Senate Democratic leaders said Tuesday they would put off debate on a big climate-change bill until spring, in a sign of weakening political will to tackle a long-term environmental issue at a time of high unemployment and economic uncertainty. 
 
 Legislation on health care, overhauling financial markets and job creation will be considered before the Senate takes up a measure to cap emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases linked to climate change, Senate Democratic leaders said Tuesday. 
 
 Climate legislation will be taken up "some time in the spring," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said Tuesday after a Democratic caucus meeting. 
 
 Enlarge Image Close Associated Press A front-end loader piles manure at a Kersey, Colo., feedlot in August. Technology was being tested there to turn cattle manure into energy. 
 
 The delay was "just a matter of reality, they can't get anything done at this time," said Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.), who has previously supported climate legislation. He has said he wouldn't support the current Senate proposal because of disagreements over its handling of nuclear energy. 
 
 The climate-bill delay sidetracks one of President Barack Obama's top domestic priorities. Mr. Obama has said action to curb greenhouse gases would unleash investment in clean-energy technology and create jobs. 
 
 White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said Tuesday Mr. Obama was working with lawmakers to move the legislation as quickly as possible. 
 
 "This is an economic opportunity for the nation that will create millions of clean energy jobs while reducing our dangerous dependence on foreign oil, and it's an opportunity that other countries like China and India are racing to take advantage of," Mr. LaBolt said in an email. 
 
 Momentum for a climate bill has been undermined by fears that capping carbon-dioxide emissions -- the inevitable product of burning oil and coal -- would slow economic growth, raise energy costs and compel changes in the way Americans live. 
 
 "It's really big, really, really hard, and is going to make a lot of people mad," said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D., Mo.). 
 
 Democrats looking ahead to the 2010 midterm elections are concerned about a backlash from voters in industrial and heartland states dependent on coal. Republicans are portraying Democrats' "cap and trade" proposals, which call for capping overall U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions and allowing companies to buy and trade permits to emit those gases, as a "cap and tax" scheme. 
 
 Meanwhile, the administration is moving ahead with a plan to have the Environmental Protection Agency declare greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, a danger to public health. That would trigger potential regulations that could affect a wide swath of the economy. 
 
 Earlier this week, Mr. Obama and other world leaders scaled back ambitions for a global climate summit next month in Copenhagen. 
 
 United Nations leaders had called for a new, binding global agreement in Copenhagen to set caps on greenhouse-gas emissions. But at a meeting in Asia, leaders including Mr. Obama said they would try instead to use the Copenhagen gathering to forge an agreement that is "politically binding," with specific commitments by countries to reduce emissions and help poor countries fight climate change. A legally binding deal would come later; diplomats point to mid-to-late-2010. 
 
 The Senate Finance Committee likely won't begin deliberations on the climate bill until January, according to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.), one of its sponsors. The bill was passed by the environment panel earlier this month. 
 
 The Commerce Committee may also weigh in on some of the bill's provisions. The panel's chairman, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D., W.V.), is opposed to strong emissions limits. 
 
 "By the time we turn around, it's March," Ms. Boxer said of the likely timetable. 
 
 The House of Representatives narrowly passed its version of a climate bill in June, with dozens of Democratic lawmakers from industrial and coal-dependent states voting no. 
 
 Write to Ian Talley at ian.talley@dowjones.com 
 
 Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A4 ||||| Sen. Max Baucus Max BaucusWyden unveils business tax proposal College endowments under scrutiny The chaotic fight for ObamaCare MORE (D-Mont.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and Sen. Jay Rockefeller Jay RockefellerLobbying world Overnight Tech: Senators place holds on FCC commissioner Overnight Tech: Senate panel to vote on Dem FCC commissioner MORE (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Commerce Committee, who both represent states with significant coal industries, would like to proceed cautiously. 
 
 
 
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 “Most of the country doesn’t know what cap-and-trade is. They have no idea. I would say half the Senate have no idea what cap-and-trade is and could not explain it,” Rockefeller told The Hill on Tuesday. 
 
 He said climate legislation should not reach the floor before July of next year, putting the controversial bill on the schedule only months before Election Day. 
 
 
 
 “You have to get this stuff out to the American people before you change their lives, and we are not paying any attention to that,” Rockefeller said. 
 
 
 
 Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer Barbara BoxerArmy of Sanders supporters fuming over Wasserman Schultz Sanders pans chemical safety reform deal Sanders fans plan rallies near Dem convention MORE (D-Calif.) and Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry John KerryGlobal Magnitsky's power to protect Obama must act to protect Palestinian youth Tough choice for vulnerable GOP senators: Embrace or reject Trump MORE (D-Mass.) would like to pass the bill as soon as possible. 
 
 
 
 “I’d love to get it done tomorrow,” said Boxer, who acknowledged others are less intent on moving that quickly. 
 
 
 
 In the middle is Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), chairman of the Natural Resources Committee whose home-state coal interests are not as significant as Baucus’s and Rockefeller’s but whose constituents are not as liberal as Boxer’s and Kerry’s. 
 
 
 
 A sixth chairwoman with jurisdiction, Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) of the Agriculture Committee, told The Hill earlier this month that the Senate should focus on jobs and the economy. 
 
