Among those receiving breaks and concessions that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hopes will help pass the "cap and trade" bill are the nuclear power industry, agriculture interests, ethanol producers - even logging companies. Missing from the list are West Virginians and Ohioans who would suffer terribly from enactment of the bill. If anything, some of the back room deals being cut this week would make the measure more burdensome for us - and for residents of many other states.

Yet by Thursday, it still was being reported that Pelosi was intent on bringing the bill to a vote today on the floor of the House. Pelosi seems to believe she has enough support to pass the monstrosity.

The measure is intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. It would use a complicated system of emissions caps and permits. Residents and businesses in states where coal is used in industry or for electric power would suffer. One analysis is that some households could pay as much as $3,100 a year more if the bill becomes law.

In attempting to sway more lawmakers to vote for it, Pelosi and other "cap and trade" supporters have, indeed, made changes to the bill. Among them:

• Nuclear reactor projects would receive loans from the program. That would encourge some utilities to abandon low-cost coal and switch to nuclear power plants.

• Instead of auctioning all emissions permits under the program, government would hand out 85 percent of them. Politically powerful areas would benefit. Our states probably would suffer.

• The Environmental Protection Agency would be barred for at least six years from deciding whether ethanol contributes disproportionately to greenhouse gas emissions.

• Large agriculture interests would be given more favorable treatment in selling emissions credits to industries.

• Loggers would benefit from a new definition of "biofuels," taking in brush and salvage lumber from national forests.

There have been no concessions of which we are aware that would lessen the burden of "cap and trade" on millions of West Virginians and Ohioans or on residents of other states that depend heavily on coal, however.

The bill has become a gigantic early Christmas present for many special interests. At the same time it is a potential disaster for tens of millions of Americans. Members of the House should stiffen their backbones, resist the enormous - and often dishonest - pressure being exerted against them by liberals such as Pelosi, and reject the "cap and trade" bill.