EPA chief Lisa Jackson is clinging to Obama’s green-jobs talking points in pushing back against legislative proposals from Sens. Lisa Murkowski and John D. Rockefeller. From Reuters:

“Supposedly these efforts have been put forward to protect jobs,” Lisa Jackson told a meeting at the National Press Club. “In reality, they will have serious negative economic effects.”
Jackson said industry needs clear signals from the U.S. government on greenhouse gas regulations. Otherwise investors would have “little incentive” to put money into clean energy jobs. The country would fall further behind other countries in the race for clean energy, which would hurt the economy, she added.

To repeat: Why not trail the world in job-killing industries?

Jackson said if EPA’s regulation of greenhouse gas emissions was stopped, rules to make cars and light trucks become more efficient would be put on hold. That would leave “American automakers once again facing a patchwork of state standards,” that could hurt profits at the companies which have experienced hard times already.

I’ll leave that to Henry Payne.

Then comes the “Drill, Maybe Drill.”

Jackson signaled there was room to compromise with industry in order to get a bill putting a price on carbon emissions. The U.S. energy and climate strategy should include incentives for offshore oil and natural gas drilling, as long as the environment is not hurt, she said.
“The energy strategy has to be varied and should include offshore drilling when it can be done in a way that is protective of the environment,” Jackson told reporters at the National Press Club.
Senators John Kerry, a Democrat, Lindsey Graham, a Republican, and Joe Lieberman, an independent, are working on a compromise climate bill that could include incentives for offshore petroleum production and nuclear power. The bill faces an uncertain future amid opposition from energy-rich states.
Jackson said she has met with Graham and Kerry on the bill and that it should also include incentives for alternatives, like offshore wind power, and energy efficiency.