Obama, Harper Launch 'Clean Energy Dialogue'

President Obama and PM Stephen Harper today announced an environmental partnership between the US and Canada, the Globe and Mail reports. Harper spoke of a “clean energy dialogue” between top officials to “collaborate on the development of clean energy science and technology.” Said Obama, who was making his first trip out of the country since taking office: “We are so closely linked that we have a tendency to take our relationship for granted.”

The dialogue will include talk of a “smart grid” and carbon sequestering. Harper had spoken earlier about the frustrations of trying to achieve environmental reform during the Bush administration. “In Canada, we've been wrestling for the last decade or so with our desire to try to have a regime, a regulatory regime,” he said. “But we've been trying to do so in an integrated economy when the United States has not been willing to do so.”