It was after Ted Kennedy died. Graham balked after the BP disaster. Eric Pooley’s book on this is good and so is this longread. www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/11/as-the-world-burns/amp

Agree with you Dems didn’t push hard enough. Evan Bayh hemming and hawing in public about the bill was also incredibly frustrating. One thing I think people underestimate is how Obama and Dems gave things away in good faith expecting R votes in exchange and whoops no R votes to be had. Nuke funding in that article is a good example.