PITTSBURGH — President Obama will call Wednesday for rolling back billions of dollars in tax breaks to oil companies, and will vow to push for climate change legislation “in the coming months,” setting the stage for another potentially divisive battle in Congress.

Mr. Obama, seeking to capitalize on the deepening anger in the American public over the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to push for his legislative agenda, plans to promise to find the lagging votes in the Senate to get an energy bill passed, according to excerpts of a planned speech at Carnegie Mellon University, which were released by the White House.

“The only way the transition to clean energy will succeed is if the private sector is fully invested in this future — if capital comes off the sidelines and the ingenuity of our entrepreneurs is unleashed,” Mr. Obama will tell a group of around 300 local business owners and economic officials at Carnegie Mellon University. “And the only way to do that is by finally putting a price on carbon pollution.”



The White House has been moving aggressively to try to stop the environmental disaster in the Gulf, now in its sixth week, from consuming the second year of his presidency.

But that may be tough to do.

White House officials were noncommittal on the plane ride to Pittsburgh as to whether Mr. Obama will go ahead with a planned trip to Indonesia (Bali and Jakarta) and Australia (Canberra and Sydney) this month, given the oil spill in the Gulf. The Australia/Indonesia trip, especially the Bali part, could yield some bad optics for the president right now as many foreign policy experts say there is no pressing national security reason to visit either country right now.

Mr. Obama has already canceled the planned trip once — in order to tend to the Congressional debate on overhauling health care.