Yesterday the House passed new energy legislation to increase fuel efficiency standards and repeal billions in tax subsidies to the oil and gas industry, but the bill can't even make to a vote in the Senate. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) led the Senate effort against the bill, with $576,900 in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry and another $107,00 from auto manufacturers to back him up.

Yesterday, the Washington Post cleared up a little bit of the confusion of who served on Vice President Cheney's Energy Task Force back in the beginning of the administration.

Yesterday, Senate Republicans intervened on behalf of a put-upon, impoverished, and under-represented constituency: Big Oil. They blocked a measure that would have provided $32 billion in incentives for renewable energy via a tax on oil companies -- with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and his over $450,000 in life campaign donations from the oil industry at the helm.

Remember our old pal Tom DeLay? Though he’s been out of Congress for quite a few months now, his influence and backroom dealings live on, according to a new report by Public Citizen released today.

Another day, another NYT story on the Congressional impasse on energy policy that could benefit from the addition of some money-and-politics annotation. I added the brackets.