Obama may leave out climate

The Hindu , Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Correspondent : Ewen MacAskill and Suzanne Goldenberg
Washington: Barack Obama is to respond to last week’s shock Senate election defeat by using Wednesday’s state of the union speech to scale back his ambitious legislative programme and instead focus on measures to help recession-hit families.

Mr. Obama opened his presidency last year at breakneck speed, with proposals to tackle the recession, climate change and health, as well as deal with two wars.

But the state of the union speech is shaping up as a much more modest affair, reflecting voter complaints — apparent in last week’s Massachusetts election, in which Republican Scott Brown won a surprise victory — about his healthcare plan, the billions of dollars in federal spending and failure to tackle unemployment.

Though the White House denied Mr. Obama was scaling back his plans, the tone will be more populist and tightly focused on jobs and the economy.

An official said one of the themes would be “creating good jobs, addressing the deficit, changing Washington”, and fighting for working-class families.

The Massachusetts defeat has created panic among Democratic members of Congress fearful of losing their seats in November’s mid-term elections.

The influential Rothenburg report on Monday suggested 58 Democratic seats in the House of Representatives were vulnerable, up from 47 last month.

Mr. Obama’s healthcare reform bill, which he had hoped to have passed into law by the time he delivered the state of the union speech, looks as if it could be an early victim of the election loss.

Democrats are threatening to ditch much of the health bill, an issue on which Mr. Obama had fought the election, promising to expand health insurance coverage to almost all Americans.

Another signature issue, global warming, is at risk of getting short shrift in the speech, further shrinking the already slim prospects of getting a climate change law through Congress, environmentalists say.

“I think the President needs to underscore that climate and energy reform is a priority for 2010 as specifically as possible,” said John Kerry, who has been leading the effort to get a climate bill through the Senate.

Environmental organisations believe some Obama aides are advising him to downplay or even avoid mention of the words “climate change”.

“There has always been nervousness on whether the administration is playing an aggressive enough role,” said Steve Cochran, of the Environmental Defence Fund. “[Everyone is] looking to see what he might say in the state of the union to suggest the administration continues to move forward on this agenda, or that they are going to back off somehow because of a variety of political realities.” — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2010

 
SOURCE : http://www.hindu.com/2010/01/27/stories/2010012751221400.htm
 


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