WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. House of Representatives voted Monday to exclude U.S. airlines from an emissions cap-and-trade program that the European Union plans to impose on all airlines flying to and from the continent beginning next year.

With the legislation, which passed by voice vote, lawmakers joined the airline industry and the Obama administration in opposing the EU Emissions Trading Scheme scheduled to go into effect on Jan. 1. The bill now goes to the Senate, where there is currently no companion legislation.

The measure directs the transportation secretary to prohibit U.S. carriers from participating in the program if it is unilaterally imposed. It also tells other federal agencies to take steps necessary to ensure that U.S. carriers are not penalized by the emissions control scheme.

The EU program began in 2005 with the capping of carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, refineries, steel mills and other industrial producers. Next year it extends to airlines, which are said to be responsible for about 3 percent of greenhouse gases.

Under the program, similar to the cap-and-trade concept that President Barack Obama unsuccessfully tried to move through Congress, each airliner is issued permits to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide. They can buy extra credits if they emit more than their allowed limit, or sell credits if they emit less. Payments would be made to the EU country to which they most frequently fly.

The EU says the costs to airlines will be modest and will have minimal impact on passenger fares. The U.S. aviation industry says the cost between 2012 and 2020 could hit $3.1 billion. It says it is unfair that a flight from the United States, for example from Los Angeles, would have to pay for emissions for all parts of flights to Europe, including time spent over the United States and the Atlantic.

"It's a tax grab by the European Union," the House's Republican Transportation Committee Chairman John Mica said. "The meter starts running the minute the plane departs from any point in the U.S. until it reaches Europe."

In 2009, American, United and Continental Airlines and the Air Transport Association of America filed suit in a case now before the European Court of Justice, arguing that the unilateral imposition of emissions rules violates international aviation agreements.

They received a setback this month when the court's advocate general, a legal adviser, said in a nonbinding statement that the EU emissions trading scheme is compatible with international law and urged the court to reject the U.S. challenge.

That drew fire from Krishna R. Urs, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of State for transportation affairs, who repeated the U.S.'s "strong legal and policy objections to the inclusion of flights by non-EU carriers" in the EU program.

The Air Transport Association said that preliminary opinion "does not mark the end of this case" and noted that more than 20 countries, including Brazil, Russia, India, China and Japan, oppose the EU plan.

"It imposes an exorbitant tax that siphons away from aviation the very funds it needs to continue to invest in aircraft technology, sustainable alternative fuels and infrastructure advances," the ATA said.

Mica, who recently led a delegation to the International Civil Aviation Organization in Montreal, said ICAO member nations next month will approve overwhelmingly a measure opposing the EU's carbon trading system.

"This shouldn't lead to a trade war," Mica said. "It should lead to a resolution that does improve our environment."

One of the few voices of dissent came from Democratic Rep. Edward Markey, who said the United States also passes laws that dictate security and pollution standards for foreign ships and planes entering U.S. territory. "The Europeans are taking climate change seriously. We shouldn't undermine their efforts by legislating that our airlines break the law."  

Top Dems oppose detention policy in defense bill  

WASHINGTON (AP) - Top Democrats on the Senate Judiciary and Intelligence committees are opposing provisions in a sweeping defense bill that would require military custody of terrorist suspects and limit the government's authority to transfer detainees.

In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., the lawmakers - Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy and Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein - said the provisions would undercut U.S. counterterrorism efforts and urged him to remove the sections from the bill. The Obama administration also opposes the provisions.

"Professionals in the intelligence community and law enforcement need the flexibility to use all tools to effectively interrogate, incarcerate and bring terrorists to justice," Leahy and Feinstein wrote Oct. 21 along with 11 other Democratic senators.

The issue has exposed divisions within the Senate and the Democratic Party.

The Senate Armed Services Committee approved the $683 billion defense bill in June that would authorize spending on military personnel, weapons systems and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. The panel, led by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., approved the provision on military custody on a 25-1 vote.

But the administration's opposition and Reid's concerns have delayed Senate consideration of the legislation with about 10 weeks remaining in the session.

But the administration's opposition and Reid's concerns have delayed Senate consideration of the legislation with about 10 weeks remaining in the session.

The provision in the bill would require military custody of a suspect determined to be a member of al-Qaida or its affiliate and involved in the planning or an attack on the United States. The administration argues that such a step would hamper efforts by the FBI or other law enforcement to elicit intelligence from terror suspects, and Reid has said "limitations on that flexibility, or on the availability of critical counterterrorism tools, would significantly threaten our national security."

Levin has argued that the provision included a national security waiver that the administration could exercise to bypass the requirement.

This isn't the first time Congress has tried to limit the administration on the detainee issue. Last year's defense bill barred the transfer of detainees at the naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the United States. The omnibus spending bill that President Barack Obama and Congress approved in April also prevented the transfer of detainees from Guantanamo to the U.S., prohibited the construction or modification of facilities in the United States to house detainees and required the defense secretary to notify Congress before transferring a terror suspect to a foreign country.

Congressional Republicans and some Democrats want to keep the facility at Guantanamo open despite Obama's efforts, which have proven unsuccessful, to close the prison. Lawmakers also favor trying suspects in military commissions instead of federal courts.

Separately, Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, sent a letter to Obama expressing frustration with the administration's unwillingness to discuss the House-passed defense bill's provisions on terror suspects. The House bill, approved this past summer, includes different provisions limiting the administration's authority on handling detainees that the White House opposes.

"The administration has shown a willingness to undertake nothing short of extraordinary action regarding targeting terrorists overseas," McKeon wrote in an Oct. 20 letter. "Yet is has shown none of this resolve when it comes to detaining our enemies instead."

McKeon argued that the administration has "foreclosed options that are critical to our national security."

The House and Senate versions of the defense bills need to be reconciled and cleared by Congress for the president. In doubt is Congress' four-decade record of completing defense bills and sending them to the president.