 
 
 Hanging in the balance is one of President Barack Obama Barack ObamaObama goes golfing on Friday Okla. introduces Obama impeachment measure over bathroom directive Adviser: Obama will keep low profile after term ends MORE’s top domestic priorities, as well as the president’s credibility among potential signatories to an international climate pact. 
 
 
 
 Five of the six chairmen tried to patch up their differences Monday during a meeting in the office of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid Harry ReidLake Mead hits record low water level Dems: Warren ready to get off sidelines Clinton: 'There is no way I won't be' nominee MORE (D-Nev.), who is trying to bring his senior colleagues together before sketching out a plan on how to proceed in 2010, when lawmakers will work with one eye on the midterm elections. Lincoln was traveling and unable to attend the meeting. 
 
 
 
 “We’ve got all kinds of difference of perspective of where the Senate is and where the votes are and where the Senate should try to move,” Bingaman said of his meeting with the other chairmen. 
 
 
 
 Rockefeller said his state would be the most affected and that his residents need more time to know what the bill is about. 
 
 
 
 “Right now they don’t, and therefore they are terrified and furious, and I don’t blame them,” he said. 
 
 
 
 This, however, may be a bid to push climate change legislation into 2011. 
 
 
 
 Democratic leaders and Democratic centrists facing reelection, such as Lincoln and Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), might prefer a postponement to a tough vote on a controversial climate bill shortly before Election Day. 
 
 
 
 A Republican leadership aide said that a vote on climate change in July or August would be a political gift for Republicans. 
 
 
 
 “There would be nothing better than for us to talk about over the summer than Democrats pushing a huge new energy tax,” the aide said. 
 
 
 
 Baucus, who was the only Democrat to vote against Boxer’s climate bill in the Environment and Public Works Committee earlier this month, would also prefer to proceed more slowly on a broad bill next year, according to a Democratic source familiar with talks among the chairmen. 
 
 
 
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 Boxer noted, however, that Baucus told her he would mark up a climate change bill in the Finance Committee in January. 
 
 The move suggests Baucus may be trying to lay down his legislative marker in the debate before it leaves him behind. 
 
 
 
 Baucus unveiled his healthcare bill shortly before Obama delivered a major healthcare address to a joint session of Congress. 
 
 
 
 Senate sources on the Finance Committee said that Baucus felt he had to put his bill in the mix before the president weighed in or otherwise risked losing influence in negotiations. 
 
 
 
 A final climate law next year is critical for Obama administration officials, who will be negotiating the details of an international emissions accord to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which the U.S. did not join. Failure by the U.S. to enact domestic limits would hinder U.S. leverage to help craft a binding global agreement. 
 
 
 
 The next round of United Nations climate talks begin Dec. 7 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Obama and other heads of state have conceded those talks will not yield a complete, legally binding agreement, but hope they will result in a political accord that sets the stage for final talks next year. 
 
 
 
 Boxer said that the hoped-for political accord next month in Copenhagen could help provide momentum for Senate action, easing fears among lawmakers that developing nations will not take meaningful steps on emissions. 
 
 
 
 She said her “clear impression” is that everyone in the Senate is working to get a bill passed in 2010. 
 
 
 
 At the moment, Reid appears to be siding with Boxer on timing. When asked Tuesday about the timing for climate change legislation, he told reporters that “we are going to try to do that sometime in the spring.” 
 
 
 
 But that goal could easily slip, just as Reid’s targets for healthcare reform legislation have slid repeatedly this year. 
 
 
 
 Senate Democrats will be hard-pressed to take up climate change legislation before May, because Reid has told colleagues that he will give higher priority to financial regulatory reform and a jobs bill. 
 
 
 
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 “Sen. Reid is talking about doing financial reform and a jobs bill before [getting] to this,” Boxer told reporters at a Tuesday briefing. 
 
 Lincoln said she did not think climate change legislation does much to address unemployment, while an energy bill passed out of the Senate Energy Committee does. 
 
 
 
 “I’m not in a hurry to do that,” she said of climate change legislation. “I think the energy bill we did in the Senate Energy Committee gets us a long way toward job creation and moving us from an old-energy economy to a new-energy economy, which is really what the objective is — lowering carbon output and lessening dependence on foreign oil.” 
 
 
 
 Bingaman, the chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said he would be willing to pass energy legislation separately from a cap-and-trade bill to address climate change.
– Senate Democrats have announced that they won't be debating a major climate bill until sometime in the spring. The delay, which reduces America's bargaining power at next month's Copenhagen conference, reflects weakening support for the controversial "cap-and-trade" bill as unemployment remains high, the Wall Street Journal notes. The bill strategy calls for capping overall greenhouse-gas emissions, but would allow companies to buy and trade permits allowing certain amounts of emissions. President Obama is working with Senate leaders to get the bill through as quickly as possible, said a White House spokesman. The delay, however, has raised fears that the Senate may end up putting off debating the bill for as long as 2011 to avoid holding a vote just before next year's midterm elections. "There would be nothing better than for us to talk about over the summer than Democrats pushing a huge new energy tax,” one Republican leadership aide told The Hill.