Washington (Platts)--30Nov2009/615 pm EST/2315 GMT

White House officials indicated Monday that President Barack Obama has in recent weeks taken an aggressive behind-the-scenes approach toward crafting a climate and energy bill in the Senate while at the same time publicly highlighting climate change as a major topic of discussions with foreign leaders.

One White House official said that domestic discussions have kept apace with foreign talks, especially in the Senate where a bruising fight is steadily emerging.

"Administration officials have discussed comprehensive energy legislation with more than 50% of senators," the aide said.

The aide cited advancing discussions between the White House and a trio of senators crafting bipartisan legislation. These lawmakers -- Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry, South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham and Connecticut Independent Joseph Lieberman -- have emerged as key negotiators in the upper chamber.

"We are in close touch with Senators Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman about their efforts to move forward a bipartisan bill," the aide added.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd met with Obama on Monday to discuss a range of issues, including climate change, marking the latest high profile meeting Obama has had with a foreign leader to discuss the UN-sponsored climate change conference in Copenhagen in December.

Rudd, in comments with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, said the clocks were ticking to reach an agreement at Copenhagen. "We're working closely with our American friends to secure the best possible outcome for an important deal for the planet, for our economies, for jobs, for the environment," he said.

Obama has intervened with lawmakers before, although more publicly, as he personally pushed lawmakers in the House of Representatives to pass a cap-and-trade bill in June. While the debate was raging in the Energy and Commerce Committee, Obama hosted committee Democrats at the White House to try to reach a consensus. That meeting helped pave the way for the bill to pass the panel and it eventually passed the House, although narrowly, and Obama made phone calls to individual lawmakers to get them to back the legislation.

World leaders this month acknowledged that the Copenhagen summit would not yield a binding treaty but the conference could lay the foundation for at treaty over the next year. Obama has met with his Indian and Chinese counterparts in recent weeks and on November 25 said he would head to Copenhagen with proposed US emissions cuts of 17% below 2005 levels by 2020. The Chinese will bring proposed emissions intensity cuts of up to 45% by 2020, though far less than previously hoped by many observers including the White House.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs Monday dismissed criticism that Obama would speak at the summit during its first days as opposed to the end when a deal could be reached. Some experts say it will be significant that Obama is not there at the end when last-minute negotiations will shape the final deal. Obama is slated to speak December 9, early on during the December 7-18 conference.

"I think the president believes that visit happening at the beginning is just as important as it would be at any point to getting that deal going quicker," Gibbs said. He added that Obama "believed it was important to use this visit to help get us to the point of a deal, something that can take the type of action that scientists say need to be taken to stop and reverse climate change."

--Alexander Duncan, alexander_duncan@platts.com