David Roberts bets that the cap-and-trade is dead. The most likely path forward:

My prediction is that whatever [Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman] come up with will look more or less like energy policy over the last 20 years: a hodgepodge of subsidies and tax breaks for favored industries. At this point there seems little hope left of anything better. There’s much to discuss about the bill, the political fight that will take shape around it, and the best way forward for clean energy advocates in coming years. For now I just wanted to mark what looks to me like the final passing of the dream of an economy-wide price on carbon.

The US political system appears increasingly incapable of actually tackling any substantive problems.