Someday, environmentalists and polluters alike will look back on 2010 and wonder what all the fuss was about: Global warming will be recognized as the threat it is — or was — and emissions caps will have made sense for stopping that threat. And some of the major despoilers of our atmosphere, coal-burning power plants especially, will be but shadows of their former selves, their abandoned smokestacks standing as monuments to an era of American expansionism when technology was hidebound and happy to be so.

Renewables, probably advanced versions of today's wind and solar farms and geothermal plants, will have put to rest the whole issue of emissions. In its place, perhaps, will be fights over birds and other wildlife of the Western prairies — and how much of their habitat is being hogged by wind turbines and photovoltaic panels. Or will energy-gathering become so miniaturized that it's relatively harmless to our fellow creatures?

All that, however, is far removed from today's tussle over the state Environment Improvement Board and its efforts to impose tough carbon-emissions standards. Environmentalists want emissions reduced below 1990 levels 10 years from now. Business lobbyists say compliance with such standards would kill the state's economy and hurt consumers with higher electricity rates. Besides, they say, there are too many environmentalists on the EIB and not enough businesspeople.

The pro-business arguments carry more weight nowadays, with so many people laid off and so many more in fear of losing their jobs. Enviros, for their part, point out that there are going to be economic and public-health disasters if we don't reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

Further stirring up the hornet nest is resentment from gas-, oil- and coal-supported legislators who say the environmental board has no business setting such standards; that's our business, by darn ...

Those lawmakers have plenty of influence — and yesterday, the House Energy and Natural Resources Committee tabled a bill that would have started our state on a slow path toward emissions caps. Energy-policy advisers to Gov. Bill Richardson, who favors such a bill, say they hope the measure might show up in some other form between now and the end of the Legislature's 30-day session. But that's only nine days from now, making chances of passage less than slight.

At the same time, some Oil Patch legislators, along with utility executives and other business groups, have filed a state District Court lawsuit down in Hobbs saying the EIB can't regulate greenhouse-gas emissions before it has set ambient air-quality standards.

Pretty clearly, the pollution lobbyists are hoping to stall any standards until Richardson is out of office and his heir-apparent, Hobbs native Diane Denish, can take office next year and begin filling a seven-member Environmental Improvement Board more to their liking.

Thus the struggle for clean air, clear skies and sensible sources of power continues its slow slog through the corridors of power ...

To the credit of our state's biggest utility company, Public Service Company of New Mexico is increasing investments in renewable energy — all the while making sure that it controls the supply of greater-in-demand electricity, whatever the source.

But the time will come when long-lines power delivery gives way to local generation — which may be long after coal-fired power yields to smarter sources. So worthy as environmentalists' efforts are, we're not holding our editorial breath ...