Democrats Vow to Combat Global Warming

By William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 19, 2007 4:16 PM

Democratic leaders in Congress vowed today to push forward with legislative efforts to combat global warming and promote energy independence, issues that they said have not been adequately addressed by President Bush because his administration has been "overwhelmed" by the war in Iraq.

In a news conference at Washington's National Press Club ahead of Bush's State of the Union speech on Tuesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) also denounced Bush's plan to send 21,500 additional U.S. troops to Iraq and called for greater efforts to reach a political solution there.

Reid warned Bush against launching U.S. military action against Iran without congressional approval and said the way to deal with that country's ruling Shiite Muslim hard-liners is to connect with young Iranians and pursue energy independence in the United States.

Bush, meanwhile, worked on his State of the Union speech, which is expected to include an announcement on expanding the production and use of alternative fuels. And fellow Republicans heard an exhortation today to stick to core party values as they set their sights on the 2008 elections.

"It is important to our children's health and their global competitiveness to rid this nation of our dependence on foreign oil and Big Oil interests," Pelosi told the news conference today. "Taking bold measures today to achieve energy independence within 10 years must be the highest priority for this Congress."

She said the Democratic-controlled House would work with the global religious, business and scientific communities to "continue robust research on global warming and produce policies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions while simultaneously creating good-paying jobs."

Democrats want to work with Bush on this issue in a bipartisan way, "but we cannot afford to wait," she said. She pledged passage of "groundbreaking legislation that addresses global warming and energy independence."

Reid said that America's "dangerous dependence on oil" is among a number of national security challenges that have not been adequately confronted "because this administration has been all-consumed and, frankly, overwhelmed by its own failed policies in Iraq."

He said Bush's plan to send additional troops to Iraq would be tested in both houses of Congress in voting on a nonbinding resolution that opposes the buildup as contrary to U.S. national interests.

"The answer in Iraq is not to double down, literally to do more of the same," the Nevada Democrat said. "The answer is to find a new course that brings this war to an end."

U.S. troops in Iraq "will get everything they need" from Congress, Reid said. "It is the president who will find he no longer has a blank check. The days of a rubberstamp Congress are over."

In interviews at the White House with local television stations, Bush challenged his Democratic critics to come up with an alternative to his planned troop surge in Iraq.

"I understand resolutions," Bush told Sinclair television, Reuters news agency reported. "My advice to those who are speaking out against a new plan that hasn't been given a chance to work is present a plan you think will work. If disaster is not an option, what do you think will make it successful in Iraq?"

In a news briefing, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino took strong exception to Pelosi's criticism of Bush in a television interview this morning.

Asked on ABC's "Good Morning America" program whether she would move to cut off funding for U.S. troops that are part of the surge, Pelosi said, "Democrats will never cut off funding for our troops when they are in harm's way. But we will hold the president accountable. He has to answer for his war. He has dug a hole so deep he can't even see the light on this. It's a tragedy. It's a historic blunder."

Pelosi added, "The president knows that because the troops are in harm's way that we won't cut off the resources. That's why he's moving so quickly to put them in harm's way." She went on to call the war in Iraq "the president's war," adding, "He's the one without a plan."

Perino called the remarks "poisonous" and "provocative." She said, "Speaker Pelosi was arguing, in essence, that the president is putting young men and women in harm's way for tactical political reasons, and she's questioning his motivations, rather than questioning his policies. The one thing you can say about President Bush is that he's not moving forward with this new plan because he thinks it is popular; he is doing it because he thinks it is right."

At the National Press Club, Reid also criticized what he called Bush's "recent saber-rattling toward Iran." Bush warned last week that the United States would "seek out and destroy" networks providing support to anti-American militias and insurgents in Iraq, and this week the administration dispatched a second aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf.

"I'd like to be clear: the president does not have the authority to launch military action in Iran without first seeking congressional authorization," Reid said. "The current use of force resolution for Iraq does not give him such authorization."

While Iran's hard-line government "poses one of the greatest threats of this new century," Reid said, the Iranian people -- two-thirds of whom are under age 30 -- "present a great opportunity for progress." He added, "Regrettably, this administration has no strategy for connecting with this generation of potential reformers."

Asked about Bush's opposition to imposing requirements related to climate change on the private sector, the new Senate majority leader held out hope that Bush would change his mind and take a new approach in his State of the Union address.

"We found the president in his first six years to be pretty stubborn," Reid said. "And we found the last few weeks as much change as has been in the first six years. He backed off from the domestic spying. He has acknowledged many mistakes in Iraq. And there are rumblings from the White House that in the speech that he's going to give on Tuesday that he's going to talk about energy and he's going to even talk about global warming. If he doesn't, it's really too bad."

Reid called on Bush to acknowledge, "as the American people long since recognized, that global warming is one of the biggest issues facing this world, if not the biggest world problem. Every other country recognizes it. America should recognize it."

Bush is coming under growing pressure to take action on global warming, with European allies urging stronger action to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. Throughout his presidency, Bush has resisted imposing mandatory limits on those emissions, arguing that doing so would damage the U.S. economy and insisting that reductions can be achieved through voluntary measures.

White House spokesman Tony Snow told reporters that Bush's aim is to "balance the needs of security and at the same time also the environment. . . ." He said Bush would likely "make that linkage in the speech" on Tuesday night.

The Republican Party, meanwhile, pledged a renewed effort today to win back Congress two years from now, retain the presidency and continue GOP policies.

In a speech to members at a Washington hotel, Robert M. "Mike" Duncan, the new chairman of the Republican National Committee, said that after the party's defeat in midterm elections in November, "we have to look at our plans, programs, policies and practices" and "ask ourselves, what should we change?"

According to a text of his speech released by the RNC, Duncan told the gathering, "When we are true to our core principles of lower taxes, limited government and individual responsibility, we win. When we stray from those principles -- or when we do not communicate them well enough -- we lose ground."

He lauded Bush for being "steadfast in his Republican ideals" by lowering taxes, appointing conservative judges and maintaining "his absolute, uncompromising dedication to victory in a very real war against a very real enemy."

Duncan told fellow Republicans that the problem was not the party's ideals.

"Last year, too often, our message wasn't about our principles," he said. "It was about a party that was in the majority, but seemed to have forgotten why. To regain the majority and retain the White House, we cannot just show that we want it more. We need to prove to the American people that we deserve it more. We need to be proud of our principles, confident that our ideas are the best for our nation."

Duncan added, "We are running not because we want to be in power, but because we want to put the American people back in power. We are running not for our job security, but for the very real security concerns that we face every day during this time of war. We are running not for us, but for the nation."

Saying that "we've got to get it right," the new RNC chairman, who replaces Ken Mehlman, exhorted the party faithful to start working now on winning the 2008 elections.

"We've got to elect a Republican president," he said. "We've got to regain our majorities."