June 26 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. House debated legislation to limit greenhouse-gas emissions as lawmakers remained divided and Democratic leaders worked to rally support for one of President Barack Obama’s top domestic priorities.

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, who negotiated revisions that brought many rural lawmakers on board, said he will vote for the measure although it still has “problems” he considers “unworkable.”

“It is too complex, the way they’ve structured this and the deals they’ve cut,” said Peterson, a Minnesota Democrat.

The legislation, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, would create a market for trading pollution permits as a way to curb emissions that many scientists say contribute to climate change. It calls for the U.S. to reduce its greenhouse- gas emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020.

Obama and environmental groups joined Democratic congressional leaders in lobbying for votes in favor of the bill.

“The president obviously has been engaged in talking to members as have staff members here,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said. “We continue to work it hard.”

Republicans and business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Farm Bureau, sought to drum up opposition to the 1,200-page legislation they called a “national energy tax.”

Passage Not Assured

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn of South Carolina said before the debate began that Democrats were not assured a win.

Most Republicans and a number of Democrats said they would vote against the plan. Thirty Democrats joined Republicans today in opposing a measure, passed 217-205, that set rules for the floor debate and vote.

“The need to act is clear and urgent,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman of California said in opening the debate. “This bill at long last begins to break our addiction to foreign oil and puts us on the path to true energy security.” He called the measure “an enormous jobs bill for America.”

Obama, during a White House news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, said the House measure reflects “enormous progress from where we have been,” though he said Europe has moved more quickly on addressing climate change.

Reduce Mandates

The bill’s chief sponsors, Waxman and Democrat Edward Markey of Massachusetts, agreed during the past month to reduce its environmental mandates and increase aid to polluters, including coal-fired power plants, to help companies meet the measure’s clean-air regulations. Waxman’s committee passed the bill on May 21.

Negotiators reached a breakthrough this week with an accord to give farmers and coal-fired electric utilities added benefits. That hasn’t been enough, though, to guarantee the support of all lawmakers from rural districts.

Republican Frank Lucas of Oklahoma called the measure “the single largest economic threat to our farmers and ranchers in decades,” saying it would increase their energy costs. “I will not make my constituents poorer so others can get richer at their expense,” he said.

Jim Owens, chief executive officer of Peoria, Illinois- based Caterpillar Inc., opposed the measure in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California that said, “We advocate coordinated international action rather than unilateral U.S. action on climate and energy.”

200,000 Calls

In pushing for the bill, environmental groups generated about 200,000 calls to about 90 congressional offices this week and are making about 400 more today, Sierra Club spokesman Josh Dorner said.

Former Vice President Al Gore, who won a Nobel prize for his work on climate change, was calling lawmakers from his Nashville home on behalf of the bill. AFL-CIO chief lobbyist Bill Samuel said the union group supported the plan, even as he called it “not perfect.”

Even so, a coalition of energy scientists, in a letter to lawmakers, called the measure’s investment in renewable energy “inadequate.”

Representative Dennis Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat, said the bill’s proposed limits on emissions from coal plants and other polluters are too weak.

“Instead of talking about saving ourselves, we are talking about saving the coal industry,” Kucinich said.

Joining the American Farm Bureau, the nation’s largest farm lobby, in opposition was a coalition of food processing groups including the National Chicken Council and the National Meat Association.

One critic, billionaire investor Warren Buffett, head of Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc., has called the plan “regressive.”

U.S. Chamber of Commerce Executive Vice President Bruce Josten urged lawmakers to vote against it because he said it wouldn’t ensure development of enough renewable energy sources to make up for the required reduction in fossil-fuel emissions.

To contact the reporter on this story: Lorraine Woellert at lwoellert@bloomberg.net; Simon Lomax in Washington at slomax@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: June 26, 2009 15:30 EDT