Last year, comprehensive climate and energy legislation was well on its way to becoming law. After a version passed the House, pundits were concerned mostly with whether it would be passed in time for the Copenhagen climate talks last December. But Senators balked, and a drive this summer to put some sort of bill together has stalled.

Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) threw up his hands, giving up on a comprehensive bill for now in favor of a narrow energy bill without any limit on greenhouse gas emissions or regulations to require renewable energy. What's left are measures to hold BP accountable for the oil spill, to invest in natural gas trucks (the pet project of oil and natural gas tycoon T. Boone Pickens), to improve home energy efficiency, and to restore money to the Land and Water Conservation fund.

Reid says he'll still work on a comprehensive bill, but it looks like it's out of play for the year.

Even as the health care bill grabs headlines, details are beginning to emerge about a new energy and climate bill being pieced together in Washington by trio of U.S. senators. According to Energy Washington, an eight-page outline of the bill includes provisions for something called a "cap-and-refund" approach to reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

That's a alternative to the "cap-and-trade" system proposed in a climate and energy bill that pass the House last June. The Senate version of the bill has gone nowhere, prompting John Kerry (D-MA), Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to work on a new approach. The cap-and-trade system has been effectively branded as an energy tax by those who oppose it. But a cap-and-refund approach might be more appealing. Under such a system, utilities and other emitters would buy allowances for emitting carbon dioxide, with the number of allowances capped to ensure emissions will be gradually reduced over time. Then the proceeds would be mailed out to Americans in the form of refund checks. (It's a system featured in legislation already proposed by Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Susan Collins (R-ME)).

It's likely that not all of the proceeds will go directly back to the people. As much as half could be directed to fund energy research and other government programs.

Both cap-and-trade and cap-and-refund systems can be market-based, allowing emitters to trade allowances and offering them flexibility to cut emissions in whatever way is cheapest. Economists such as Robert Stavins, at Harvard University, say that such market-based systems would be cheaper than renewable energy mandates, which restrict emitters to using renewable energy such as wind and solar when other technologies could be cheaper (such as capturing and storing carbon dioxide).

The Senators haven't formally proposed the bill yet, but it there have been indications it could be unveiled by April 15th.

Last week researchers and policy experts gathered at MIT to talk about geo-engineering--a subject that's becoming more popular in the face of concern over inaction on climate change.

The upcoming United Nations climate change convention in Copenhagen seems unlikely to produce the binding and stringent agreement needed to sharply curtail greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile, greenhouse concentrations continue to mount, driving scientists who were once opposed to the idea of tinkering with the planet to reconsider it.

Now they've got another reason to be worried. Earlier this year a climate bill that would've limited greenhouse emissions and helped renewable energy sources compete with fossil fuels seemed well on its way. In June a version passed the House. But then other matters--mostly health care reform--distracted Congress, and a Senate version of the bill got bogged down. The Senate recently took up the bill again, but yesterday a report in the Washington Post declared that "there is almost no hope for passage" of the bill.

Democrats are divided over the bill, and Republicans have been vocally opposing it. If the report is right, countries meeting in Copenhagen will have even more reason to criticize the U.S. for inaction, and to use that as a reason to delay a climate treaty or water it down.

That's one way to look at it, at any rate. Here's another: Copenhagen is probably doomed already--why the rush to push legislation through? That's essentially what Republican Senator George Voinovich (Ohio), who opposes the current bill, reportedly said last week, "Wouldn't it be smarter to take our time and do it right?"

It certainly is hard to be against getting something right. But will slowing things down lead to a better climate bill? Probably not, as long as the chief objection is that the bill will make energy more expensive, something that seems unavoidable. But if the delay can lead to a better system for distributing those costs equitably, and if along the way inefficient subsidies can be weeded out and emissions caps tightened (wishful thinking?), it could be worth the wait.