Senator: In private meeting, Obama seemed strongly committed to carbon pricing

The Washington Post reports:

In a private meeting at the White House with a bipartisan group of Senators today, President Obama strongly underscored his desire to include carbon pricing as part of the final package, Dem Senator Jeff Merkley just told me in an interview.

The news could cheer environmentalists who had come to worry that measures to reduce carbon emissions were shaping up as the public option of the environmental debate. Enviros view curbing carbon emissions as essential to real energy reform, but many think the White House and Dem leaders will decide against including such a provision at the last minute, since it's unclear whether there are 60 Senators who will support it.

A meeting of the central planners.