By Timothy Gardner and Ayesha Rascoe
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Three U.S. senators outlined a compromise climate bill Thursday that aims to win the votes needed for passage next year and could boost President Barack Obama's position at U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen next week.
Senators John Kerry, a Democrat, independent Joseph Lieberman and Republican Lindsey Graham believe the compromise will win votes from Republican and moderate Democratic senators by offering additional incentives for nuclear power, offshore drilling and clean coal.
The White House welcomed the compromise, saying in a statement, "The president believes this is a positive development toward reaching a strong, unified and bipartisan agreement in the U.S. Senate."
The senators did not offer details but said a target to cut U.S. greenhouse emissions by 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, with the help of a cap-and-trade system, was "achievable and reasonable."
"We are confident our climate legislation will keep American jobs in America," Lieberman told reporters.
There has been uncertainty whether the Senate would agree to measures cutting greenhouse gas emissions, blamed for global warming. Countries attending the climate talks in Copenhagen are also at loggerheads on how to tackle global warming.
A climate bill passed narrowly in the House of Representatives in June.
The bill will have to pass through the Senate Finance and Agriculture committees. It faces potential opposition from senators representing states in the Midwest in the South that produce and burn coal and oil products like gasoline.
Kerry, who wrote the initial Senate climate bill with Senator Barbara Boxer, and the other two lawmakers working on the compromise were confident the bill would win 60 votes needed for passage next year.
COPENHAGEN
Obama is expected to pledge at the Copenhagen talks next week that the United States will cut emissions by about 17 percent.
That was the target included in the House bill and the senators said Thursday that was reasonable.
It would be less ambitious than the 20 percent reduction proposed in an initial Senate bill written by Kerry and Boxer.
The international talks, meant to forge the outline of a new climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, are focused on sharing the costs between rich and poor countries in cutting emissions.
The United States is the only developed country that never ratified the Kyoto treaty.
Graham said oil refineries would get more incentives in the compromise bill. Oil companies have complained that climate legislation would force them to pay heavy climate compliance costs.
(Editing by Russell Blinch and Peter Cooney)
