Breaking: Reid says climate bill may wait until 2010

Climate policy reform may be delayed until 2010 while the Senate wrestles with other issues. E&ENews PM ($ req'd) is reporting,

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) today said the Senate may not act on comprehensive energy and climate change legislation until next year, given the chamber's busy fall schedule.

Speaking to reporters about the possibility of taking up the bill this fall, Reid said the Senate must first finish work on health care and regulatory reform.

"So, you know, we are going to have a busy, busy time the rest of this year," Reid said. "And, of course, nothing terminates at the end of this year. We still have next year to complete things if we have to."

...Reid also downplayed but did not rule out the possibility that Democrats could decide to move the energy piece separately from the climate change portion.

"That was an initial discussion that we had many, many months ago," Reid said. "We've focused on what the House has done, and that is do it all in one package. But we have -- that's a bridge that's still a long ways away."

UPDATE, 6:09 PM ET

It's a trifecta of downbeat climate policy news today. In addition to the late breaking quotes from Senator Reid:

Lincoln: No Support For House Climate Bill: Newly installed Senate Agriculture Chair Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) told the National Cattlemen's Beef Association that she does not support the House climate and energy bill, reports the National Journal ($ req'd), because of the burdens it would place on her state, "and rural and poor America in general." Her stated focus is on how the bill's measures might affect food prices. The article offers no contrasting opinions or fact-checking on Senator Lincoln's claims about the bill.

US planning to weaken Copenhagen climate deal, Europe warns: Significant differences have developed between Europe and the Obama administration "over the structure of a new worldwide treaty on global warming," David Adams of the Guardian (UK) reported today. "Sources on the European side say the US approach could undermine the new treaty and weaken the world's ability to cut carbon emissions."

According to Adams, the split centers on how greenhouse gas reduction targets would would be counted in the successor to the Kyoto protocol climate agreement. Europe wants to retain the system set up under Kyoto; the Obama administration has said it wants to throw nearly all of those structures away "and replace it with a system of its own design."

Throwing out Kyoto's precedents would probably mean years of new negotiations toward a new climate change agreement.