Well, it wasn’t unexpected, but it’s worth noting anyway. After one brief week of Senate debate over the Lieberman-Warner climate change bill, it’s officially dead.

Senators can now put their good intentions back on the shelf until next year, when the issue of regulating greenhouse gas emissions is expected to be raised again under a friendlier administration (both presumptive presidential nominees say they support such regulations).

In this go round, Democrats couldn’t gather the 60 votes needed to end a Republican filibuster and bring the bill up for a vote. In fact, the final vote was 48-36, short of a majority, but Democrats had letters from six absent senators (including Barack Obama, John McCain, and Ted Kennedy) saying that they would have voted for the policy had they been present.

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Things are about to get hot on Capitol Hill. Today the Senate takes up the Lieberman-Warner climate change bill, and politicians on both sides are bracing for a messy debate.

Observers say it’s unlikely to pass – even if the bill got enough votes, it would certainly be vetoed by President Bush – but it serves as a warm up for next year, when Congress will raise the issue again, under a new administration. All three presidential candidates support some form of global warming regulations.

Just about everyone sees the writing on the wall: the federal government must regulate the emission of greenhouse gases, and it must act soon to stave off the most negative impacts of global warming. Last week, the Bush administration issued a climate change report on the potentially dire consequences to ecosystems, agriculture and public health.

Meanwhile, corporations such as Ford and ConocoPhillips have been meeting regularly with environmental groups for over two years in an attempt to shape a climate change policy that won’t bite too deeply into their profits.

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