The ideological divide over climate change widened this week in the Senate committee charged with shaping America's energy policy, setting the stage for a partisan showdown over the new Republican majority's plans to attack the Environmental Protection Agency, build the Keystone XL pipeline and drive fossil fuel expansion.

Democrats' replacement of three pro-fossil-fuel lawmakers with more pro-climate-action senators means that any across-the-aisle cooperation on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is probably dead, according to political strategists. While Republicans will control the panel 12-10 in 2015, Democrats could delay—or even potentially derail—the GOP's pro-fossil-fuels agenda by nitpicking bills during committee mark-up or by threatening a presidential veto.

"The GOP's appointments are evidence of the increasing desire within the party to roll back Environmental Protection Agency regulations," said Ford O'Connell, a Republican strategist who served as an adviser on the 2008 McCain-Palin presidential campaign. "The Democrats' decisions were definitely calculated, defensive choices. They chose three of their strongest environmentalists...There will be some serious battles in the next two years."

Republicans named to the committee four newly elected senators who represent fossil fuel-driven electorates: Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Cory Gardner of Colorado, Steve Daines of Montana and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia. All four promised in their campaigns to fight for President Obama's climate action agenda, particularly the Environmental Protection Agency's strategy for regulating greenhouse gas emissions, known as the Clean Power Plan. Together, they pulled in more than $2.6 million in campaign contributions from oil and gas interests in 2014, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks election finance. 

What happens in the Senate Energy Committee, as well as the Environment and Public Works Committee, will have a "direct and immediate effect" on the success of the party moving forward, O'Connell said.

Read more from Katherine Bagley at InsideClimate News

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is set to embark next month on a two-day trip to Canada, a destination that points to the Republican governor’s broader policy thinking as he weighs a run for the presidency in 2016.

Mr. Christie is slated to travel to Calgary, Toronto and Ottawa on Dec. 4 and 5 with a delegation of advisers and New Jersey business leaders, according to a senior Christie administration official. The governor is scheduled to meet with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper , members of his ministry and energy officials on a trip billed as a trade and cultural mission.

The Canada trip is currently the only foreign travel planned for Mr. Christie, a senior administration official said.

The Christie administration is expected to officially announce the trip on Monday. It is Mr. Christie’s third stint outside of the U.S. since taking office as governor in 2010, and it comes on the heels of a mission to Mexico in September.

As he did there, Mr. Christie is expected to emphasize in Canada the importance of strengthening ties with the U.S.’s neighbors and expanding North America’s energy independence—two themes that could surface in a presidential campaign.

Starting with the U.S.’s immediate neighbors is wise before Mr. Christie looks to tackle more complicated regions such as the Middle East, said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist. “Starting closer to home is good.”

Read more from Heather Haddon at The Wall Street Journal

While licking their wounds from this week's losses, environmental groups are now looking at making a difference in future campaigns. "We're all in for 2016," said League of Conservation Voters chief Gene Karpinski yesterday.

Environmental groups spent tens of millions of dollars this election cycle and opened the door to an even beefier war chest in the future, which would come in handy in competitive races.

But potential candidates, not even former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, considered the favorite Democrat to run for president, should take the environmental movement's support for granted, some green groups say.

Clinton has praised the Obama administration's efforts to combat climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But when it comes to the Keystone XL pipeline, another top issue for environmental groups, she hasn't elaborated much since 2010, when she said she was "inclined" to approve it.

That desire by environmentalists to vet Clinton runs contrary to her strategy of sidestepping the issue, analysts say. "She doesn't want to have to state [a position] until the Democratic primary is over," said Republican strategist Ford O'Connell, a veteran of the McCain-Palin campaign.

But if Clinton draws a primary opponent, especially a strong contender, it would likely force her to reveal her views on a number of issues like KXL and coal.

But others countered that the midterm elections won't hurt Clinton. "That's more of a media spin," said O'Connell, the GOP strategist, noting that many candidates this year have for months been considered vulnerable.

Read more from Manuel Quiñones and Daniel Bush at E&E

Colorado Democratic Sen. Mark Udall has a challenging road to re-election this November. Polls show he’s locked into a tight contest against Republican Cory Gardner, and his party’s president has an approval rating in the low 40s.

Here’s another headache for Udall: hydraulic fracturing – or “fracking.”

