Obama downplays global warming in effort to sell new regulations
By: Julie Mason
Examiner White House Correspondent
June 30, 2009
Touting the economic benefits of his energy bill while playing down the climate change aspects, President Barack Obama expressed confidence the measure will clear the Senate.
"Thanks to members of Congress who were willing to place America's progress before the usual Washington politics, this bill will create new businesses, new industries and millions of new jobs," Obama said at an event announcing new regulations on U.S. light bulbs, "all without imposing untenable new burdens on the American people or America's businesses."
The House late last week narrowly approved a bill that includes a cap-and-trade provision requiring industry to reduce emissions associated with climate change by 17 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050.
The Senate is poised to take up the bill when Congress returns to work after the Independence Day holiday.
Environmental and other groups are pushing for tougher emissions standards in the Senate version -- an outcome that appears unlikely.
Obama campaigned on a promise to confront global warming, but in order to get the energy bill passed, he's been touting jobs and security benefits with far greater frequency than global warming and climate change.
"Make no mistake -- this is a jobs bill," the president said last week. A survey taken earlier this year by the Pew Center for the People and the Press found 85 percent of Americans ranked the economy as their top concern, and 82 percent said jobs. Global warming, the top issue for 30 percent, ranked last among 20 topics -- below crime, moral decline and lobbyists.
A recent poll by ABC News/Washington Post found that 52 percent support cap and trade, a system requiring polluters to obtain permits for the harmful emissions they produce.
Those who reduce their emissions can sell credits to other companies.
"Somewhere along the way, the president and the White House got the message that in order to get this bill passed, they have to talk about cap and trade in terms of job creation and growth," said Emily Lawrimore, Republican staff communications director for the House Committee on Natural Resources.
Lawrimore expressed skepticism at Obama's promises the energy bill would create "millions of new jobs" — noting that Obama's $787 billion stimulus bill has come up short on job creation assurances.
Obama has said the stimulus saved or created 150,000 jobs so far, but the administration has been unable to prove that claim.
Ben Lieberman, an energy policy expert at the Heritage Foundation, also noted the administration has shifted away from touting "green" jobs in favor of "clean energy" jobs.
"The public does not care about global warming and they are intuitively not buying it as a crisis," Lieberman said. "The environment is not selling right now, economic recovery is selling."
The president also announced new efficiency standards for fluorescent and incandescent light bulbs, saying he was starting with the lighting at the White House.
