Yet another supposedly moderate Republican comes out as a big no on clean energy legislation:

Lugar said he welcomed the opportunity to discuss global warming, but he emphasized that his constituents are more focused on the economy and did not see the bill authored by Kerry and Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) as politically viable.

“I don’t see any climate bill on the table right now that I can support,” said Lugar, one of the half-dozen Republicans that Democrats are courting on the issue. “We really have to start from scratch again.”

I don’t think we’ll need Lugar to achieve cloture, so I seriously hope we don’t ’start from scratch again.’ If Lugar doesn’t support the extremely generous framework Kerry, Graham and Lieberman are developing, he won’t support anything. On this issue at least, Lugar is yet another moderate in name only.