White House presses senators to pass emissions bill

The fate of the sharply debated bill is unclear in the Senate, and Obama used his weekly radio and Internet address to ratchet up pressure on the 100-seat chamber.

“My call to every senator, as well as to every American, is this,’’ he said. “We cannot be afraid of the future. And we must not be prisoners of the past. Don’t believe the misinformation out there that suggests there is somehow a contradiction between investing in clean energy and economic growth.’’

The legislation would place the first national limits on emissions of greenhouse gases from major sources - such as power plants, factories, and oil refineries - to reduce the gases linked to global climate change. It would also start moving the United States away from fossil fuels and toward cleaner power sources, like geothermal, wind, solar, and more nuclear generators.

The complex bill, which totaled about 1,200 pages, would require the United States to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020 and by 83 percent by midcentury.

Sponsors had originally wanted a 20 percent reduction by 2020 but had to settle for less to win the support from some lawmakers from coal, oil, and farm states. Deeper cuts will be needed globally to avert the most serious consequences of global warming, research suggests.

Opponents complain about the costs and say some industries will simply move their operations and jobs out of the United States to countries that do not control greenhouse gas emissions.

Supporters and opponents agreed that the legislation would lead to higher energy costs. But they disagreed on the impact on consumers.

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“The president and Democrats in Congress claim this spending binge is necessary to put Americans back to work,’’ House Republican leader John Boehner said yesterday in the Republican radio and Internet address. “They promised unemployment would not rise above 8 percent if their trillion-dollar stimulus was passed.’’

The administration was wrong, Boehner said. “Unemployment has soared above 9 percent. And now the president admits that unemployment will soon reach double digits.

“After all of this spending, after all of this borrowing from China, the Middle East, our children, and our grandchildren, where are the jobs?’’ he said.

Since President Obama’s stimulus plan to trigger job creation was passed, the economy has shed 1.6 million jobs. The administration has focused instead on its estimate that the stimulus has created or saved 150,000 jobs.

That estimate comes from a formula that uses government spending and tax cuts to predict job growth.

The formula has been used by Republicans and Democrats alike, but was built to predict, not count jobs. To count jobs, economists traditionally rely on Labor Department data on unemployment, manufacturing, and construction activity, and county-by-county and state-by-state job reports.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said early last week the president expects the nation will reach 10 percent unemployment within the next few months. In January, Obama’s economic team predicted unemployment would rise no higher than 8 percent with the help of a $787 billion stimulus program.

The unemployment rate in May reached a 25-year high of 9.4 percent. Obama aides have said the economy took a turn for the worse since their initial forecast.

Boehner has seized on the administration’s revised forecast. He predicted that Democratic proposals on healthcare, stimulus, and energy would be bad for the economy.

He said Republicans have proposed improvements to healthcare and economic stimulus that are less intrusive and expensive than Obama’s plans. And he criticized Democratic efforts to pass an energy bill that he described as “a national energy tax,’’ which passed the House Friday.

He singled out proposed healthcare changes as a job killer.

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In a statement marking National HIV Testing Day, Obama said 1 in 5 Americans who are infected with HIV don’t know it. The president said testing limits the spread of AIDS. HIV infects an American every 9 1/2 minutes, making the health problem an “epidemic,’’ he added.

The president touted his plan to make access to care easier and promote the treatment and prevention of AIDS, while adding that “the government can only do so much’’ and individuals must take steps to curb HIV and to help those infected.

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