Love the title - I'm following up the thread!

I've been out of range of online for the last day and a half, so - fresh bowl...

It's enormously tempting for a geek like me to suppose that the technical side of things to which one has devoted many an hour and fuddled many a brain cell is the the be-all and end-all of acting to influence legislative process.

It's not - and I try to resist the temptation!

The right place to start (pace the Irishman in the joke!) is where we are: and where we are is towards the end of one cycle in an everlasting lobbying process in which millions of bucks of effort has been put into persuading MCs, largely, of course, by those with an pecuniary interest in the outcome. (The end of the previous cycle gaves us the 2005 energy bill S 6 (109th).)

(Lobbying, in the long term, offers some of the highest rates of return on capital employed of any activity in the business universe.)

The great thing for anyone coming in now is that there seems to have been (beware charades!) a falling out among thieves: the danger would be getting in the way of said thieves ripping each other's throats out.

If I had the sort of narrowly defined issue (or range of issues) like yours, I'd certainly be looking at what the big boys (the Sierra Club, for instance) had been doing; whether they were just protesting in general terms, or whether they had a specified legislative strategy that you could help with. (Or, at any rate, keep out of the way of.)

Of course, your interests as WV folks may well not coincide exactly with any of the interest groups that, for example, are opposed to MTR. For example - my guess - some of their proposals might seriously harm the WV economy, whereas you're interested in nurturing said economy, only without turning into a moonscape.

You may, indeed, want to distinguish yourselves from pantywaist foreigners in making your pitch to WV folks who presumably give you most legitimacy and practical help, being the most intimately connected with the issue.

Are there any business groups in WV not bought and paid for by Big Coal? What about religious groups in WV - especially white establishment churches who'd give you credibility as solid citizens, rather than agitators or nuts.

Are there any WV MCs who are not running for reelection, and who might take an Alamo-type stand against Big Coal? (I'm thinking about Byrd, obviously. But perhaps that's something you don't talk about down there!)

And then there are the local rags: perhaps there are one or two editors who are sick of regurgitating press releases and police blotter items, and would like the idea of a Mr Smith-style hometown crusade against the bosses and the DC mafia.

Getting back to the Capitol, what I'd be looking for (in the abstract) is some existing law (better, court case) that any new law would have to overrule. A case with a media-friendly set of facts (irrelevant though, strictly speaking, the facts would be) that has Founding Father overtones; that cross-cuts other interests with highly motivated and well-funded supporters (CTL, MTR are, my guess, eminently shruggable for Sixpack); the end-run around which involves obvious chicanery.

One angle to pursue is the regulators, state as well as Federal: some personnel may not be quite as gung-ho on despoiling the land as their political masters; one or two may actually be keen to put spokes in the wheel if presented with them by interested parties.

I'm speaking from perfect ignorance about WV affairs; but I wonder whether there isn't a goo-goo element whose raison d'être is to oppose Big Coal. (I'm thinking, going right back, to Burton Wheeler of MT, who fought the good fight (successfully) against the Anaconda Copper Company which controlled the state. Voting for Wheeler gave Montanans a temporary feeling of independence, before they knuckled under for the next six years!)

Is there something that divides Big Coal from the various states? Does KY want something that would hurt WV? Or IL? Or whatever...

I would be staggered if, from that lot, there wasn't a considerable list of potential angles available.

Let's look (this is stream of consciousness stuff!) at Senate floor action. (I'm not giving up on influencing committees, but committee action is essentially formless and much harder to pin down. And it's pretty much over for the big energy bill.)

(I'm assuming that the Senate will be the first house to take such a bill on the floor.)

There should be no problem in anti-CTL senators to offer a simple amendment nixing the provisions; my assumption, though, is that there is a simple majority in the Senate in favor of CTL; so, I'd expect a motion to table such an amendment to pass (a MTT will kill the amendment).

We then have the choice of lesser amendments (designed to throw sand in the CTL machine, rather than kill it outright); or poison pill amendments, designed to hurt other elements of Big Energy's grab, but so framed as to be difficult for Big Energy rimmers not to support. (Or enough of them so as to pass the amendments.)

There are, I assume, large elements of the environment lobby who would be happy not to have an energy bill this Congress, preferring to take their chances in the 111th.

But - my guess - a lot of MCs favorable to freezing action on CTL and MTR nevertheless want some kind of bill for their constituents/moneybags. A poison pill that is too poisonous - that threatens the bill itself - will not draw their support. Or will draw insufficient support to pass the the pill.

My guess is that the environment lobby has already devised a slew of pills suitable for various purposes, including CTL and MTR, and, to some extent, is already working together to coordinate action thereon.

If there is no majority for any suitable amendment, we are then talking about some kind of filibuster. Filibusters on corporate welfare bills are not popular, and the opacity of a cloture vote helps salve many a senatorial conscience. (It's the locus classicus of I voted for it before I voted against it.)

But, it's possible that, if the whole thing gets so tangled with a fragmented yet motivated opposition on virtually every provision that the whole ghastly mess may just die.

(Vital point to note: there are big bills to come that really have to be passed this year - the farm bill and ESEA reauthorization (aka Son of No Child Left Behind), which - the latter, at least - engages a vital element of Dem support and a key issue for the electorate. These will take for ever to get past the Senate floor, and most of the legislative year has now gone.

Perhaps the only good thing that agribusiness will do in their miserable lives will be to get Senate managers to shelve the energy bill this year!)

As for the House - sufficient unto the day!

Hope some of the above is useful - like I said, this should be stuff we are engaged in; but exactly how, I'm not so sure.

But, like the old butcher said, a journey of a thousand miles...