While the House has passed its version of an oil spill response bill, the Senate has been unable to move forward. The main flash continues to be whether an oil company responsible for a spill should pay for all of the resulting economic damages. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) proposed legislation making oil companies 100 percent liable for the damages from a spill. Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Mark Begich (D-Alaska), both from drilling states, argued that full liability will keep small- and medium-sized oil companies from drilling in the Gulf of Mexico because they would not be able to insure against the potential damages.

Staff from the lawmakers’ offices have been negotiating for more than a month and Senate sources familiar with the conversations say they are nearing a compromise that would establish a mutual insurance pool into which all oil companies drilling in the Gulf would pay. In the event of a spill, oil companies would be responsible for much of the damages, but the insurance pool would cover some of the costs.

Environmentalists are livid at the slow progress of oil spill legislation in the Senate. Bob Deans, federal communications director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, says, “The country expects the Senate to act on this. We had a national disaster. Every American expects the Senate to act on this.”

And Weiss, of the Center for American Progress, points to oil industry lobbying as one reason the bill may have been slowed down. Though he says he can’t “demonstrate causality,” he adds, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

Still, environmentalists say they are going to be lobbying for action when the Senate returns in November, despite warnings from Senate leadership that there may not be enough time to move major energy provisions in the lame duck.

“The Senate is in a state of paralysis that’s hurting our economy and it has to end. The next opportunity for that to happen is when senators come back from the elections,” says Franz Matzner, climate center legislative director at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “That’s the next opportunity to go forward. That opportunity should be seized.”

Clockwise from top left: Byron York, Michael Barone, David Freddoso and J.P. Freire (YouTube screenshots)

For the first few years of George W. Bush’s presidency, Mark Tapscott was a journalist without a newsroom, shouting from the sidelines about his industry’s swift decline. Tapscott ran the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Media and Public Policy, and trained reporters in the use of technology for research and crunching numbers. When he considered how few conservatives, libertarians, or real skeptics of federal power were working in newsrooms, he saw a problem that was making the growth of government possible.

“The [Freedom of Information Act],” Tapscott wrote in a 2004 commentary, “has been subverted from its original intent – shining light in all corners of the federal establishment – and used instead by the bureaucrats, special interests and politicians who live off the Nanny State, especially those hiding behind closed doors in places like Health and Human Services, the Education Department and Housing and Urban Development.”

Image by: Matt Mahurin

Sitting up straight in his office at the Washington Examiner, where Tapscott has been the editorial page editor for three years, he repeats the point. “There are 57 people in the Freedom of Information Hall of Fame,” he says. “Three of them are conservatives — two of them, if you don’t count me. Now, that’s a problem.”

Since its launch in 2005, the second daily metro newspaper owned by conservative billionaire Phillip Anschutz (the first was the San Francisco Examiner) has struggled for an identity in a city crawling with political journalists. But since the November 2008 election, the Examiner has beefed up its staff and pulled prominent right-leaning reporters and pundits away from publications like The American Spectator and National Review. Tapscott and a growing staff of political and opinion writers are carving out an identity as the conservative version of the left-leaning opinion and investigative journalism sites that — in the view of many conservatives — have used reporting to embarrass conservatives and the Republican Party.

It wasn’t always this way. In 2004, Tapscott and many other conservatives looked at the reporting and fallout of a badly flawed CBS News report on President George W. Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard as a watershed moment, the arrival of a form of citizen journalism that could do distributed research and bring down media titans. Tapscott was awed by the “reporting power demonstrated by the blog leaders in Rathergate such as Littlegreenfootballs.com and [Powerlineblog.com],” he wrote at the time. And in 2006, Tapscott joined forces with conservative and liberal bloggers to uncover the identity of a senator who put a hold on anti-earmark legislation. But conservatives point to that period as the tipping point when liberal-leaning sites like Talking Points Memo, whose Muckraker blog chased the “secret hold” story, overtook conservative sites. By the time that voters went to the polls to elect Barack Obama, conservatives saw sites such as TPM, The Huffington Post, Media Matters, Pro Publica, and the Center for American Progress as part of a new left-wing conspiracy. The Examiner has beaten other outlets to the punch in putting together a right-leaning answer to that.

“I don’t think TPM has any special claim to the type of reporting we do,” said Josh Marshall, the editor of TPM. “If the Examiner wants to get reporters down into the weeds holding the administration and Congress to account with tough, by-the-books reporting, I think that’s not only possible but a great thing.”

If a number of other conservative publishers have their way, the Examiner will get more competition. PajamasMedia, the blog conglomerate that grew out of the “Rathergate” story, is talking to potential reporters for an investigative journalism site. Jennifer Rubin, the site’s Washington editor, declined to discuss the plans but pointed to the site’s coverage of anti-tax “Tea Parties” as proof that “the old model of elite journalists peddling liberal opinion as ‘objective reporting’ is dying.” NewMajority.com, an opinion-heavy site launched by conservative writer David Frum on Inauguration Day, employed former Republican National Committee staffer Moira Bagley as an investigative reporter, but published only 11 of her stories before letting her move on in mid-February. Journalist and commentator Tucker Carlson is currently interviewing conservative journalists for a new site tentatively called The Daily Caller, although he declined to discuss it with TWI, explaining that he had “launched too many ventures that were heavily publicized before they were prepared for scrutiny.”

