Obama unveils renewables push

President Barack Obama has said the US must lead the world on renewable energy and pressed Congress to set greenhouse gas limits deemed crucial for the success of global talks on climate change.

Obama, who has kept energy reform high on his priority list since taking office in January, used Earth Day to tout the need for a US shift to less-polluting fuels and a concerted effort to reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil.

"It is time for us to lay a new foundation for economic growth by beginning a new era of energy exploration in America," Reuters quoted Obama telling workers at a wind power technology plant in Iowa.

"The nation that leads the world in creating new energy sources will be the nation that leads the 21st century global economy. America can be that nation. America must be that nation."

US negotiators are preparing proposals for international climate talks to be held in Copenhagen in December, aimed at agreeing a pact to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which sets limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

The US Congress may hold the key to the Obama administration's credibility at those talks. It is mulling legislation that would put a cap on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions, forming a so-called cap-and-trade system that is similar to the European Union's.

In Washington, senior Obama administration officials urged lawmakers to back the bill.

"There will be no new global deal if the US is not part of it, and we won't be part of it unless we are on track in enacting our own domestic plan," Todd Stern, the top US climate negotiator, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"Unless we stand and deliver by enacting strong, mandatory nationwide climate and energy legislation, the effort to negotiate a new international agreement will come up short."

Washington is hosting a meeting of big economies next week to help forge a climate deal. In a reference to his predecessor, former Republican President George W. Bush, Democrat Obama said the days of a slow US response to global climate talks were over.

The House of Representatives is taking the lead in Congress on rules imposing tough new caps on CO2 emissions and other pollutants that are thrust into the atmosphere by big manufacturers, utilities and vehicles.

Last month House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Henry Waxman unveiled a bill that seeks to lower CO2 emissions to 20% below 2005 levels by 2020 and more than 80% by 2050.

The controversial measures could face trouble in the 100-member Senate, however, where 60 votes are required for passage. Republicans have criticized the cap-and-trade system as a backhanded energy tax.

An Environmental Protection Agency analysis of Waxman's bill found that it would raise electricity prices 22% by the year 2030 and cost American households an average of $98 to $140 each year through 2050.

EPA head Lisa Jackson said the cost to Americans from the bill would be "modest compared to the benefits that science and plain common sense tell us a comprehensive energy and climate policy will deliver".

The EPA declared CO2 and other tailpipe emissions a danger to human health and welfare last week, opening the way for government regulation by the Executive Branch of greenhouse gases, but Obama said in Iowa he preferred legislation to do the job.

The US Interior Department issued long-delayed guidelines for leasing offshore areas for renewable energy production, opening the door to wind power generation off the coasts.

Obama said the United States should increase domestic production of oil and natural gas in the short-term while emphasising renewable energy such as wind power held the keys to the US energy future.