Press Briefing by Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, 7/27/2010

2:10 P.M. EDT

     MR. GIBBS:  Take us away.

     Q    Got nothing else in mind?  You didn’t give me — you didn’t buy me the time there.

     MR. GIBBS:  No opening statements.

     Q    I wanted to ask you about the President’s statement that he wants to keep pushing for a broad climate bill, energy bill.  Is that something that came up in the meeting?  Was there any sort of new way forward?  And why is he stressing this now?  I mean, the bill was essentially dead for the year.

     MR. GIBBS:  Well, I wouldn’t say that the — I don’t think the bill is essentially dead for the year.  The House passed a very strong and very comprehensive energy bill last year.  The Senate is going to take up a version that is more scaled down but still has some important aspects, particularly dealing with how we deal with oil spills in the future.

     But I don’t think that closes the door — once a bill passes, each House doesn’t close the door to having some sort of conference.

     Q    Well, let me phrase it a different way then.  What does he plan to do now to push for it, as he said he wanted to do, that he didn’t do up to now?

     MR. GIBBS:  Well, first and foremost, I mean, they talked about making sure that before the Senate leaves we get — we do get some energy bill through the Senate.  Again, there’s –

     Q    You can’t really call that a broad energy bill; it’s pretty narrow.

     MR. GIBBS:  I’m not suggesting that.  I don’t think anybody in the meeting did.  I think what — again, what I’m suggesting is what — if you need to sneeze, go ahead