Democrat Senators Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Ben Nelson of Nebraska say the Senate should abandon efforts to pass cap-and-trade this year.

Cap-and-trade legislation will require 60 votes to pass the Senate. According to Bloomberg, at least 15 of the Senate’s 60 Democrats have said the House-passed version — the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade tax climate change legislation — would hurt the economy and must be changed before they can support it. Most Republican Senators oppose the cap-and-trade measure.

The resistance by Senate Democrats Lincoln undercuts President Obama’s plan to cap carbon dioxide emissions and establish a market for trading pollution allowances. A plan that presidential candidate Obama said will cause electricity rates to “necessarily skyrocket“ and will bankrupt anyone who builds a coal-powered plant.

Does Obama’s cap-and-trade tax, face the same fate as President Clinton’s BTU energy tax, which died in the Senate?