The president and climate change

President Barack Obama strode confidently to the well of the General Assembly of the United Nations today to continue a familiar refrain he’s made with the leaders of the world regarding climate change. The president believes U.S. leadership on this issue is one small plank in the bridge he needs to rebuild in order to restore America’s dignity and rightful role in the world. I admire his tenacity and leadership on this foreign policy stage. After all, polls show Americans favorability for the president on foreign policy issues is higher than their views on his domestic policy agenda.

To me, the reason is simple — Obama does his own dirty work on the world stage and personally engages those issues. When it comes to his domestic agenda, like healthcare, he unwisely leaves the details to the stray cats mewing in Congress.

 
The irony of the president’s bold talk today in New York is that the charge he’s giving his peers at the U.N. has fallen on deaf ears in the United States Senate. While a comprehensive climate change measure has passed the House of Representatives, it remains stalled in the upper chamber.
 
I predict the president will not get his signature environmental piece; not this year and certainly not in election-charged 2010. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) just doesn’t have the floor time necessary to battle through what would be hundreds of amendments and a bloodbath that would leave his caucus fractured and Republicans with another opportunity to showcase the White House’s attack on America’s middle class — this time through higher energy costs. Health reform is far from finished. And with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner on Tuesday renewing calls for the Senate to push the president’s financial-services overhauls, Reid is faced with a cluttered flight deck and no legislative planes ready to take off.
 
The second reason for climate change failing this Congress is Reid simply doesn’t have the votes. As I’ve written before, Americans just aren’t ready to trade potential job losses and higher energy costs for some eventual, amorphous benefits that may never materialize. I’m sure I’ll get e-mails blasting my lack of respect and knowledge surrounding global warming, but walk a mile in the shoes of a struggling single mother, folks. She’s concerned about getting through today and making ends meet so the kids can eat. And unless and until President Obama can clearly make the case on why his climate change measure is the right policy at this moment in time, he’ll continue to lose the support of those who put him in office.
 
So while the world applauds Obama and his leadership today in New York, Reid sits in a crowded Capitol office shaking his head, knowing something the president refuses to admit — he’s bitten off more than he can chew legislatively, and some of his signature initiatives are dead on arrival. No, America, there will be no Rose Garden signing ceremony for climate change this cycle.
 

Williams can be heard nightly on Sirius/XM Power 169 from 9 to 10 p.m. EST.

Visit www.armstrongwilliams.com .