Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

WASHINGTON — Texas stands to gain far more than it loses if Congress approves his energy and climate-change proposals, President Barack Obama said Wednesday.

In an interview with the Houston Chronicle and five other newspapers, the president said the Lone Star State will benefit from the development of alternative energy sources, particularly wind energy.

“Texas has one of the strongest renewable energy standards in the country,” Obama said. “And its wind energy has just taken off and been a huge economic boon to the state.”

During the 30-minute session in the White House’s Roosevelt Room, Obama described the nation’s energy challenges as both a matter of national security and environmental protection. He defended the cap-and-trade system he has endorsed, which would set caps on carbon emissions while allowing companies to trade or sell unused energy credits.

“I think it’s the right thing to do,” he said. “So this is a win-win-win-win-win proposition if we move forward in a bold, serious way.”

Acknowledging that “there have been a lot of scary scenarios about how costly this will be for the economy,” the president accused critics of exaggerating the consumer costs of his plan and potential oil-industry job losses. He said the energy legislation likely to be approved by the House on Friday would cost American families “maybe a postage stamp a day” in higher utility bills — far less than the multithousand-dollar hit predicted by Republicans.

He also disputed energy industry arguments that the curtailing of oil and gas tax breaks would ship U.S. energy jobs overseas. His plan, he predicted, “is going to produce, over the long term, millions of (American) jobs.”

“Oil companies aren’t going out of business anytime soon,” he said. “Exxon Mobil, I think, will have a very healthy market for whatever oil it has to sell.”

Energy companies have been critical of the House climate-change measure, despite concessions made to refiners at the behest of Rep. Gene Green, D-Houston. Obama hailed the pragmatism of House leaders, calling the bill “the byproduct of legislators from some very diverse districts coming together.”

“It is a very practical, common-sense bill,” he said. “(And) it is not going to add to the deficit.”

The president said he chose the cap-and-trade approach because of its success in a previous national battle to curtail acid rain.

“When this was done for acid rain, it ended up being much, much cheaper than even the supporters of a cap-and-trade system had anticipated,” he said. “We think the same will be true here. And it fits in with the overall drive toward energy efficiency and renewable energy.”

Obama dismissed the assertions by energy industry officials and Republican lawmakers including Rep. John Culberson, R-Houston, that the legislation would penalize consumers, oil companies and businesses. GOP leaders have repeatedly cited a Congressional Budget Office estimate as the source of their claims that the energy legislation would cost families more than $2,000 per year, but the author of that study says Republicans have misinterpreted his analysis.

Responding to the president’s comments, Culberson called the cap-and-trade plan “equivalent to a light switch tax.”

“If this bill becomes law, Texans will pay higher taxes every time we turn on our lights,” he said.

Instead of the Democratic approach, Culberson called for immediately opening up domestic sources of oil and gas, building more nuclear reactors in the short term, while promoting conservation, alternative energy sources and green technology in the long term.

Rep. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands, said Obama's plans "will cost us jobs, damage our industry and exports, and raise energy prices significantly on families who can't afford it."

"If you know the Houston economy then you know the President's claim that Cap and Trade will help more than hurt just simply isn't credible," he said.

The president argued that consumers and energy companies alike would benefit from “slow, sustainable growth, as opposed to huge swings.”

If nothing is done to jump-start alternative energy production, “Exxon Mobil could end up having huge windfalls,” Obama said. “But I don’t think anybody would suggest that that’s good for the U.S. economy and good for Texas over the long term.”