Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky Tuesday pledged to help President Obama achieve the job-creation goal that he laid out in his State of the Union address with respect to energy and international trade.

Following a meeting at the White House, McConnell told reporters that he believed job-creating measures would have the most success if they are brought to the Senate floor as stand-alone measures — rather than attached to controversial legislation — in order to achieve “immediate bipartisan accomplishments that will grow jobs here at home.”

McConnell said he offered to work with the president on four specific items: increased clean nuclear energy; expanded exploration and development of offshore areas for oil and natural gas; development of clean coal technologies; and expansion of U.S. exports through free trade agreements.

“These are areas where I think there could be pretty broad bipartisan support to go forward on a collaborative basis,” McConnell said.

In his first State of the Union address last month, Obama said he wanted a “jobs bill on my desk without delay.” He also urged Congress to make energy jobs a critical component of a jobs bill — new jobs in clean energy, oil and natural gas, nuclear, biofuels and clean coal technologies (see Daily GPI, Jan. 29).

“We should put more Americans to work building clean energy facilities. But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country. It means making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development. It means continued investment in advanced biofuels and clean coal technologies. And yes, it means passing a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America,” Obama said.

At the same time, however, the president called for the elimination of tax cuts for oil and gas companies — a proposal that is not likely to sit well with Republicans or Democrats from energy producing states.

©Copyright 2010Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. The preceding news reportmay not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, in anyform, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.