House sets vote on climate bill

WASHINGTON – Democratic leaders in the House have scheduled a Friday vote on a climate change bill that would establish a complex cap-and-trade system to limit the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, a priority for President Barack Obama.

The House Rules Committee unveiled the latest version of the bill, which weighs in at 1,201 pages. It features new items such as $7.5 billion in “green bonds” for a new federal financing agency called the Clean Energy Deployment Administration, extra emission allowances for politically powerful rural electric cooperatives, greater flexibility for states that want to use free allowances for mass transit, and tweaks benefiting a range of companies, including algae-based biofuel producers and major petroleum refiners.

The legislation “will spark a clean energy transformation that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and confront the carbon pollution that threatens our planet,” Obama said Tuesday at a news conference.