Axelrod: Climate change needs GOP

“If a consensus can be reached, we want to support that, but this is clearly an issue that Republicans and Democrats are going to have to do together. It is not something that one party or the other party can do,” Axelrod added. (His comments come about 22 minutes into the C-SPAN interview found here.)

Axelrod had similar things to say – playing up energy measures, playing down caps on greenhouse gas emissions – in brief comments after Obama’s State of the Union address last month.

His comments come amid questions about whether Senate Democrats will take up legislation that includes both emissions limits and new support for low-carbon energy, or instead break off more popular energy measures while shelving controversial climate language.

Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) are trying to craft a compromise plan that would include emissions limits, larger federal financing for nuclear power, and expanded offshore drilling, among other measures.

Axelrod, in the C-SPAN interview, noted that China and India are pushing hard to snag emerging alternative energy industries. “We have to compete for those jobs in the future and so we can’t just walk off the field when it comes to energy,” he said.