Bipartisan cooperation will be key to the 112th Congress' ability to enact any new legislation, as Republicans have retaken the majority in the House and Democrats retain only a slight majority in the Senate.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters at the Capitol that he hoped Democrats would respond to their losses by collaborating with Republicans on "nuclear power and clean coal technology and other things the president said that he's for that most of my members are for."
President Barack Obama has supported expanded assistance for the US nuclear energy industry and for carbon capture and sequestration, although he has usually couched his support as part of a larger clean-energy and environment agenda that was to include a cap on carbon dioxide emissions.
With the Republican gains in both chambers, comprehensive energy and climate change legislation now appears unlikely to pass. Still, Obama has said he hopes "chunks" of energy policy will clear both chambers of Congress in the next years. He has not specified what those would be, but a renewable energy standard for electric utilities is a priority for many renewable energy and
environmental stakeholders.
