The times, to put it mildly, were calmer last year when the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee passed the American Clean Energy Leadership Act — yet the need for more independence from fossil fuels was obvious then.

The clean-energy bill put together by the committee's chairman, New Mexico's Jeff Bingaman, was aimed at financing clean-energy projects, setting renewable-electricity standards and promoting a new energy workforce. For good measure, it would help consumers fight energy-market manipulators.

But there wasn't enough for environmentalists to like; the Sierra Club, among other conservationist organizations, noted that the bill would leave our nation — for now, anyway — at the mercy of Big Oil. And since the oil industry would be allowed previously banned drilling close to the Florida coast, it was all the more objectionable.

During the months that followed, crews on a deepwater rig off the tip of Louisiana were being pressured by their bosses to get a well completed — safety precautions be damned. The Deepwater Horizon disaster serves as the ghastly background for Congress' upcoming debate on energy and the environment.

Last month, Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina were set to introduce another bill; one with more emphasis on climate change. Then Graham went partisan and backed away from it.

Now Kerry has the independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut on board; the two are likely to introduce it any day now. Once that happens, maybe the Senate's Democratic leadership will get serious about energy, giving both measures the attention — long overdue on Bingaman's bill — they deserve.

What the Dems should keep in mind is that the Bingaman bill might have enough Republican support to pass; Kerry-Lieberman could become caught up in election-campaign nastiness. Some Republicans will be railing, on behalf of their big-industry supporters, that such things as carbon-emission controls contribute to the recession they conveniently forget that they promoted.

The House of Representatives last year passed a bill with many elements of the Bingaman measure. Since all 435 of its members face election in November, they can say with a straight face that they're doing their part for the environment and for consumers as well.

A third of the Senate is up for election, too — but even those who aren't running should see the need for energy and climate legislation.

It's hard to imagine that GOP senators, faced with oil-company duplicity and their party's complicity in relaxed oil-drilling rules, would vote against clean-energy proposals. Their party's mantra, "drill, baby, drill," echoes around a country wringing its hands over the Gulf spill.

What better time than now, with daily pictures of destroyed coastline, to make the push for energy reform? And what better time for renewed efforts at energy conservation?

With Bingaman's reasonable energy policy as a starting point, and Kerry-Lieberman ideas as amendments, the Senate has the opportunity to pass the legislation President Barack Obama has been urging since his 2008 campaign.