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Obama pleads with lawmakers on energy bill
Washington (AFP) June 25, 2009 President Barack Obama Thursday pleaded with US lawmakers to prove they were not "afraid of the future" by backing a historic global warming bill, on the eve of a tense vote in Congress. The House of Representatives is set to vote on the legislation, a key plank of Obama's domestic program, on Friday, and Democratic leaders have launched an intense lobbying operation to win over wavering members. "I know this is going to be a close vote, in part because of the misinformation that is out there that suggests there is somehow a contradiction between investing in clean energy and our economic growth," Obama said. "But my call to those members of Congress who are still on the fence as well as to the American people is this: we cannot be afraid of the future, we can't be prisoners of the past. "We have been talking about this issue for decades, now is the time to finally act," Obama said in an event at the Rose Garden of the White House. Former US vice president turned global warming campaigner Al Gore scrapped a planned visit to the Capitol to woo hesitant lawmakers and instead was reaching out by telephone from his home base in Tennessee, congressional officials said. The move was an apparent sign that the race for the 218 votes needed to pass the legislation, against stiff Republican opposition, was tightening. Obama styled the bill as vital to both US national security and the future of the environment. "There is no disagreement whether our dependence on foreign oil is endangering our security, we know it is," he said. "There is no longer a debate about whether carbon pollution is placing our planet in jeopardy, it is happening." Republicans, who have tarred the legislation as imposing a massive tax on energy use and a job-killer in the midst of a recession, enlisted billionaire investor Warren Buffett's sharp criticisms of the legislation. Republicans hoped to hold together and peel off a handful of swing-vote Democrats to defeat the legislation, which Obama has made a key priority ahead of December global climate change talks in Copenhagen. The House's "American Clean Energy and Security Act" aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, while creating "green" jobs. The 1,200-page bill, would create a "cap-and-trade" system limiting overall pollution from large industrial sources and then allocating and selling pollution permits. Share This Article With Planet Earth
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