House climate bill was flooded with last-minute changesMany provisions were narrowly focused to help certain industries. Expect more of the same in the Senate.(By Jim Tankersley via LATimes.com)Less than 24 hours before the House approved its landmark energy and climate bill last month, Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) got several paragraphs added to the 1,200-page measure -- additions expected to be worth millions of dollars to companies that install solar panels.About the same time, Rep. Melissa Bean (D-Ill.) took the lead in adding another little-noticed provision to the legislation -- a section designed to prevent regulatory action she said could shut down the multitrillion-dollar market for over-the-counter derivatives, a complex type of financial instrument.These narrowly focused amendments were part of a torrent written into the bill during the wheeling and dealing that took place as Democratic leaders rounded up the votes needed to squeak out a victory.There were about 300 pages of last-minute amendments, many designed to make money for industries and constituencies important to fence-sitting lawmakers.The bill that passed the House included sweeteners for developing natural-gas-powered cars and energy-efficient mobile homes, plus financial rewards for early participants in the Chicago Climate Exchange, North America's first trading center for greenhouse gas emissions.Surprisingly for a climate bill, there was also a provision making it harder to develop the vast wind-power potential of states like North Dakota -- a key element in President Obama's strategy to fight global warming.Some of the provisions could be tweaked or killed in the Senate. But more likely, analysts said, more will sprout as Democratic leaders and the White House strive to build a majority on that side of Capitol Hill.Making deals to get votes is a time-honored part of the legislative game, but the enormous scale of the climate bill and the pressure to act quickly in a time of economic crisis put the process on steroids."We started hearing about deal-making before the bill came to the House for debate, but then it blossomed," said Rep. Joe L. Barton of Texas, the top Republican on the energy and commerce committee and a critic of the legislation.Obama indicated he would accept the grab bag of added provisions so long as they did not undermine the bill's core goals of curbing global warming, spurring renewable energy production and efficiency, and creating "clean energy" jobs."There are going to be provisions in the House bill and in the Senate bill which I question, in terms of their effectiveness," Obama told a group of energy reporters in the Oval Office after the legislation passed. "I'm not going to have a line-item veto, so ultimately, you know, I'll take a look at the final product."The centerpiece of the climate bill is establishing specific limits on heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions from major pollution sources such as power plants and factories. To comply with the limits, which would tighten over time, emitters would be required to obtain permits or pay to offset their emissions by funding tree-planting or other means of soaking up carbon dioxide.The system, called cap and trade, would impose new costs on some parts of the economy but open profit opportunities for others. For example, a recent analysis by the investment group Goldman Sachs projects that the U.S. emissions trading market could generate as much as $400 million a year in trading fees.Perlmutter, the Colorado Democrat, used his seat on the rules committee to insert loan guarantees and a variety of other incentives for home energy efficiency and so-called distributed power generation -- in-home sources of electricity such as solar panels.He also added language to prevent homeowners associations and real estate covenants from banning construction of solar panels on the roofs of houses.John Berger, chief executive of Houston-based St |