Joe Lieberman angered a lot of liberals recently with his declaration of opposition to Harry Reid's opt-out public-option provision. But liberals who also care about climate-change legislation may want to temper their rage. Lieberman has long championed climate-change legislation in the Senate, and is emerging as a critical player in the current effort. Politico reported back in September that Lieberman had been busy meeting with a bipartisan group to figure out a path forward on climate change. In a recent interview with the National Journal, Lieberman gave some insight into his negotiating strategy.

Lieberman knows they won't get to 60 without concessions on four key areas: nuclear, coal, agriculture, and manufacturing. Satisfying a few senators with interests in each of those industries might be enough to get the bill across the line. It looks as though Lieberman and his pals have found people to champion each issue. Tom Carper from Delaware is working on coal; Debbie Stabenow from Michigan is taking the lead on agriculture; and Sherrod Brown from Ohio is active on manufacturing. It sounds as though Lieberman himself will be central to nuclear negotiations, which makes sense given that he's close to Republicans like Lindsey Graham and John McCain who care deeply about expanding the nuclear sector.

Lindsey Graham's actions on climate change in the last few days have set the greenosphere abuzz. First, he penned an op-ed, with John Kerry, where he committed to work with Democrats to pass a comprehensive climate-change bill. Then he got called a wussypants for his trouble (along with a lot of unwarranted and nasty things), and was yelled at by foamy-mouthed loons at a town-hall event in South Carolina. Environmentalists have heralded Graham's oped  as a game changer on the environment. They're probably right. Graham's advocacy of climate change legislation is a huge boost for the Boxer-Kerry bill (although he hasn't officially endorsed it). But it's not unexpected.

For starters, Graham, who has long demonstrated a willingness to work across the aisle, is starting to look more John McCain that John McCain these days. As Chuck Todd, et al. point out on First Read, "He, more than McCain, this year has shown a tendency to do two things McCain made famous over the last decade: buck his party (see Sonia Sotomayor vote) and talk bluntly about former President Bush ... Graham, himself close to McCain, has, at a minimum, set himself apart a bit as an unpredictable critic." Although Graham opposed previous attempts at comprehensive climate-change legislation, he's been slowly edging away from his old positions, even cosponsoring Democrat Senator Tom Carper's Clean Air Planning Act of 2006 that would have limited pollutants emitted by power plants.