Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton raised $26 million in the first quarter, shattering party records while barely meeting the expectations she’s created as a prodigious fundraiser.

According to Bloomberg News, the New York senator added $10 million more left over from her Senate account, bringing her total to $36 million, her campaign announced yesterday.

The campaign didn’t say how much it spent organizing fundraising events from New York to Los Angeles, or how much it had left over in cash.

John Edwards, one of her chief rivals, brought in $14 million.

The so-called “money primary” now offers a test for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, Hillary’s closest national competitor.

Clinton had been trying to deflate Obama, John Edwards and other rivals with her front-running status, endorsements and huge fundraisers.

This didn’t quite do it.

“I don’t think the amount is the knockout blow,” Herbert Alexander, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Southern California, said.

Obama’s campaign has yet to release a fundraising estimate. The campaigns aren’t required to report their first-quarter results until April 15.

Campaign finance experts and political operatives expect Barack Obama to report that he raised $20 million or more.

“Clinton is raising money at a rate far beyond any previous Democrat,”said Anthony Corrado, a professor at Colby College. “Really, the only comparison here is with George W. Bush when he ran without opposition in 2004.”

On the Republican side, ex-Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney reported $23 million, former New York Mayor and current GOP frontrunner Rudolph Giuliani reported more than $15 million, including some $10 million in March alone, and Arizona Senator John McCain has yet to release figures.

Three other Democratic contenders also gave preliminary fundraising totals for the first quarter: New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson brought in $6 million, Delaware Senator Joseph Biden raised about $3 million.

Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd took in $4 million and added $5 million more from his Senate account, bringing his first-quarter total to $9 million. Dodd had about $7.5 million in cash as of March 31.

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For the first time in its history, the U.S. Supreme Court has waded into the political debate on global warming.

Under the George W. Bush administration, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has argued that carbon dioxide and the like aren’t pollutants under the Clean Air Act, and therefore, the agency has no power to regulate them.

But in a sweeping 5-4 decision released Monday, the Supreme Court rejected that position, declaring that Clean Air Act gives the EPA the authority to regulate emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from cars.

Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the majority opinion, and was joined by Justices Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

The majority decided motor vehicle emissions make a “meaningful contribution to greenhouse gas concentrations” and thus, to global warming.

“A well-documented rise in global temperatures has coincided with a significant increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Respected scientists believe the two trends are related,” Stevens wrote.

Environmental groups applauded the Court’s decision.

“It’s an important signal that the Bush administration cannot continue to ignore the problem of global warming for political reasons when the science is so clear and there’s clear pressure from the public to move forward,” said Josh Dorner, spokesperson for the Sierra Club in Washington D.C.

“An enormous victory for the fight against global warming,” said Doug Kendall, whose group Community Rights Counsel filed an amicus brief in the case on behalf of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

“The Supreme Court has recognized both the importance of the problem and the need for the federal government to act on the solution,” Kendall said, arguing the decision is a major victory for states who want to rely on the congressional Clean Air Act.

“The Supreme Court’s decision, in Massachusetts v. EPA, repudiates the Bush administration’s do-nothing policy on global warming,” said David Doniger, Natural Resources Defense Council’s attorney in the case.

Greenpeace, the well-known environmental group, viewed the decision as a political victory against the administration’s policy on climate change.

“This ruling shows the degree to which the Bush administration continues to be out of step, not only with the science, but with congress and public opinion,” said Chris Miller, director of global climate change at Greenpeace.

“All of these years that the Bush administration has been in office, instead of trying to find out ways that they can combat global warming, they’ve been denying the science, they’ve been fighting lawsuits … so this is a big defeat for them, and it’s also a big defeat for the automotive industry that spent a lot of time, energy and effort trying to beat this back,” said Miller.

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