President Barack Obama Wednesday vowed to find the votes to pass a stalled energy bill, saying the Gulf of Mexico oil catastrophe showed the need to "aggressively" seek a clean energy future.
Obama signaled a political effort to pivot from the disastrous impact of the Deepwater Horizon disaster to future climate change and energy policy, in an advance copy of remarks he was due to deliver in Pittsburgh later in the day.
"The only way the transition to clean energy will succeed is if the private sector is fully invested in this future — if capital comes off the sidelines and the ingenuity of our entrepreneurs is unleashed," he said.
"The only way to do that is by finally putting a price on carbon pollution," Obama said, noting that the House of Representatives had already passed a climate change bill, which had become stalled in the Senate.
"The votes may not be there right now, but I intend to find them in the coming months," said Obama, who is increasingly under political siege over his handling of the BP oil spill.
"I will make the case for a clean energy future whenever and wherever I can, and I will work with anyone to get this done. And we will get it done," the president added.
"The next generation will not be held hostage to energy sources from the last century."
Prospects for the energy bill in the Senate remain uncertain, following the collapse of a bipartisan effort to pilot it through the chamber in the runup to crucial mid-term elections in November.
Some experts question whether the year-long battle to enact health care reform drained the kind of political capital Obama will need to get the bill through the Senate in a highly polarized political environment.
The bill essentially puts a price on carbon in an effort to discourage global warming emissions, in a phased process designed to head off criticism that the scheme will cripple the recovering US economy.
Conceptually, the bill also seeks to develop alternative energy sources and to wean the United States off foreign oil from volatile regions of the world.
Veteran Republican Senator Dick Lugar said he would formally introduce a separate energy and climate bill on Monday, billing it as "a main alternative" to the "divisive" Democratic cap-and-trade approach.
Obama also said in the remarks that the Gulf of Mexico oil "catastrophe" might be the result of "human error — or corporations taking dangerous shortcuts that compromised safety."
"But we have to acknowledge that there are inherent risks to drilling four miles beneath the surface of the Earth — these are risks that are bound to increase, the harder oil extraction becomes," the president said.
"We also have to acknowledge that an America run solely on fossil fuels should not be the vision we have for our children and grandchildren," he said, arguing that the time had come to aggressively embrace a "clean energy future."
The president mentioned the need to make homes, businesses and trucks more efficient, said natural gas reserves would need to be tapped and mentioned his plan to expand nuclear power plants.
"It means rolling back billions of dollars in tax breaks to oil companies so we can prioritize investments in clean energy research and development."
Obama made no mention in the excerpts to his earlier plan to allow some expansion of offshore drilling as part of a comprehensive new energy plan.
Last week, Obama unveiled tough moves to suspend new oil drilling and exploration following the Gulf disaster, after reviewing an Interior Department report into the massive oil spill.
The government extended an existing moratorium on deepwater drilling and suspended issuing new permits for six months.
Meanwhile, planned oil exploration in two locations off the coast of Alaska was suspended, while a pending lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico and another proposed for off the coast of Virginia were called off.
Action also was suspended on 33 deepwater exploratory wells in the area.
Share This Article With Planet Earth
