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Just a few months ago, the chance of Congress sending comprehensive climate change legislation to the president seemed almost hopeless. The idea of global warming itself was ridiculed by those who mistakenly believe the issue is essentially about politics and not science. The fight for health care legislation with a national reach had exhausted supporters and roused its opponents.

Just a little over two weeks ago, Sen. Lisa Murkowski gave further heart to conservatives by mustering 47 votes in the Senate in an attempt to stop the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases. While the effort was unsuccessful, the size of the opposition and the irresponsibility of the attempt spelled trouble for the future battle on climate change legislation in the Senate, as we noted in an editorial.

The goods news is that the prospects of a tough fight are not being ducked. Democrats in the Senate have started to meet to prepare a strategy for a bill of their own. The House narrowly passed a climate bill last June that would require U.S. emissions to decline 17 percent by 2020, setting up a system whereby polluters could buy credits to cover their emissions and directing more resources to promote clean energy.

With the issue now before the Senate, Democrats met in caucus Thursday to weigh their options. President Barack Obama had expected to sit down that day with key senators -- some of them Republicans -- but the session had to be postponed because of the unscheduled meeting with Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the Afghanistan commander whose resignation the president accepted last week. In his Oval Office speech earlier this month, Mr. Obama showed that he was up for the fight, too, linking the oil disaster to the need for legislation that would both wean America away from carbon-based fuels and address climate change.

As it turns out, the Senate has much to discuss. Four bills -- some with Republican sponsors -- are vying for attention. The most prominent is the American Power Act, sponsored by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn. It is similar but not identical to the House bill passed last year; it differs by taking a cap-and-trade approach to limit emissions for utilities but not transportation. At the other end of the spectrum is the Practical Energy and Climate Plan offered by Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., the practical being a hint that it rejects cap-and-trade.

There's an irony in Republicans becoming ideologically fixated against cap-and-trade. It started off as a Republican idea, supported by President George H.W. Bush as part of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. Far from being just a simple carbon tax, it is an attempt to harness market forces to limit emissions.

The U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a coalition which includes corporate members (including Alcoa, DuPont and General Electric) and environmental groups (the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council and The Nature Conservancy, among others) supports the cap-and-trade approach. Instead of being the jobs killer its opponents allege, climate change legislation promises to create jobs in new green industries and end investment-cramping uncertainty for utilities and manufacturers which have been waiting to see how the United States will respond to the challenge of a generation.

Despite all the critics, the time is ripe to take comprehensive action on climate and energy. Climate change is real, as the National Academy of Sciences emphatically confirmed earlier this year. Every day the Gulf of Mexico oil spill reminds Americans of the perils of their addiction to carbon-based energy sources. Passing a meaningful bill will be tough -- but doing nothing will be tougher on the nation.

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