Texas energy companies stuck it to California a decade ago, and now they’re coming back again to try to derail California’s law on greenhouse gas emissions.

The Administration’s argument for trying to shut down a public nuisance lawsuit against the nation’s top greenhouse gas emitters is “an industry argument,” according to the co-lead counsel in the case, and has been contradicted by opinions of past Democratic Administrations.

This is pretty good news. It’s important to note that the death of climate legislation does not mean the death of carbon regulation. It just moves it into a new phase, where the EPA takes the lead. And the Administration will protect that privilege.

The meaningless debate over Lisa Murkowski’s bid to stop the EPA from complying with a Supreme Court order and regulate carbon emissions will take up the whole day in the US Senate. I say “meaningless” because it has no chance of passage, after President Obama’s veto threat. But inside Versailles it’s more important to measure “humiliation” than anything else.

What White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel’s new priority ordering on health care also does is it pushes all the bigger bills to the end of the line, in particular, the climate and energy legislation which was already hanging by a thread.