In a conference call this afternoon, House Republicans seemed to be enjoying the Democratic turf war over the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill. The bill was approved by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, chaired by Henry Waxman, but other committees have been balking. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel has objected to a quick floor vote; Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson has threatened to vote the bill down in committee. All this caused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to set a June 19 deadline for moving the bill, unless the committees want to risk losing their jurisdiction.

All parties have since cooled. Pelosi has said June 19 isn’t a “hard deadline.” Rangel has said he’ll try to stay on Pelosi’s schedule. And Peterson says he wants to make the bill “workable” rather than defeat it outright. But only Waxman has embraced Pelosi’s deadline.

Reps. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Lee Terry (R-Neb.), and Bob Latta (R-Ohio) chortled over the Democratic divisions but also continued to pound away at the substance of the “cap-and-tax” bill. McCarthy zinged Waxman for having “admitted he has no idea what’s in the bill.” Terry described the “misinformation put out by the two authors of the bill,” though he described them as “good people, I like to chat with them.” Latta focused on the impact on manufacturing. “My district lives and dies by energy,” he said.

All three of them concentrated on the cap-and-trade price tag of at least $1,600 per household, rising in the out years. Latta complained cap-and-trade was “more about raising money than reducing CO2. They’ve gotta have money for all the things they want to do.” They were also unanimous in believing that cap-and-trade was now Nancy Pelosi’s top legislative priority.