By Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Friday heralded climate change legislation advancing in the U.S. Congress as "enormous progress" but warned that developing countries spewing huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere also must impose controls.
As Obama made his remarks at the White House, the House of Representatives was nearing a vote on the bill requiring U.S. industries to significantly reduce their emissions in the next four decades of carbon dioxide and other harmful gases associated with global warming.
A close vote was expected but Democrats, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, voiced optimism the 1,200-page environment and energy bill will pass following a successful test vote earlier on Friday.
At the core of the complicated bill is a "cap and trade" plan designed to reduce carbon emissions by 17 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050, from 2005 levels. The government would issue a declining number of pollution permits to companies, which could sell those permits to each other as needed.
The bill's requirements would have a profound impact on the way electric utilities, oil refiners, manufacturers of steel, paper, cement, glass and other companies fuel their operations.
"I think that this legislation that we are seeking to pass indicates enormous progress from where we have been," Obama said during a joint press conference at the White House with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Republicans in Congress have attacked the legislation, saying it would increase consumer prices as companies are forced to switch to more expensive alternative fuels. They also complained the United States would be committing to firm pollution controls even though other major polluters like China and India have not.
"OBLIGATIONS ARE CLEAR"
Mindful of that criticism, Obama said the United States would have to work with emerging economies, which have "enormous potential for growth but unfortunately also have enormous potential for contributing to greenhouse gases, so that their obligations are clear."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, asked by a reporter whether she still lacked the votes for passage, replied: "Quite to the contrary."
If the House passes the legislation, the debate would then move to the Senate, where its fate was uncertain this year.
Even though climate change -- with its threat to polar ice caps and animal and plant species -- is a global problem, much of the debate in Congress has broken along regional geography, pitting Midwestern and Southern states that are heavily reliant on coal against coastal areas, where cleaner energies are more available.
"This bill, when enacted into law, will break our dependence on foreign oil," said Representative Henry Waxman of California, a leading proponent. He said it will "create millions of clean energy jobs" and was backed by a "remarkable coalition" of electric utilities, manufacturers, farmers, labor unions and environmental organizations.
Massachusetts Representative Edward Markey, who wrote the bill with Waxman, said, "When it becomes law, and it will, for the first time in the history ... of our country we will put enforceable limits on global warming pollution."
FIERCE LOBBYING
With U.S. households hard-hit by a deep economic recession, Republicans highlighted pocketbook issues.
Representative Frank Lucas of Oklahoma said the legislation "promises to destroy our standard of living and quality of life with higher energy costs, higher food prices and lost jobs." He called it the "single largest economic threat to our farmers and ranchers in decades."
But the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office this week estimated a much less dire impact of about $170 annually in higher costs for households, far below the $3,100 Republicans warned.
For months, a fierce lobbying campaign has been waged by those on each side of the issue and there was no let-up as the House prepared to cast what some already were calling an historic vote.
"Energy Tomorrow," a group funded by the American Petroleum Institute, warned in a full-page ad in Friday's Washington Post: "If you like $4 gasoline, you'll love the House climate bill."
Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, said the legislation "establishes a brand new architecture that will channel tens of billions of dollars in private monies into wind, solar, geothermal (energies) and cleaning up coal."
(Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell; Editing by Bill Trott)
