The Rachel Maddo Show with Nights at 9 o'clock on MSNBC.

Back in 2009, Barack Obama took office amid the biggest economic crisis since the Great

Depression.

Democrats had control of the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives.

And for a while, despite that dire economic catastrophe, it looked like Democrats were going

to be able to deal with the crisis and move forward on a big broad agenda.

That year, they passed an historic economic recovery bill to pull the country out of the

Great Recession.

By early 2010, they had passed a major part of the President's domestic agenda, the

Affordable Care Act, Obama Care, if you will, bringing health care to tens of millions

of Americans.

The next item on their agenda was another historic piece of legislation, a desperately

needed climate bill to address the growing threat posed by global warming.

Democrats had already coalesced around a bill that was written by two Democratic House

members, then Congressman Henry Waxman and Ed Markey.

In Washington and around the country, that bill became colloquially known as the CAP and

TRADE Bill.

After a central provision in the legislation to put a CAP or a limit on carbon emissions

and let businesses trade or sell their excess emissions capacity to each other.

It wasn't the most far-reaching proposal that Democrats were pushing for at the time,

but it wasn't a half measure either.

Had it passed, the CAP and TRADE Bill would have been the single biggest legislative attempt

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