Green is the new black – for chic environmentalists and eco-intellectuals, that is.

Yet the “green” movement also has the potential, in the form of a climate and energy bill, of being even more divisive than the health-care debate.

On one side, you have environmental activists who live, breathe, dress and eat green. It’s the other side that is a bit harder to define, with potent political consequences for the 2010 midterm elections.

With cap-and-trade (slang for the climate and energy bill), who are the enemies – coal miners? Factory workers? Farmers? Those constituencies are a lot harder to rail against, and they represent a lot of voters to alienate.

In June, after months of tough backroom negotiations, eight Republicans and 211 Democrats voted for the 1,200-page bill that both sides agree will transform the country’s economic and industrial landscape.

President Barack Obama reaffirmed his determination to address the nation’s climate-change obligations at the United Nations last week but what he neglected to say is that the climate-change bill has stalled in the Senate.

In their arguments to support the bill, Democrats could try to apply the “big business” mantra, but it’s not Wall Street or K Street (Washington’s lobbyist corridor) or health insurance companies that they’re up against. It’s the heart of America, companies such as General Motors and coal companies that built towns made by rock-solid Democrats.

That’s another glorious way for the Democrats to further split their party between the elite and the pragmatic.

Health-care reform and cap-and-trade are two very important issues but the proposals are flawed from a policy standpoint, a consequence of the need to accommodate the politics and vested interests of the status quo.

And energy makes health care look like kids stuff. Continued...