A US Senator leading efforts to pass legislation to battle climate change said supporters of the measure were "not scaling back" their efforts despite an election setback for the White House.
"We are not scaling back our efforts. We have not changed our goals one bit," Democratic Senator John Kerry said of efforts to craft an approach that can rally the 60 votes needed to clear the US Senate.
Supporters of the approach have seen their legislative options narrow after Massachusetts voters elected a Republican in a special Senate ballot last week that ended Democrats' undisputed control of the chamber.
The result gave Republicans 41 votes, the bare minimum needed to reject attempts to end debate on a piece of legislation, effectively killing it.
Republicans and their allies in big business fiercely oppose a proposed "cap-and-trade" system they charge would cost US jobs and growth at a time when the sputtering US economy is saddled with double-digit unemployment.
But Kerry, his party's defeated 2004 White House hopeful, denied that the election had forced him and his partners — Republican Lindsey Graham and Independent Joe Lieberman — to abandon their goal.
"We are simply trying to figure out what the magic formula is to be able to get 60 votes but our goal remains exactly what it was before: To price carbon and to create a target for the reduction of emissions that is real," he said.
In June, the House of Representatives voted for the first time in US history to limit heat-trapping carbon emissions and shift the US economy to cleaner energy by enacting a "cap-and-trade" system.
The "American Clean Energy and Security Act" aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, and 83 percent by 2050, create "green" jobs, and wean the US economy from oil imports.
"Whether it's the House approach or another approach or some other way of doing it; there are any number of ways of skinning this cat. And we're not stuck on one idea," said Kerry.
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