Obama Pushes For A Climate Bill

Speaking from the White House Oval Office last week, President Barack Obama once again pressed Congress for energy legislation as part of his program to control the damage from the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico and to lower the risk and environmental threat of future oil-drilling accidents.

After outlining his Administration’s “battle plan” to contain and clean up the spill, the President noted a “larger lesson” from the disaster—the high risk of drilling “a mile beneath the surface of the ocean” in a search for harder to find oil reserves. Saying the nation has known for decades that “the days of cheap and easily accessible oil were numbered,” Obama urged Congress to act now on legislation to cut U.S. dependence on fossil fuels.

Obama said he endorsed legislation similar to the House-passed carbon dioxide cap-and-trade bill, but he said he would be “happy to look at other ideas and approaches from either party—as long as they seriously tackle our addiction to fossil fuels.”

Republicans quickly responded with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) accusing Obama of pressing for a “new national energy tax” to achieve the “ideological goal of passing global-warming legislation” while in the midst of the “worst environmental catastrophe in American history.”

Only a few days earlier, a congressional fight over energy erupted on the Senate floor when Senate Republicans fell short in their attempt to pass a resolution by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) blocking EPA from using regulations to cut greenhouse gas emissions.