Compromise climate bill coming - U.S. Senator Kerry

By Richard Cowan and Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Admitting it was contrary to conventional wisdom, Democratic Senator John Kerry said on Tuesday he was hopeful a comprehensive U.S. climate bill will soon emerge from his work with the Obama administration and a bipartisan group of senators.

Kerry and White House officials are among the most optimistic that a bill to tackle global warming can be produced, despite strong opposition among lawmakers and as time runs out ahead of the November midterm elections.

"We're on a short track here in terms of piecing together legislation we intend to roll out," Kerry told a climate policy forum.

Carol Browner, President Barack Obama's top energy and climate adviser, told the same audience sponsored by the New Republic magazine "the work that is going on up on the Hill is moving at a nice speed." As a result, Browner said the administration would not issue its own legislative proposals.

Washington's ability to produce a domestic law mandating carbon reductions on industry will have a significant impact on whether negotiations on the international track will succeed.

The U.N.-sponsored global negotiations, last held in Copenhagen in December, have been slow-moving. Todd Stern, the Obama administration's chief climate negotiator in those talks, said the United States remained committed to the U.N. process.

But he left open the possibility of another forum gaining favour if progress stalls at the U.N. level. "There is a point at which this probably can't wait forever," Stern said at the conference.

Without progress, "Things are going to develop so countries that are largely responsible for emissions around the world have the capacity to get together and make decisions and do things," he said.