Critics have also taken up the big-spending, big-government intrusion argument often raised by critics of the health legislation.
Radio ads
The greenhouse gas limits at the center of the climate bill are "just another layer of government regulation on our energy sector," said Thomas J. Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, a nonprofit funded in part by energy companies that has launched a radio ad campaign against the bill in Midwestern states.
Analysts say the energy debate is unlikely to play out as an exact rerun of the health care fight. Medical care is among the most personal issues that Congress deals with. Energy is one of the least personal.
Voters know their doctors intimately; how many of them even know how their electricity is generated, or where?
As with the health care debate, though, the energy bill - centered on the system to limit greenhouse gas emissions through a series of tradable permits - is so complicated that it's hard to explain to voters and easy to demonize.
Polls suggest that voters are less passionate about energy than health care. But that hasn't stopped opponents and supporters of the energy bill from mobilizing troops for public displays of passion.
When Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas spoke at the groundbreaking for a biomass power plant in remote Camden, Ark., earlier this month, the crowd of nearly 400 included 250 "clean energy" advocates brought together by the Sierra Club.
A few days later in Houston, oil company workers packed a rally - sponsored by conservative groups and major oil and business lobbyists - to celebrate the fossil fuel industry and denounce the climate bill.
"Our side is starting to really turn people out," said Josh Dorner, a Sierra Club spokesman. "The public is on the side of this. They want clean energy."
A batch of recent polls show voters do, indeed, support efforts to boost solar, wind and other energy alternatives to fossil fuels; that more voters believe those efforts will create jobs rather than eliminate them; and that a majority appears willing to pay some amount of higher energy costs as a result.
'Our alternative'
That's why some GOP strategists are warning that, unlike with the health debate so far, Republicans can't just criticize Obama's energy plans - they have to offer their own, including a boost for renewable energy.
"On this issue, Republicans have to say, 'here's our alternative,' " said Glen Bolger, a GOP pollster with Public Opinion Strategies in Virginia, who has polled the energy question this summer.
