The Senate, where Obama's Democratic Party holds a majority, voted 50-50 on a bill to stop the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from setting standards on greenhouse gas emissions blamed for the world's rising temperatures.

The measure required 60 votes for passage. Four Democrats broke ranks to support the measure, while a sole Republican backed the efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

Under Obama, the EPA has started a process of setting standards for emissions from fossil fuel power plants and petroleum refineries, the source of nearly 40 percent of US greenhouse gasses.

The White House said it was "encouraged" by the Senate vote and praised the role of the EPA, a federal agency, in protecting public health.

The Senate "rejected an approach that would have increased the nation's dependence on oil, contradicted the scientific consensus on global warming and jeopardized America's ability to lead the world in the clean energy economy," White House spokesman Jay Carney said in a statement.

The rival Republican Party and business interests have been livid at the move, accusing Obama of overstepping his authority after Congress rejected efforts on climate change.

A bill to create a so-called "cap-and-trade" plan -- in which businesses would face restrictions on carbon emissions but be able to trade credits -- died last year in the Senate even when it had a larger Democratic majority.

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the top Republican in the chamber, said that the votes showed clear discontent with EPA regulations.

"We in the Senate will continue to fight for legislation that will give the certainty that no unelected bureaucrat at the EPA is going to make efforts to create jobs even more difficult than the administration already has," he said.

The Republicans say that carbon restrictions would drive up gas prices and costs for businesses, while many Democrats and environmentalists counter that climate efforts would open up a new green economy creating well-paid jobs.

The House of Representatives, where the Republicans won control in November, was debating its own bill Wednesday to disempower the Environmental Protection Agency. But it cannot go into law with the Senate and the White House opposed.

The four Democrats who voted with the Republicans represent states that lean conservative or have major industries in fossil fuels -- Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Bill Nelson of Nebraska and Mark Pryor of Arkansas.

Democrat Jay Rockefeller, the other senator from West Virginia, had offered an amendment to wait two years before allowing greenhouse gas regulation but his proposal was rejected by both sides.

The only Republican to take the side of the EPA was Susan Collins of Maine.

earlier related report
US: No climate deal without all aboard
New York (AFP) April 6, 2011 - The United States said Wednesday it opposed a climate deal that does not bring aboard both wealthy and developing countries as feuding over nations' commitments dominated UN-led talks in Bangkok.

Todd Stern, the chief US climate envoy, said it was time to lay to rest the concept of a "firewall" between wealthy and developing countries that dates from the early 1990s -- before the rapid economic growth of China.

"Many developing countries, including large ones, continue to be fixated on preserving the firewall between developed and developing countries," Stern told a conference in New York, in a likely reference to China.

"We see this as both unjustified and incompatible with solving the problem," he told the Bloomberg New Energy Finance Summit. "We are not going to be part of a new agreement with a fixed, bright-line, 1992-vintage firewall."

The Kyoto Protocol required only wealthy nations to cut carbon emissions blamed for global warming, leading the United States to reject the landmark treaty.

The treaty's obligations run out at the end of next year and the European Union has led calls for a new round of Kyoto pledges as a stop-gap measure.

Japan and Russia have led opposition to a new Kyoto round as the treaty does not involve China and the United States, the two largest emitters. China and other major developing countries would welcome an extension to Kyoto.

But Stern insisted that China should be part of any future deal, saying it has surpassed France in emissions even on a per capita level.

"You cannot build a system that treats China like Chad when China is now the world's second largest economy," Stern said.

"Instead, you need to start with all the major emitters, both developed and developing, accounting for some 85% of global emissions and build out from there," Stern said.

While seeking an agreement that involves all major economies, the United States has played down the need for legally binding obligations.

The United States has instead called for each nation to submit its own national plans -- a bottom-to-top approach that would carry political weight but not necessarily legal obligations to cut a set amount of emissions.

"Don't get me wrong, we are not opposed to such obligations if they genuinely apply to all the major players," Stern said.

"But they are not really necessary; it is the national plans of countries, written into law and regulations, that count and that bind," he said.

Legal obligations are an increasingly sensitive issue for the United States.

President Barack Obama has pledged that the United States will do its part to fight climate change, but leaders of the rival Republican Party that won congressional elections last year are deeply skeptical on the issue.

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