Industry leaders praise the technique in which a mix of water, sand and chemical additives gets injected into underground rock formations. The high pressure applied in the process extracts trapped natural gas. Supporters call it a job creator that safely ensures America’s energy supply.

Environmental groups disagree, arguing that it contaminates the nation’s drinking water supply and creates air and noise pollution.

It is that debate – especially in a state like Colorado that has its share of energy interests as well as environmentalists – that has put Udall on the defensive. And his isn’t the only race in November where fracking could be an issue.

Indeed, the practice of fracking takes place in several states hosting competitive Senate contests, including Alaska, Arkansas, Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Republican strategist Ford O’Connell believes Republicans have the edge if fracking becomes an issue. “Republicans are going to frame it as energy and job security. What the Democrats are going to do is stress environmental concerns. Those usually play a stronger role along the coast and with a more diverse electorate that shows up in presidential elections.”

Read more from Lars Gesing at NBCNews.com

When President Obama stood before students in Southern California a week ago ridiculing those who deny climate science, he wasn't just road testing a new political strategy to a friendly audience. He was trying to drive a wedge between younger voters and the Republican Party.

Democrats are convinced that climate change is the new same-sex marriage, an issue that is moving irreversibly in their favor, especially among young people, women and independents, the voters who hold the keys to the White House in 2016.

Wedge issues are those in which one side believes strongly that it has the moral high ground. Just as Republicans held the upper hand on same-sex marriage in 2004, Democrats now see climate change as a way to drive their base voters to the polls while branding Republicans as antiscience and beholden to special interests.

Polls show large majorities of Americans favoring action on climate change, even if it causes electricity prices to rise. That's one reason Obama has moved ahead forcefully on a rule proposed this month by the Environmental Protection Agency to limit carbon dioxide pollution from the nation's power plants, the biggest step against climate change yet taken by any administration.

It would seem to be a risky bet in a midterm election year in which Democrats' control of the Senate rests on races in a handful of fossil-fuel-dependent states such as Louisiana, Alaska and West Virginia. Republicans clearly think so.

"Much of the Republicans' ability to capture the Senate goes through energy-producing states," said Republican analyst Ford O'Connell. He believes Obama is less worried about Senate Democrats than he is about burnishing his legacy.

After the rule was announced, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the campaign arm of Senate Republicans, ran robocalls in four states dependent on coal-fired electricity, saying the rule would raise energy costs.

Read more from Carolyn Lochhead at The San Francisco Chronicle

One way or another Mitt Romney would be wise to show that Obama's harsh regulations are hurting America's energy prospects and the pocketbook of the average American. Coal could be that ticket, particlularly in the battleground states of Virginia, Ohio and Pennyslvania. Politico's Bob King and Erica Martinson report:

Anger over coal helped an imprisoned felon defeat President Barack Obama this month in several West Virginia counties.

Now Republicans hope Mitt Romney can squeeze an electoral diamond out of coal country in battleground states such as Ohio, Virginia and Pennsylvania.

The GOP has stoked the fires by accusing Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency of making it more difficult to mine or burn coal, and Republicans made hay when a “clean coal” section quietly turned up on the president’s campaign website after the West Virginia drubbing.

This isn’t a new playbook for Republicans: A similar strategy in 2010 torpedoed more than two dozen Hill lawmakers who had voted for the cap-and-trade climate bill, helping flip control of the House to the GOP. And coal country stretches across states that are crucial to Obama’s hopes for reelection.

The Obama camp also delights in pointing out Romney’s own vulnerabilities on the issue — for example, a 2003 speech in which he said an aging coal-burning plant in Massachusetts “kills people.”

But the GOP is doing all it can to make the “war on coal” message stick against Obama.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich probably stayed in the race for the Republican presidential nomination a bit too long.

His campaign stands more than $4 million in debt, his outside enterprises crumbled while he was on the campaign trail, and he won only two of more than 40 primary contests and was falling behind even Rep. Ron Paul in the latter days. But of all the foes former Gov. Mitt Romney vanquished on his way to becoming the presumptive Republican nominee, he could have the most impact going forward.

Gingrich has said he is eager to return to the campaign trail—not as a candidate but as a surrogate for Romney. That's why Romney and the Republican National Committee "have offered to be helpful" in retiring his campaign debt. They know he is a powerful speaker with a bevy of ideas and a loyal following who could help Romney break through with constituencies where the candidate doesn't currently have a strong foothold.

