The Cap and Trade bill 2009

The legislation itself is enormous. It's more than a thousand pages long, filled with obscure provisions that will keep an army of lobbyists employed for years. It's been resoundingly panned both by groups on the left, such as Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, who see it as an enormous corporate giveaway, and by Republicans, who accuse it of being a massive tax that will hobble the U.S. economy. It even was attacked by the powerful farm lobby, despite a cornucopia of goodies added in the last few days to get their champion, House Agriculture Chairman Collin C. Peterson (D-Minn.), on board.

What's more, the bill lies at the center of a high-stakes political calculation by the GOP. While there's a strong anti-regulation ideology in the Republican Party, there have been plenty of Republicans who urged passage of climate legislation. Such supporters included governors like California's Arnold Schwarzenegger and Florida's Charlie Crist, along with Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.). But those former advocates have gone silent. The party has decided its best strategy for getting back into power is to deny President Barack Obama, who strongly backed the bill, any victories, no matter what the issue. At the same time, the GOP wants to paint the Democrats as the party of new taxes.

Of course, this Republican plan could backfire. Polls show the public supports action on climate, studies from the Congressional Budget Office and the Environmental Protection Agency show the costs of the legislation would be modest. Eight Republicans voted for the bill.

All of this adds up to powerful forces that were working against the legislation. So why did it pass? Why did major environmental organizations, such as the Natural Resources Defense Council and Environmental Defense Fund, and scores of companies, from General Electric and Shell to utilities ...