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By all accounts, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is emerging from the battle over the energy bill with much-earned swagger -- the centerpiece being a 35 mpg auto fuel economy standard by 2020, a clear victory over Rep John Dingell, the Michigan Democrat, the auto industry's primary ally and one-man speed bump.

"Fuel Bill Shows House Speaker's Muscle" was the NYT Sunday headline. I can see her smiling at that mainstream media verdict over a leisurely brunch, another moment that ranks right up there with taking her place next to Cheney, and together looking over the President's shoulder as he delivered his State of the Union.

The political pendulum, which in the 2006 mid-term election changed direction, is clearly picking up momentum, but will its arc swing far enough to solve climate? Despite Pelosi's victory and others that will surely follow, politics-as-usual by itself will not be able to correct the habits of business-as-usual, and that's why the rumblings of the sea change whose approach we are hearing is a welcome sound.