If This Chamber's A-Rockin'...

The House's shocks and struts took a beating last Friday as Republican leaders arm-twisted, buttonholed and browbeat their rank and file party members to eke out a 212-210 win on the federal oil refinery bill.

Turmoil and fallout -- both inter- and intra-party -- over the government's response to the hurricanes, President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court, and the indictment of former House GOP boss Tom DeLay have raised Washington's everyday partisan antagonism to a boil.

This New York Times account gives a taste of the enmity on display last Friday.

Before the bill was brought to the floor for a vote, its authors deleted a White House-backed Clean Air Act amendment that would have made it easier for power plants to expand without having to install new antipollution equipment.

In the end, all this uproar may be for naught. The Times says the refinery bill's prospects as it moves across the rotunda to the Senate are dim. Democrats there are itching for a filibuster, and there's a good chance that that could spell defeat for the measure.

In other Washington high jinks, I mean news, the EPA inspector general has found that although agency officials writing a new rule may have given preferential treatment to an industrialist who is a major fundraiser for President Bush, they didn't break any laws in doing so.

The industrialist is Richard Farmer, chairman of Cincinnati-based Cintas Corp., and the rule in question has to do with the handling of shop towels contaminated with toxic chemicals. The Washington Post reported the story Sunday.

EPA Inspector General Nikki Tinsley told the Post that there is nothing explicitly wrong with lobbyists giving EPA officials wording for federal rules. "If someone gives them words that they think are appropriate, there's nothing wrong with that," she told the Post. "That's legal -- and common, apparently."

OK, it's time to Lighten Up, Francis, to paraphrase Sgt. Hulka in "Stripes." A professor at New York State University of Environmental Science and Forestry recently gave his students an assignment they won't soon forget: He had them carry their own garbage with them everywhere they went for a week. The idea was to get them to think about consumerism and overconsumption.

The results were mixed at best. The students' main conclusion: Trash really, really smells bad.