The Bush administration is signaling new interest in promoting alternative energies and curbing greenhouse gases to ease increased political pressure on environmental policy at home and abroad, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

As part of President Bush's energy agenda for the rest of his term, administration officials may push U.S. auto makers to make more vehicles that can run on ethanol and other alternative fuels, said the report.

To boost availability, they are also considering a call to cut tariffs on imported ethanol, it added.

White House aides are also suggesting new openness to global- warming solutions, including the broad emissions limits they have resisted so far. The ultimate aim is to begin piecing together a framework to replace the Kyoto accord after it expires in 2012.

"Would we support a one-size-fits-all, economy-wide mandate? Presently it's not feasible or necessary," White House environmental adviser James Connaughton said in an interview with the daily.

"But it's not off the table" post-2012, he added. While Mr. Bush's presidency ends in early 2009, he can influence negotiations under way for the next global climate-change treaty.

The CEOs of the Big Three manufacturers -- General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group -- pledged after a recent meeting with Mr. Bush to make 50 percent of their new vehicles capable of running on alternative fuel by 2012.

But they said they want assurances of adequate "incentives" for production of flex-fuel vehicles as well as for production and distribution of renewable fuels.

Source: Xinhua