WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – The Obama administration  will press ahead with climate control legislation, despite  difficult odds of passage before December’s international  summit on global warming.  

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu told the Reuters  Washington Summit that he was putting in long hours on climate  issues and believes there was “a reasonably good possibility”  that the U.S Congress could deliver legislation reducing carbon  dioxide emissions in time for the Copenhagen meeting.  

“Look, I’m still going to be optimistic and say there is a  chance that there will be a bill that the Senate and House have  agreed upon that goes before the president before Copenhagen,”  Chu said.  

But Senator John McCain, who wants to rejuvenate nuclear  power in the United States to help reduce carbon pollution,  said there’s been no progress and he accused Democrats of being  “beholden” to environmentalists who oppose an expansion of the  industry.  

“I’d like to see one concrete commitment on the part of the  administration and Democrats,” McCain told the Reuters  Washington Summit yesterday. 

Instead, the conservative Republican who unsuccessfully ran  for president against Barack Obama last year, complained that  Nevada’s Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository has been  defunded and no plans were in the works for recycling spent  fuel, while loan guarantees to build new plants were  insufficient.  

But Chu said an effort was being made to provide new  government help for the nuclear industry, including possibly  expanding the $18.5 billion loan guarantee program for  expanding nuclear power generation.  

Conservative Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a close  friend of McCain’s, announced this month that he would work  with leading Democrats to fashion a climate change bill he  could vote for. Since then, Chu has followed up with him.  

Scientists blame carbon dioxide emissions from burning  fossil fuels for global warming and more severe storms and  droughts. December’s meeting in Copenhagen is an attempt to  bring deep reductions in the world’s carbon emissions, building  on the Kyoto Protocol that expires in 2012.  

While enactment of a U.S. climate bill would boost the  trust of developing nations in Washington’s intentions in  Copenhagen, it wasn’t just McCain challenging Chu’s optimism.  

“I don’t think we’re going to have cap and trade” enacted  this year, senator Charles Grassley told the Reuters Washington  Summit. He was referring to the mechanism Obama and his fellow  Democrats in Congress want to create to reduce greenhouse gas  emissions.  

Under cap and trade, a huge new system for trading an  ever-declining number of carbon pollution permits would be  created. Many Republicans and moderate Democrats in Congress  fear the regime would result in higher energy prices. And some  lawmakers fear the creation of a new Wall Street casino at a  time when Americans are still angry over investor excesses that  touched off the deep recession.  

 Instead of a domestic climate change bill, Grassley said  there should be an international deal that would force  developing countries like China and India to take  carbon-reduction steps along with developed countries such as  the United States.  

“People of good faith say the U.S. ought to pass a bill to  set a standard for the rest of the world and the rest of the  world will follow along. But if the rest of the world doesn’t  follow Uncle Sam, we soon become Uncle Sucker,” Grassley said,  citing job-loss fears if manufacturers move factories abroad to  get unrestricted amounts of cheaper fossil fuels.