Edwards proposes greenhouse gas plan

America should charge industry for creating greenhouse gases to generate money for investing in clean technology, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards said Saturday.

"People ought to have to pay that want to generate greenhouse gases," Edwards said at a global warming rally that was part of a nationwide day of demonstrations.

Edwards said charging polluters could generate up to $40 billion to invest in clean technology to "get us off our addiction to oil." He also said the United States should ban the construction of new coal-fired power plants

The former North Carolina senator, who was John Kerry's running mate in the 2004 presidential election, said the U.S. needs to put a cap on carbon emissions, and should achieve an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050.

"That is an aggressive goal but an achievable goal," Edwards said.

"We need you, we need America to be willing to be patriotic about something other than war," he said.

Saturday's event was part of the national Step It Up 2007 campaign, involving more than 1,300 actions planned in all 50 states.

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HAMPTON, N.H. (AP) _ Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday called President Bush's refusal to change in course in Iraq a "tragedy of historic proportions," but said she's not ready to back the latest attempt to cut funding for the war.

At a house party where more than 50 people sat on rented chairs crammed in a living room, Clinton was urged to co-sponsor a bill proposed by Sens. Harry Reid and Russ Feingold that would cut off funding for the Iraq war by March 31, 2008.

"I'm not ready to co-sponsor it now," Clinton said, repeating her argument that Congress instead should focus on pressuring Bush to work with Democrats.

"I think it's important for the American people to see the Democratic majority go the extra mile," she said. "We have to show the American people that it is he who is being unreasonable."

Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut is the only Democratic presidential hopeful to support the Reid-Feingold measure.

Addressing nearly a thousand people later in a high school gym, Clinton faced her harshest questioner of the day: a young woman who said she had traveled from New York to ask the senator whether she had read a 92-page intelligence document before her 2002 vote to authorize the war.

"I was thoroughly briefed on it. I was briefed on it," Clinton said repeatedly, as the woman tried to interrupt her. "I think it's such a difficult thing to go back in time and say what everyone was thinking.

"What I will say is I believed that what we were doing was giving the president the authority to put inspectors in Iraq. That's what we were told privately. That's what we were told publicly."

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SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) _ Republican presidential contender Rudy Giuliani called for a national campaign to achieve energy independence during a Missouri campaign stop Saturday.

The former New York mayor said a national program to tap new energy sources, akin to the 1960s technological race to beat the Soviets to the moon, would give Republicans a positive issue to stand for in the 2008 White House race.

"Too much of our party is defined by what we're against. Too little is defined by what we're for," Giuliani told a fundraising breakfast for Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., the House minority whip.

"Energy independence, I think, is the single most important thing that's going to face us in the next four or five years aside from the terrorist war on us," he told about 200 Blunt supporters who paid $250 each for the event.

Blunt has not endorsed Giuliani or any other Republican for the presidential nomination, Blunt's spokesman said.

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CONWAY, S.C. (AP) _ Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney told a GOP county convention crowd here Saturday that politicians in Washington aren't getting the job done as he pledged to cut government spending and push middle-income tax breaks.

Since launching his campaign, Romney has cast himself as the political outsider who wants to bring businesslike approaches to issues. The insiders in Washington are the problem, Romney told about 200 people here.

"They talk and they debate and they don't get the job done," Romney said. "You see, in the private sector, if all you do is talk, they get fired. Talk is cheap," Romney said.

Romney said that Bush administration tax cuts need to be made permanent and he'll push for more. "I want to lower the taxes for middle-income Americans to zero on savings, on interest, dividends and capital gains," Romney said.

He said he'd pay for new tax reductions by reducing federal spending, capping it at the national inflation rate minus 1 percentage point. He said he would veto any spending legislation that breaks that cap.

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CONCORD, N.H. (AP) _ Sen. Joe Biden said Saturday the most important question voters should ask would-be presidents isn't what they would do in Iraq today, but how they would deal with the consequences tomorrow.

"Everybody in both parties comes up with ideas about Iraq," the Democratic presidential hopeful told reporters between campaign stops. "None of them has asked and answered the fundamental second question that must be answered: Then what?"

The Delaware senator voted in 2002 to authorize military action in Iraq but has become a leading critic of the war since then. He has advocated a plan to divide the country along ethnic lines, with a central government responsible for border security and allocation of oil resources.

"I guarantee you: ideas, experience and a track record trump money," said Biden, whose campaign has suffered from lackluster fundraising.

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Associated Press writers Marcus Kabel in Springfield, Holly Ramer in Hampton, Jim Davenport in Conway and Philip Elliott in Concord contributed to this story.