WASHINGTON -- Senate Democrats tried out a new catchphrase yesterday to sell their global-warming bill: "pollution reduction and investment," or PRI.

But it's just another name for "cap and trade," a term derided by Republican critics as "cap and tax" because it will increase energy prices. Democratic polls have shown that it's faring poorly with voters.

The rebranding is an indication of the uphill battle that the climate bill -- which would cap greenhouse gases and also allow industries to buy emission allowances -- faces in the Senate.

A number of Democratic senators entangled in the heated health-care debate said they continue to have trouble with key elements of the climate legislation. Several said it would be a huge challenge -- perhaps impossible -- to try to get a climate bill passed this year.

The idea to remake cap and trade into pollution reduction and investment came from Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., author of the bill unveiled yesterday. He came up with it about a month ago to refocus attention on what the bill would do, not how it goes about doing it.

"Cap and trade doesn't mean anything to people," Kerry said.

In a news conference on the bill, cap and trade, the legislation's centerpiece, got nary a mention. Instead, the buzz words were "national security," "economic growth" and "jobs from clean-energy development." Kerry and Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., the other key sponsor, titled it the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act.

"We are here, and we introduced this legislation because of one word -- security," Kerry said. "It is time to reinvent the way Americans use energy."

The words cap and trade, global warming and climate also didn't appear in a White House statement responding to the bill's introduction.

"With the draft legislation ... we are one step closer to putting America in control of our energy future and making America more energy-independent," President Barack Obama said. "My administration is deeply committed to passing a bill that creates new American jobs and the clean-energy incentives that foster innovation."

Republican Sen. George V. Voinovich of Ohio, who is on the environment committee, said he will review the bill introduced by the two Democrats but sounded a skeptical note as he said that "the devil is in the details. Climate change must be addressed in a bipartisan way -- it must incentivize the clean-energy technologies we need now and in the future without driving jobs overseas and further damaging our economy."

Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio said the legislation needs to be strengthened to "improve the competitiveness of American manufacturers, invest in new clean-energy technologies, and target more relief to consumers in coal states. We must also address the issue of carbon leakage."

Brown is to join organized labor and environmental leaders today in releasing a report asserting that more than 4 million U.S. jobs could be lost unless steps are taken as part of climate-change legislation to keep energy-intensive businesses from shifting jobs to countries with less-stringent emissions standards.

Cap and trade remains the centerpiece of the Senate bill, as it is in the House-passed version. Under cap and trade, emissions of heat-trapping gases from power plants, refineries and factories would face increasingly stringent limits, or caps. Companies could then invest in pollution-reducing technologies, or buy and sell permits to meet the cap -- the trade aspect.

The bill calls for a 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2020, and an 80 percent cut by midcentury.

Environmentalists said yesterday that they had been touting the energy security and jobs that would come from the bill all along.

"We don't even talk about it in terms of cap and trade," said Anna Aurilio, director of Environment America. "Cap and trade is a very confusing term, and it is not accurate. What we are doing is reducing pollution."

Republican critics weren't about to join in on the rhetorical shift.

"These are fancy, complicated words for high-cost energy," said Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.

 

Dispatch Washington Bureau Chief Jonathan Riskind contributed to this story.