Climate change issue: not just for Democrats now

By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent

Democrats used to own the environmental issue, grabbing votes from party loyalists and independent voters when they stressed their plans to curb global warming. But 2008 could be the year Republicans use climate change as a rallying point at election time.

"Republicans lost in 2006 because independents abandoned our party," Mehlman said at a political discussion several weeks before the February 5 Super Tuesday vote.

Economic conservatives see the technological solutions to climate change as a way to create more wealth and jobs, and many corporate leaders have pushed for a federal limit on carbon emissions to prevent a patchwork of state laws.

National security conservatives argue that reducing dependence on foreign oil would cut off funding for anti-U.S. elements in the Middle East and elsewhere.

President George W. Bush has said the Kyoto plan, which expires in 2012, would put the United States at a disadvantage if fast-growing developing countries like China and India are exempt from its requirements.

BIPARTISAN SUPPORT

By contrast, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney won last month's Republican primary in Michigan -- where his father served as governor and where the Big Three automakers are based -- after taking aim at McCain's support for increased fuel efficiency, saying this would hurt the U.S. auto industry.

To do this, the states need a waiver from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which has so far not been granted. McCain, Huckabee and Romney have said at a candidates' debate they support the waiver, though Romney later modified his answer.

"The clear bipartisan support for capping global warming pollution should be a wake-up call for Congress," said Tony Kreindler of the non-partisan group Environmental Defense.

"Pollsters put the environment in this little box and pretend that it doesn't bleed over into other issues," Sandretti said in a telephone interview. He noted, as Mehlman did, that climate change is tied to national security, and added that it was also linked to the U.S. energy future.

(Editing by Todd Eastham)