Mitt Romney in New Hampshire/Courtesy: Reuters

During Obama’s first year in office, the House narrowly passed a bill aimed at reducing greenhouse gases, but all it took in the summer of 2010, while the BP oil spill dominated the headlines, was a case of gun shyness on the part of South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham to kill any hope of achieving such a victory in the Senate. Since then, environmentalists have had little choice but to look forward to a second Obama term, when a renewed mandate and a more solidly recovered economy might lay the ground for another attempt. Until then, those supporters of the president are simply wishing he’d be less accommodating to oil drillers and less willing to fight his own EPA administrator over ozone restrictions.

Rather perversely, the carbon legislation that has eluded us may have actually fared better with a Republican in the White House. We can merely speculate, but in marked contrast to the deregulatory positions of Mitt Romney and his primary opponents, the Republican nominee in 2008, John McCain, actually supported cap-and-trade policy to regulate carbon emissions. Understandably, those voters who rank the environment as an important concern weren’t persuaded to support the party that chanted “Drill, baby, drill” at its nominating convention. This time, the Republicans have a likely nominee with a respectable record on the environment from his time as governor, but there’s been little evidence so far to suggest that that particular Mitt Romeny is running for president.