It's been a while since we updated President Barack Obama's promise to create a cap-and-trade system -- and there's a lot to report.
 
After Obama included the concept in his budget, House heavyweights Henry Waxman of California and Edward Markey of Massachusetts introduced legislation that would lower carbon pollution by 17 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050. Under their plan, most pollution permits initially would be given out free. But eventually, companies would have to buy those permits from the government.
 
The House passed the legislation 219-212 on June 26, 2009.
 
In the Senate, things got a little more dramatic. Sens. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Barabara Boxer of California did not introduce their cap-and-trade bill until late September. Nevertheless, the legislation was incomplete; a big part of the bill language were omitted, leaving lots of room for negotiation. About a month later, Boxer released more details on her bill and pushed forward on debate despite objections from Republicans. Recognizing the legislation had no legs without GOP support, Kerry backed away from the bill and joined Republican Lindsay Graham and independent Joe Lieberman to draft a bipartisan version. 
 
The idea, of course, was to have a bill passed in time for the landmark climate change meeting in Copenhagen, where world leaders were supposed to hash out an agreement to lower global greenhouse gas emissions. After two weeks of haggling, the final accord turned out to be only a statement of intention to take action on climate change. Without a binding treaty, some of the steam has been taken out of the domestic climate change debate.
 
And then there's health care, an issue that has overshadowed nearly everything else Congress has tried to tackle this year. Lawmakers plan to take up the massive health system overhaul again once Congress is back in session. After that, they'll turn back to cap-and-trade, with Senate leaders likely cobbling together the final version of the upper chamber's climate bill.
 
Clearly, this promise is still In the Works; cap-and-trade represents a major change, so we wouldn't expect this pledge to be fulfilled overnight. For now, we'll follow the issue closely and offer updates throughout 2010.