Obama: House Climate Talks Were 'Constructive' Blueprint for Senate

Environmental groups that are counting on President Obama investing his political capital to strengthen climate legislation as it moves through the U.S. Senate should read his interview yesterday with energy reporters.

The president summed up his position when asked about his meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Europeans’ push for more aggressive emissions reduction targets from the United States.

“My argument to her and to the Europeans is we don't want to make the best the enemy of the good,” Obama said.

He went on to describe his expectations for climate legislation in the Senate, where presidential advisor David Axelrod told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday that the climate bill would likely take a backseat to health care reform and might not come to the floor before fall.

Once the Senate gets to work, don't be surprised to see the bill watered down further, and don’t expect the president to stop that from happening.

Obama said he expects “a series of tough negotiations.” Perhaps more telling, he described Rick Boucher’s strong-arming for the coal industry in the House as “constructive” and a blueprint for the Senate. (Boucher himself bragged that he ensured coal a long, bright future.).

“I think now that you've seen somebody like a Rick Boucher of Virginia able to enter into very constructive negotiations with a Henry Waxman of California, that, I think, provides a blueprint for how the Senate can proceed,” Obama said.

“I've got some broad criteria the House bill meets. There are going to be provisions in the House bill and in the Senate bill which I question, in terms of their effectiveness. I'm not going to have a line-item veto, so ultimately – you know, I'll take a look at the final product. And if it meets those broad criteria – moving the country forward on energy efficiency – then it's a bill that I will embrace.”

“Finding the right balance between providing new incentives to businesses, but not giving away the store, is always an art.”

As the American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) bill moved through the House, sponsor Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) made deep concessions to the coal industry and industrial agriculture to win the 219 votes the bill needed to squeak though on Friday.

Obama hinted yesterday that off-shore drilling might be one group levering the bill even further in the Senate. ConocoPhillips is also angling for oil and natural gas to get the kind of deals that Boucher's coal-fired utilities received.

A measure to open Florida's Gulf Coast to off-shore drilling was already written into the Senate’s version of an energy bill, approved earlier this month to the delight of the oil industry and the chagrin of environmental groups. And in the interview session yesterday, Obama left the door open for the possibility of sweetening the final bill with off-shore oil.

“I've already said I'm happy to see us move forward on increasing domestic production, including offshore drilling – but we can't do that in isolation from all these other important steps that need to be taken,” the president said.

Over the past month, Obama put his Cabinet members to work educating the House and lobbying for climate action, but the president himself held back pushing for a stronger climate bill and only last week launched a public push to get the ACES bill passed.