The Detroit Lions had better odds of winning the Super Bowl this year than a Republican winning the Senate seat from Massachusetts, held for almost 50 years by the late Ted Kennedy. But the Republican Scott Brown defeated the Democrat Martha Coakley yesterday by a five-point margin (52 percent vs. 47 percent). This morning, pundits on both sides of the political spectrum are spinning the results. Was this vote a referendum on healthcare reform? Was it a referendum on the Obama presidency? Or was it simply the case of a poorly run campaign by Martha Coakley, who a few weeks ago held a 30-point lead in the polls?

I’ll let political junkies tackle those questions. But here is a question worth pondering: Will Scott Brown’s election to the Senate have any supply chain implications?

Most of the chatter today is on the fate of healthcare reform, which has some indirect impact on supply chain and logistics (see “Healthcare and the Trucking Industry: Interview with J.B. Hunt”). But the fates of two other legislative priorities for the Obama administration, Cap-and-Trade and the Employee Free Choice Act, which have a more direct impact on supply chains, are also affected by the Democrats losing their filibuster-proof majority.

My colleague Steve Banker and I both commented on cap-and-trade in our 2010 predictions (see “Supply Chain and Logistics Predictions for 2010”). Steve predicted that the ‘green’ rhetoric would continue this year, but no meaningful legislation would pass. I took a less pessimistic view, predicting that cap-and-trade legislation would follow a similar path as healthcare reform: a lot of backroom deals would occur to get the necessary votes, but the end result would be a much watered-down version of what is on the table today. However, speaking for myself and many other independents here in MA, it’s these types of backroom deals on healthcare reform (the so-called Cornhusker Kickback, Louisiana Purchase, and the exemption of union and government employees from the “Cadillac” health plan tax) that turned off many voters in this state and contributed to yesterday’s election results.

Passing cap-and-trade legislation in the Senate was going to be an uphill battle anyway, but the odds are much lower this morning that anything will pass this year. And as the meeting of world leaders in Copenhagen last month illustrated, there is little agreement between nations on how to tackle climate change (see, for example, “EU’s Emissions Struggle” in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal). Bottom line: Steve will be right, the rhetoric will continue, but little to no legislative action will be taken. Then again, companies still have to contend with the EPA, which ruled in December that CO2 and other greenhouse gases are a danger to public health, thus giving it the power to regulate CO2 emissions under the Clean Air Act. (Click here to read our previous postings related to ‘green’ and sustainability).

The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) received a lot of attention during the 2008 presidential election, but then took a back seat to healthcare reform and cap-and-trade. I predicted that EFCA would move up the legislative agenda this year, but now that the Democrats, who are overwhelmingly supported by the unions, have lost the 60th vote, EFCA may go back to the back burner, at least until after the mid-term elections. (See “Retailers Propose Alternative to Employee Free Choice Act” and “Employee Free Choice Act Gets Introduced” for our past comments on this topic.)

Bottom line: The election results in Massachusetts will likely delay (or even kill) cap-and-trade and EFCA, two pieces of legislation on the radar of many supply chain professionals. Is this a good thing? Post a comment and share your viewpoint!