Obama Retreats From Goal of Cap-Trade Bill
ELIZABETH WILLIAMSON
Wall Street Journal
February 3, 2010
NASHUA, N.H.—President Barack Obama said for the first time Tuesday that legislation that would require industries to pay for emissions of greenhouse gases may need to be separated from a more popular “green jobs” bill in the Senate, a maneuver that could kill what once had been one of the administration’s top policy priorities.
Answering a participant in a town-hall meeting in Nashua who asked about green jobs—those connected to renewable energy—and so-called cap-and-trade legislation, Mr. Obama said, “The only thing I would say about it is this: We may be able to separate these things out. And it’s possible that that’s where the Senate ends up.”
[efoods]Until now, the Obama administration has refused to entertain in public the idea that lawmakers might have to split up the climate bill. The shift by the president is another sign that the White House is rethinking strategy on big first-year agenda items such as health care and climate legislation, after public dissatisfaction with its focus on those issues helped cost Democrats their filibuster-proof hold on the Senate last month.
The idea behind the cap-and-trade aspect of the climate bill is to create a market in permits that confer the right to emit greenhouse gases, which are believed to contribute to global warming. Businesses would be required to hold these permits, and over time the government would curtail the supply of permits to reduce the total amount of gases produced.
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