Periodically, a Republican senator is seized with desire to be the front man for the Democrats’ latest regulatory monstrosity in Washington. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is now in the throes of this pathological urge, which usually appears just when defeat seems imminent for a big-government scheme like the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade energy bill. Democrats and their liberal buddies in the mainstream media need only whisper the magic word “bipartisanship” and soon enough along comes a gullible GOPer to take the bait.

Graham made clear in a Sunday New York Times op-ed written with Sen. John Kerry, D-MA, that he will support cap-and-trade if Democrats agree to expand nuclear power and off-shore oil and natural gas development. Kerry is the Senate point man in the Democrats’ campaign to pass a Senate version of the 1,400-plus page Waxman-Markey bill approved earlier this year by the House. Graham’s approach sounds like a reasonable “let’s just split the difference” compromise. The problem is that no matter what Kerry and the Democrats agree to now in order to sucker Graham and similarly na?ve Republicans, environmental activists and sympathetic federal bureaucrats will file endless legal and administrative challenges to stall and ultimately veto more nuclear power production or development of America’s bountiful off-shore energy supplies. Meanwhile, the Democrats’ cap-and-trade bill will almost immediately begin inflicting devastating economic consequences that will be with us for decades.