Obama to Give Senate Climate Bill a Push With MIT Speech

President Obama will try to push the Senate climate bill forward Friday with an energy-themed speech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, just days before the start of a marathon series of hearings featuring testimony from top administration officials. The White House said Obama's remarks covering "American leadership in clean energy" will dovetail with the Senate's effort to place a first-ever economywide cap on greenhouse gas emissions. Obama largely stayed out of the spotlight during the House debate earlier this year, but many Democrats and environmentalists say the president must be more active in lobbying the Senate if leaders are to find the 60 votes necessary for the measure's passage. Obama's speech in Cambridge, Mass., comes the same day that U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson plans to release the agency's economic and environmental analysis of the climate bill (S. 1733 (pdf)) from Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). With the EPA analysis in hand, Boxer is set to begin a three-day series of hearings in her Environment and Public Works Committee on Tuesday, Oct. 27, with testimony from Kerry, Jackson, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Jon Wellinghoff...read more