By Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will begin analyzing a compromise climate change bill Senator John Kerry hopes to move through the Senate this year, despite a significant setback his effort has suffered, Kerry said on Tuesday.
The EPA will examine the economic impact the bill would have from provisions aimed at reducing pollution blamed for global warming.
"We are sending the bill to be modeled now with Lindsey Graham's consent," the Democratic senator told reporters.
On Saturday, Republican Senator Graham announced that he was dropping out of the effort with Kerry and Independent Senator Joseph Lieberman to craft a climate change bill, which would also encourage U.S. production of nuclear energy and offshore oil.
Graham said he was angered by Senate Democratic leaders and the White House talking up the possibility of tackling immigration reform prematurely, complaining it could take away time in the Senate for a climate debate.
On Monday, Graham, speaking to reporters, seemed to go further by saying that any discussion of immigration reform this year, even if it is after passage of a climate bill, would be "breaking faith with me."
Kerry did not respond directly when asked whether he would go ahead with a public unveiling of climate change bill without Graham's support.
"We're working to get this back on track, that's my goal, that's other people's goal and we're sticking by that," Kerry said.
The EPA analysis is an important step in the legislative process. The Congressional Budget Office also is likely to conduct its own analysis, and the oil industry wants the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration to take an independent look.
JUNE DEBATE IN THE SENATE
Over the past six months, Kerry, Graham and Lieberman have been writing a bill aimed at reducing U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by 17 percent by 2020, from 2005 levels.
That goal is in line with commitments President Barack Obama made in Copenhagen last December during an international summit that attempted to set new global goals for tackling environmental problems associated with climate change.
The EPA analysis of their bill could take more than a month to complete and legislation could not be queued up for a full Senate debate until the results are disseminated.
That would put the climate bill on the Senate floor in June at the earliest, but more likely in July. But that assumes that political divisions, of which there are many in addition to Graham's concerns, get resolved.
Last week, the National Research Council reported that the chemistry of the world's oceans was changing at "an unprecedented rate," rapidly becoming more acidic, because of carbon dioxide pollution.
That change threatens coral reefs and some fish species.
Other looming global warming problems, according to scientists, include more severe droughts, flooding of island nations and coastal cities as sea levels rise from ice melt, and worsening refugee problems.
Kerry also has been casting the climate debate in national security tones. He joined veterans of the Iraq war to unveil a clock that counted U.S. revenues Iran would be deprived of as the United States lowers carbon emissions from burning imported oil and from fostering energy independence.
The clock, adorned with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's picture, is measuring $100 million a day in potential lost revenues to Tehran, which has been engaged in a war of words with Washington over its suspected nuclear weapons program and its alleged human rights violations.
(Editing by Philip Barbara)
