CONGRESS COMPETITION

Climate versus healthcare

President Obama has pushed for healthcare, will he do the same for climate?

REUTERS

UNITED STATES. Environmentalists hope the push in Congress for climate change legislation is not overwhelmed by the debate dominating Capitol Hill over changing the US healthcare system. But it might be.

Already two months behind schedule and unsure whether enough Democrats will play along, Senate leaders still aim to pass a bill by December when a United Nations summit convenes in Copenhagen to set worldwide goals for reducing carbon dioxide and other pollutants.

But as the debate over healthcare legislation rages and with President Barack Obama due to address a joint session of Congress on Wednesday to try to rescue the faltering plan, it was unclear whether rattled lawmakers will have the time -- or the inclination -- to take on climate change.

"It's not an impossibility, but it's certainly not a slam-dunk and never has been," said Frank O'Donnell, president of the activist group Clean Air Watch.

The healthcare debate, O'Donnell added, "has basically sucked all the oxygen out of the room."

With many moderate Democrats facing a tough vote on healthcare, O'Donnell wondered whether they also would be willing to do so on an environmental bill that could increase consumers' energy costs. "How many salvos in one year can they take?" O'Donnell asked.

Staffers at the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee have been working behind the scenes on language intended to reel in enough of those moderates. Senator Barbara Boxer, who heads the committee, has been working off of a bill passed by the House of Representatives intended to cut utility and factory emissions of greenhouse gases by 17 percent by 2020, from 2005 levels.

Beyond healthcare, the climate bill might have to compete for time with some other major debates, such as new financial industry controls, annual spending bills, US troop levels in Afghanistan and some must-do tax measures.