Obama to meet key climate bill senators today

President Barack Obama is to meet with key Democrat and Republican senators later today to discuss how to move forward with controversial climate change and energy legislation ahead of November's mid-term elections.

The meeting, to be held at the White House this morning, was originally scheduled for last week but was postponed in the wake of Obama's decision to dismiss General Stanley McChrystal over his disparaging comments about administration officials.

The delay prompted fresh concerns among green businesses and environmental groups that the administration will struggle to make good on its pledge to pass a climate change and energy bill before the end of this year.

The Senate has just a few months left to pass legislation before it breaks up in the autumn to prepare for the mid-term elections. However, the draft bill put forward by Democrat senator John Kerry and independent senator Joe Lieberman, and currently being considered by the Senate, is facing fierce opposition from Republicans and a number of Democrat senators.

A group of 23 senators, including Kerry and Lieberman as well as many of the Democrat and Republican senators thought to hold swing votes, are scheduled to attend the meeting.

Any climate and energy bill will require the support of a handful of Republican senators if it is to pass through the Senate and as a result, a number of influential Republicans have been invited to the meeting, including Susan Collins, Richard Lugar, Olympia Snowe and Lisa Murkowski.

However, Republican senator Lindsey Graham, who originally worked on the bill developed by Kerry and Lieberman before withdrawing his support for the proposals, was notably absent from the list of attendees provided by the White House.

Obama has publicly vowed to secure the 60 votes needed to pass comprehensive energy and climate change legislation this year.

But he is up against a tight deadline with polls suggesting the Democrats could lose control of Congress at November's mid-term elections.

In addition, the Republicans have maintained staunch opposition to the Kerry-Lieberman bill, arguing that its proposed emissions trading scheme will effectively impose an "energy tax" on the US economy. A number of the so-called "Blue Dogs" group of Democrat senators from industrial states have also signalled they may oppose legislation that they fear could lead to job losses in their states.

Today's meeting is expected to assess a number of different proposals designed to secure the votes needed to pass a climate and energy bill, including proposals to scale back the controversial emissions trading scheme included in the Kerry-Lieberman bill. A competing bill put forward by senator Lugar that scraps carbon-pricing proposals altogether in favour of legislation focused on delivering energy reforms, is also likely to be discussed.

In related news, EU climate change commissioner Connie Hedegaard yesterday highlighted the international significance of US efforts to pass climate change legislation, arguing that the failure to deliver legislation this year would deliver a blow to long-running efforts to agree a global climate change treaty.

Speaking to news agency Reuters on the sidelines of the Fortune Global Forum conference in Cape Town, Hedegaard said that US legislation was critical to the success of this year's UN climate change summit in Mexico.

"If we came to Cancun without any American legislation it would not be a very strong signal," she said. "We need that. It would give a psychological push to the negotiations and would show the rest of the world that the US is very serious about this."