Richard Burr (N.C.) is expected to take over as senior Republican on the Senate Energy panel after Lisa Murkowski lost the position.

“The beauty of this is it’s not cap-and-trade,” said Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.). “It’s a responsible, it’s a bipartisan, approach.”

Energy companies that have contributed generously over the years to Lisa Murkowski (R) face a dilemma now that the Alaska senator is waging a write-in campaign to keep her seat. 

The oil and gas firms that are key to the Alaskan economy must decide whether they can, or should, risk undermining their long-held ties to Murkowski and shift their financial support to Republican nominee Joe Miller, the Tea Party-backed candidate who beat Murkowski in the primary last month. 

“It’s the ‘should’ that’s the tougher question,” said one oil and gas industry official with operations in Alaska.

Against the wishes of her Republican colleagues in the Senate, Murkowski announced on Friday that she would run against Miller and the Democratic Senate nominee, Scott McAdams, as a write-in candidate come November.

Senate Republicans are expected to strip Murkowski of her title as ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Wednesday in response to her decision to run. That decision was made late Tuesday morning, sources said.

"It's definitely a hardball move," said a second energy industry official. "It's a pretty strong signal to anyone who is even thinking about contributing" to either her or Miller's campaign.

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) said Tuesday she would not vote for a renewable electricity standard (RES) unless offshore oil-and-gas drilling is allowed to move forward.

“I can’t support anything related to energy unless this moratorium gets lifted and permits start being issued in the Gulf [of Mexico], or we are not going to have any energy to power the country with,” she told reporters in the Capitol.

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) on Tuesday rolled out legislation that would require many utilities to supply escalating amounts of power from renewable sources, reaching 15 percent in 2021.

Environmentalists and many Democrats hope they can salvage the renewable energy measure after a broader climate change and energy bill collapsed during the summer. But the comments by Landrieu — a possible swing vote on a renewable standard — underscore the political hurdles facing the renewable energy bill in the waning weeks of the 111th Congress.

Republican members of the Senate energy panel will decide who will replace her as ranking member.

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) said Tuesday  he has not yet approached Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) about securing floor time for the renewable electricity bill that Bingaman is rolling out Tuesday with a bipartisan group of co-sponsors.

“We are going to try and introduce it and then see how much support we can get, how many co-sponsors and then, if the support is strong enough, then we will approach him,” Bingaman told reporters in the Capitol.

Bingaman, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and others are floating a stand-alone renewable electricity standard, or RES, that is expected to be similar to the renewables provision in a broader energy bill Bingaman’s committee approved last year.

The League of Conservation Voters launched an online campaign Tuesday targeting GOP “flat earthers” who deny or question climate-change science.

The video and ad campaign features a mock network called Flat Earth TV, in which Sarah Palin interviews various climate skeptics in the GOP candidate ranks, such as Wisconsin Senate candidate Ron Johnson and Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle.

“Ya know, I’m tired of hearing about this climate-change-y stuff coming from the so-called scientific experts,” the animated mock Palin says on the program. “Today we are going to talk to real experts, folks not afraid to refudiate all this global-warming mumbo-jumbo.”

U2 lead singer Bono says the oil revenue transparency provision is the “kind of daylight that makes the cockroaches scurry.”

Billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros said the gap between global warming and what needs to be done is growing.