The New York Times reports today that it's looking less and less likely that Congress will pass an energy bill this year. Members of the conference committee tasked with reconciling the House and Senate versions of the bill probably won't be appointed until October, and filibuster and veto threats still loom. The one semi-bright spot, which the Times article touches on briefly at the end, is that there's a good deal of action going on at the state level. The National Governors Association is making clean energy its showcase issue this year, and the number of states with renewable-energy portfolio standards is now at 28, up from 15 in 2003. And yesterday's decision by a federal judge in Vermont allowing states to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions from cars and trucks should help clear the path for more progress. That said, it's unclear how much can really get done absent a more assertive federal government. For one thing, some states haven't shown any interest in taking action--at the NGA press conference yesterday, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, the co-chair of the clean-energy initiative, admitted that she hadn't been able to convince her state's legislature to pass a renewable-energy portfolio standard. And the sheer scale of federal energy subsidies tends to overwhelm anything going on at the state level. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman appeared at the NGA press conference to announce $610,000 in federal aid for the initiative. By comparison, the oil industry alone gets nearly $40 billion in subsidies annually. The Democrats' energy bill would cut a (small) chunk of that, which, not surprisingly, is one reason Republicans are determined to kill it. --Josh Patashnik