Energy bill to include plan offering cash for gas guzzlers

Obama and House Democrats agree to include payments for drivers who scrap older cars for more fuel-efficient models, but can’t reach a deal on softening the impact of limiting greenhouse emissions.

Reporting from Washington — President Obama and key House Democrats agreed Tuesday to include a “cash for clunkers” program in the major energy bill being written in Congress, but they ended a White House meeting without reaching agreement on thornier issues — including how to reduce the economic impact of curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

The “clunkers” program would offer federal payments to consumers who scrapped older gas-guzzling vehicles and bought new, more environmentally friendly ones to replace them. Similar programs have enjoyed some success in Europe.

Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), a longtime champion of the auto industry, said the plan would “result in hundreds of thousands of new vehicles being purchased across the country.”

Members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is drafting the energy bill, hailed the agreement on a clunkers program as a sign that the larger points of contention could be resolved, including the sweeping plan for limiting the greenhouse gas emissions that scientists blame for global warming.

Obama and some Democrats in Congress want to set limits on carbon emissions and require power plants and other emitters to obtain permits. But purchasing permits would raise costs and prices, a sensitive issue in the industrial heartland and in states that are large coal and petroleum producers.

Several Democrats from states that produce fossil fuels or depend on manufacturing have pushed for concessions, relaxing emissions targets or giving out some free permits instead of auctioning them as Obama’s budget proposes.

LA Times