In yet another effort to prop up California’s junior senator, President Obama extended a courtesy invitation to Barbara Boxer asking her to join him for the White House energy policy meeting on Tuesday.

Putting aside for a moment Barbara Boxer’s complete mismanagement of the climate bill last year, this week’s meeting was a distraction from the real and urgent priority: stemming the flow of thousands of barrels of crude oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico every single day. In fact, the photo op with the president shows, yet again, that Barbara Boxer has her priorities out of order.

Then there is the problem of the botched climate bill. Last year, Barbara Boxer used arcane Senate rules to bypass legitimate debate on what was supposed to be Boxer’s crowning legislative achievement: her historic cap-and-trade bill. Her stunt poisoned the legislative process and upset her colleagues on both sides of the aisle. As a result, even her fellow Democrats began searching for a “Plan B.”

Boxer’s Stunt Upsets Senators On Both Sides Of The Aisle. “Several moderate Republicans, including Maine’s Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, rallied to the side of the EPW Committee’s minority this week and urged Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) not to hold a vote on the bill without first getting more EPA data. ‘I think it has left clearly a very bitter taste in many members’ mouths about how we’re part of a process on a very important issue,’ Murkowski, the ranking member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said yesterday. ‘This may stall things out for a period of time.’” (The New York Times, November 6, 2009)

Then again, maybe we were fortunate Boxer did such a terrible job guiding her bill through the legislative process. After all, reports estimated the bill could have cost American families thousands of dollars every year and killed millions of jobs.

Boxer’s Bill Would Have Led To “Job Losses Exceeding 2.5 Million.” “Should S. 1733 become law, Americans can expect the following to occur between enactment and the year 2035 (all figures are adjusted for inflation): Inflation-adjusted losses to gross domestic product (GDP) of $9.9 trillion; More than $4.6 trillion in higher energy taxes; Job losses exceeding 2.5 million for some years; Annual family-of-four energy costs rising by $1,000, including a gasoline price increase of more than $1.20 per gallon; Annual family-of-four energy costs plus increased cost of goods and services totaling more than $3,000; Average GDP loss per family of four above $4,500 per year; Family-of-four net worth dropping by more than $40,000; and The family of four’s share of the national debt rising by an additional $27,000.” (David Kreutzer, Ph.D., Karen Campbell, Ph.D., William Beach, Ben Lieberman and Nicolas Loris, “What Boxer-Kerry Will Cost the Economy,” 1/26/10)

This meeting was just the latest act in the Obama administration’s ongoing dog and pony show designed to somehow muster the votes for climate change legislation, or energy policy (the terminology of course depends on the day and the audience), that will most likely end up increasing energy costs for American families and killing jobs at a time when our economy is already struggling. With any luck, Democrats will task Barbara Boxer with passing this bill again this year, despite her rash and unproductive “leadership” that killed the bill last year, otherwise we might actually be facing its passage. And that will mean higher taxes, higher energy costs and fewer jobs for all Americans.