But Tapscott’s paper has gotten there first. After Anschutz’s Baltimore Examiner newspaper was closed in February, more resources were allocated to the Washington paper. They’ve been used to scoop up talent from other conservative media. Tim Carney wrote a column about the lobbying industry while still editing the Evans-Novak Political Report; when founder Robert Novak decided to shutter it in January, Carney moved to the Examiner full-time. One week later, the paper hired Byron York away from a nine-year stint National Review, where he’d been the magazine’s lead political reporter. At the start of June it poached David Freddoso also of National Review, the reporter who’d written the bestselling “The Case Against Barack Obama” for Regnery, and it hired J.P. Freire, who had recently left The American Spectator, to be the managing editor of the editorial pages.

In his modest office, a short walk away from the Examiner’s newsroom, Tapscott can’t pour enough praise on the new hires or on the columnists that have been added to the paper’s lineup, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt, and political encyclopedia Michael Barone, hired away from U.S. News and World Report. Scott Ott, a political satirist who won fame in the conservative blogosphere for his site “Scrappleface,” now puts his satire in a weekly column. In a 2004 blog post, Tapscott had mulled over what could happen if a newspaper grabbed fresh political commentary and put it in one place. “If The Washington Post were to sign on Powerline not merely for weekly op-eds and/or the reprint rights but as members of the reporting team,” he speculated, “the Posties would have the collective talents, experience and insight of Hindrocket, The Big Trunk and Deacon to help shape the paper’s reporting agenda, assist in developing major stories and generate new sources for the reporting staff.” Five years later, he’s doing just that.

According to Chris Stirewalt, the paper’s bow-tie-wearing political editor, that lineup has brought attention to the paper that’s also boosted the political coverage. “Two years ago,” says Stirewalt, “people were saying ‘Gosh, if only if there was a vertically integrated place where I could get all this stuff.’ I promise you that two years ago, nobody said ‘You know, if you have Barone and York and Carney and this kid in a bow tie writing columns in a newspaper it would be really cool. That was serendipity. Sometimes if the people are available and the money is there, things come together.”

The results so far: increased Web traffic (up 300 percent since January, according to Web editor Matthew Sheffield) and more attempts to shame federal agencies, members of Congress, and the White House. Some of it has gone largely unnoticed so far. The editorial page’s Kevin Mooney reports a feature called “Dirty Money,” in which he digs through databases to find out which officers or members of unions have been convicted of crimes and how much those unions have given to members of Congress, then calls up the members’ office to ask whether they’ll give the money back. To date, none of them have even given Mooney an on-the-record response; Tapscott hopes to tie that up into a scolding editorial.

York’s political reporting has had a greater calculable impact. In his columns and in his blog, York is given space to hound the White House about embarrassing stories that interest conservatives more than other newsroom’s editors. York wrote multiple pieces on a somewhat obscure complication that preceded Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) turning down an appointment as Commerce Secretary — whether or not the Census would be run from the Commerce Department or from the White House. Since last week, York has filed piece after piece on the firing of Gerald Walpin, an Americorps inspector general who has asked whether his investigation of the Democratic mayor of Sacramento was ended because the target is an ally of the president. Since the paper ran those first stories last week, the controversy has gone up the food chain to Fox News and The Wall Street Journal.

Over the next few months, Sheffield wants to update the Examiner’s site to “integrate social media” and build on what’s already bringing links to the site from RealClearPolitics, Fox Nation, and conservative blogs. And this week’s purchase of The Weekly Standard by Anschutz’s Clarity Media Group was welcomed by Tapscott, who might have an even larger pool of conservative talent to draw on for his long-term project. “I am ecstatic about the move,” he said, “and the prospect of working with Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes.”

McCain was one of just two senators to receive a “zero” rating for 2007-2008, after getting a 41 percent score in 2005-2006. Obama received a rating of 46 percent this session, after getting a 96 last session.

You can plug in the names of your hometown/favorite/reviled senators and Congressmen here.

Overall, says the group’s president Gene Karpinski in a press release, “in 2008, Congress went in the wrong direction” — that is, away from reducing our country’s dependence on oil.

This year’s scorecard looks at 11 Senate votes and 13 House votes related to energy and environmental policies. Sixty-seven members of the House received a perfect rating, while 27 senators received a comparable score.  Some 70 members of the House and two senators received a zero rating.

The press release mentions “a vocal minority” in Congress, “led by Minority Leaders Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and John Boehner (R-Oh), [who] used every trick in the book to help their allies in Big Oil and Big Coal.” The League of Conservation Voters says this vocal minority has led to billions of dollars in tax subsidies for oil companies.

Meanwhile, the league praised other Republicans, including Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), for introducing and supporting legislation to fight climate change and improve the environment and public health.

View the complete scorecard.