White House budget seeks greenhouse gas caps despite hurdles

The White House fiscal year 2011 budget proposal unveiled Monday continues an administration push for a cap on greenhouse gas emissions amid uncertainty over whether the Senate will take up the issue this year.

“The Administration will work to enact and implement a comprehensive market-based policy that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the range of 17 percent in 2020 and more than 80 percent by 2050,” the budget plan states.

Those targets track the emissions cuts in the sweeping cap-and-trade plan the House approved last year and the provisional target the U.S. is offering under the nonbinding Copenhagen climate accord.

The White House said the climate plan should be deficit neutral.

Here’s more from the budget:

Businesses will have the flexibility to seek out the most profitable and least costly ways of achieving greenhouse gas emission reductions, from making investments in energy efficiency and low-carbon or zero-carbon fuels to offsetting their emissions through agricultural activities that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and developing export markets for American clean energy technologies through investments in emission offset activities abroad.

The policy will address the needs of vulnerable families, communities, and businesses to facilitate the transition to a clean energy economy. To prepare for the reduction in emissions, the Government will invest in climate registries to account for greenhouse gas emissions; implement regulations that improve energy efficiency, lower energy bills, and reduce emissions; plan for the effects of a changing climate in the stewardship of our natural resources; and undertake the research and development of next-generation energy technologies that will promote our energy and climate security.