But there is little question the former speaker is one of the best messengers on the right and one of the best in public life at boiling down complex policy questions to palatable Kool-Aid that average Americans can understand and rally around.

So don't be surprised if Newton Leroy Gingrich takes a few weeks to get himself tanned and rested—and then, when he's ready, hits the campaign trail hard and makes a big difference in how voters view Romney, President Obama, and the choices and visions of America they represent.

Surrogate, floater of big ideas, attack dog … these are not the roles Gingrich wanted to play in this campaign. But they probably are the roles that suit him best.

Read more from Ford O'Connell at U.S. News & World Report

From Myra P. Saefong at MarketWatch.com: 

High diesel prices are “even worse for an economic recovery than high gasoline prices,” said Denton Cinquegrana, senior markets editor at the Oil Price Information Service (OPIS). “Most Americans pay attention to the price of gasoline, but we totally neglect the impact high diesel prices have on goods and services.”

On Thursday, the average price of diesel at the pump stood at $4.166 a gallon, up 8 cents from a month ago and 16 cents above a year ago, according to AAA data. Prices for the fuel have only topped $4 during two other periods, in 2008 and 2011.

“Anything from milk and eggs at the grocery store, to beer at the liquor store, and the newest PlayStation games at Best Buy” all get to their destination somehow — and that somehow is usually by truck, said Cinquegrana.

“Consumers concentrate concerns on gasoline and rightly so, because it represents 65% of fuel used for transportation. That is followed by diesel at 20% and jet fuel at 11%,” said James Williams, an energy economist at WTRG Economics.

Consumers are also “less interested in diesel because they don’t buy it every week and the cost increases are indirect,” he said, but diesel costs are “passed through in the goods we purchase.”

An estimated 94% of all freight in the U.S. relies on diesel, and Americans use a lot of it — around 59 billion gallons annually, according the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

It’s easy to blame the high price of diesel on lofty prices for oil, but that’s not the only reason.

Indeed, many U.S. refineries pay prices closer to Brent crude prices, rather than West Texas Intermediate prices for the blends that are used, said Cinquegrana.

“The technological advantage of U.S. refiners resulted in the U.S. becoming a net exporter of petroleum products,” said Williams. “It also exposed the U.S. market to higher diesel prices leading to higher costs for the trucking and rail industries."

As usual the loony left talks without the facts. From IBD:

As of the third quarter of last year, the oil industry earned just 6.7 cents per dollar of revenue, less than the average for all manufacturing of 9.2 cents (see chart). 

This year, even after a spike in prices, the oil industry ranks 90th in profitability out of 215 industry groups.

This is just one of the tricks used by the left to tar the industry, which employs 9.2 million people and accounts for 7.7% of the total U.S. economy.

As for "billions in subsidies" — oil gets $4 billion a year, a drop in a very large bucket, and far less than the $29 billion-plus a year for so-called alternative energy.

President Obama has gotten himself crosswise on energy, and it could cost him the White House in November. From Larry Kudlow at Real Clear Politics:

Oil companies have an effective corporate tax rate well above 40 percent. And they operate within one of the highest-taxed industries in America. According to the Tax Foundation, for more than 25 years, oil and gas companies have sent more tax dollars to Washington and state capitals than they earned in profits. That’s a fact.

But with gasoline prices headed towards $5 a gallon, and with oil prices over $100 a barrel, virtually the whole country outside of the White House wants more oil, more retail gas for the pump and more energy supplies everywhere in order to bring prices down. Raising taxes won’t do it.

Make no mistake about it: Fossil fuel is going to drive the American economy for decades to come. Green energy is not.

But President Obama is too busy spewing falsehoods to support his ideological agenda than to take account of the facts. And while he’s at it, one of the greatest, pro-growth revolutions ever is taking place right under his nose. It’s the oil and gas shale miracle, which if left unfettered will turn America and Canada into an energy-independent New Middle East inside of 10 years.

In fact, the collapse of natural-gas prices brought on by this revolution could become one of the biggest tax cuts for the economy in history, making all our industries vastly more competitive, revolutionizing transportation and providing more consumer real income at home.

Obama should quit the demagoguery, stop bashing oil and gas, stop taxing success and let our ingenious, creative, free-enterprise private economy spur America to a new generation of prosperity.