Despite public pleas from President Obama for legislative action on climate change this year, Congress is not moving quickly and prospects for passage of any significant legislation remain dim in the Republican-controlled House.

During his second inaugural address, Obama said the United States “must lead” in mitigating global warming and vowed “to respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.” Obama later urged “this Congress to get together [and] pursue a bipartisan, market-based solution to climate change” during his 2013 State of the Union address.

Congressional leaders have worked on legislation partially in response to those calls from the president, but progress has been slow. Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced the Climate Protection Act of 2013 (S. 332) in February, which would require fossil fuel producers to pay a fee of $20 per ton of carbon emitted.

Boxer has vowed to consider the legislation in committee but only after finishing with other legislative priorities such as the nomination of Gina McCarthy to head the Environmental Protection Agency and passage of the Water Resources Development Act (S. 601).

A bicameral group of legislators—Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.)—circulated draft legislation in March that would effectively create a carbon tax based on greenhouse gas emissions reporting. The lawmakers continue to collect legislative ideas from companies, business groups, labor unions, environmental and public health groups, academia, and faith-based organizations that will shape their final proposal.

There is no time frame for introducing the legislation, and it will likely face an uphill road to enactment.

Former Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.) told a clean air conference in April that major climate change legislation was not likely this year due to the polarization in both chambers on the issue.