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CARY — U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Energy Secretary Steven Chu came to North Carolina on Friday to push a meeting of business leaders toward investing in renewable energy.

Salazar told the Business Council, a group of 150 chief executive officers formed during the Great Depression to advise federal policymakers, that the Obama administration is clearing red tape to speed progress on alternative energy production, according to the Associated Press.

Afterward, Salazar and Chu appeared with Sen. Kay Hagan, a Greensboro Democrat, and Democratic Reps. David Price, Bob Etheridge and G.K. Butterfield to speak to reporters.

Mentioned prominently was that the Senate was about to take up climate legislation before an international meeting on climate change in December in Copenhagen.

“A cap on carbon is actually a very important part of that,” Chu said. “If the bill only contains carrots, American industry, of course, they’ll munch on the carrots. And when the carrots go away, they stop munching. So you need carrots, but you also need a signal that says in years 2020, 2030, 2040, 2050 that we have to be on this trajectory.”

A cap that is ratcheted down over time will prod American businesses to make long-term decisions that will reduce emissions related to global warming, he said.

Sens. Barbara Boxer of California and John Kerry of Massachusetts have introduced a climate bill that would cap carbon emissions. But that provision is politically controversial, opposed by most Republicans and even some Democrats.

The idea of carbon caps ran into more trouble last week, reports The Washington Post, when the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office told a Senate panel that the cap-and-trade system contained in a House-passed climate bill would cost jobs.

So will Hagan support the Kerry-Boxer bill if it has a carbon cap-and-trade system or other similar measures?

“We’re certainly talking about it. The Kerry-Boxer bill is...out there but it’s not complete yet. So I’m certainly going to have to wait to look at the bill,” Hagan said. “I certainly say that climate change is real; I am extremely concerned about it. And I want to do what we need to do to be sure our country and the rest of the world is on the right track to reduce the CO2 emissions...I am looking forward to working on this bill.”

Coining a bill

Greensboro residents should look for Hagan to file a bill to create a coin commemorating the 1960 sit-ins and the International Civil Rights Museum. The museum is at the site of the Woolworth’s lunch counter, where the sit-ins took place.

Hagan said she hoped proceeds from the coin would help fund the museum. She plans to file the measure this week. The idea, she said, came from a constituent who had seen the government issue coins on behalf of other historic sites.

“It’s an historic place,” Hagan said. “What’s always puzzled me was when I go into the Smithsonian Institution and I actually see the Woolworth’s counter when you walk in the door. I think you ought to be able to see that in Greensboro, North Carolina.”

Banking media attention

Rep. Brad Miller is getting national attention for his part in crafting a financial services regulatory reform bill, particularly the part that deals with creating a new consumer protection regulator.

Miller was the lead sponsor of an amendment last week that would loosen some of the oversight restrictions on smaller financial institutions like community banks and credit unions. Specifically, banks with less than $10 billion in assets and credit unions with less than $1.5 billion in assets would be exempted from key provisions of the measure.

“Most community banks and credit unions did not take advantage of consumers the way some others did,” Miller said in a statement. “They have a valid argument that separate examinations by (the bill) would double their administrative burden. CFPA can still take over enforcement if any bank, no matter what size, violates consumer protection laws.”

That prompted Politico, a nationally known political Web site, to observe, “The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Wall Street firms have the big bucks and the hired-gun lobbyists, but they’ve got nothing on local banks and credit unions in the raging battle over financial reform.”

House leaders have told media outlets there could be a vote of the full House in November.

Meanwhile, Miller is raking in fairly positive media attention. His office sent out a litany of sources that had either quoted or mentioned him in the past two weeks, including The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Hill.

Votes in the House

The following were some of the votes taken in the House last week:

HR 1327 Iran Sanctions Enabling Act of 2009: The measure allows state and local governments to divest their retirement and other stock portfolios from companies that do business with Iran’s energy companies.

The bill protects fund managers from shareholder lawsuits connected with such sales and is seen as prodding public pension funds to pull their economic support from Iranian interests.

HR 2892 Making Appropriations for Homeland Security: This is one of 13 spending bills Congress typically passes every year to pay for the operations of the federal government. As the title of the measure implies, it funds the Homeland Security Department and related agencies, such as the Coast Guard.

According to the Associated Press, the major point of contention in this bill was over prisoners detained in the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The bill gives President Barack Obama some flexibility in dealing with the detainees, allowing them to be brought to the United States for trial.

A Republican-led effort sought to recommit the bill, a legislative procedure that would have blocked its passage. That motion failed on a 193-224 vote. Republicans Howard Coble of Greensboro and Virginia Foxx of Banner Elk voted to block the measure. Democrats Brad Miller of Raleigh and Mel Watt of Charlotte voted to allow the bill to go forward. The House gave the bill final passage on a 307-114 vote. Miller and Watt voted for the final bill; Coble and Foxx voted against. The Senate is expected to pass the bill next week and send it to the president’s desk.

Votes in the Senate

HR 2847 Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act: The measure is one of the 13 spending bills needed to fund the government every year. Already passed by the House, Senate leaders had hoped to finish their work on the bill this week.

But according to The Washington Post and Associated Press, Senate Republicans blocked quick passage of the measure to press for an amendment related to the census. That measure would have required U.S. Census workers to specifically inquire if respondents to the census were U.S. citizens. It is opposed by the U.S. Census Bureau, which is part of the Commerce Department.

The cloture motion, which would have let debate on the bill proceed, needed 60 votes. If failed on a vote of 56 for and 38 against. Democrat Kay Hagan of Greensboro voted to allow debate to go forward. Sen. Richard Burr was recorded as “not voting.”

Contact Mark Binker at (919) 832-5549 or mark.binker@news-record.com