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Wednesday, 27 January 2010

Obama aims to win climate bill with nuclear, oil

OBAMA FOR USA

President Barack Obama appeared to back away from creating a market in planet-warming emissions on Wednesday in a bid to save the stalled climate change bill, while reaching out to Republicans by promoting nuclear energy and offshore drilling.

Obama said he was eager to support a bipartisan climate bill in U.S. Senate during his annual State of the Union speech to Congress. But he did not say it had to include a cap-and-trade market for emissions blamed for warming the planet.

"This year, I am eager to help advance the bipartisan effort in the Senate," Obama said.

"And yes, it means passing a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America."

Cap-and-trade, a market mechanism to cut pollution blamed for warming the planet, was included in the bill the House of Representatives passed in June.

Under the market outlined in that bill, utilities, oil refineries and factories would be required to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases over the next 40 years. Companies would have to obtain permits for each ton of carbon dioxide they emit and those permits would be traded on a regulated exchange.



NUCLEAR

To try to win votes from Republicans like Senator John McCain, Obama said the country must build a new generation of clean nuclear plants.

Senators John Kerry, a Democrat, Lindsey Graham, a Republican, and Joe Lieberman, an independent, are working on a compromise climate bill that would include more incentives for nuclear and offshore oil drilling. They hope to win the necessary 60 votes for the bill.

But getting to that magic number with cap-and-trade became more difficult after Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown, who did not support the mechanism in his campaign, won a pivotal seat in the Senate this month.

Obama acknowledged that some believe caps on emissions would raise energy prices, while others doubt the science of global warming.

"But even if you doubt the evidence, providing incentives for energy efficiency and clean energy are the right thing to do for our future because the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy," he said.

The United States must make tough decisions on issues like climate and clean energy because countries like China and India are not waiting, Obama said. "They are making serious investments in clean energy because they want those jobs."

Investing in research on clean energy could create jobs, he said. "But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. That means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country."

An analyst said Obama may realize the practical difficulties of getting cap-and-trade done.

"The underlying point is that he certainly did not push for cap and trade," said Will Pearson, a global energy analyst at the Eurasia Group. "It seems like the Democratic leadership is sticking with combined energy and climate change legislation for now," rather than pushing cap-and-trade, he said.

(Reuter-Additional reporting by Jeff Mason; editing by Stacey Joyce and Chris Wilson)
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