In the first Oval Office address of his presidency, Barack Obama defended his administration’s actions Tuesday night in containing the oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, vowed to make the people of the region whole again and called for action on energy legislation that would begin to wean the nation off of its addiction to foreign oil.

What was notably absent, however, was language specifically identifying how to move beyond carbon-based fuels. The president did not mention cap-and-trade. Nor did he mention global warming or climate change in the entire speech.

While he did praise the House for its passage of an energy bill that contains caps on carbon emission, he left the door wide open for other ideas.

“I am happy to look at other ideas and approaches from either party – as long as they seriously tackle our addiction to fossil fuels,” Obama said. “Some have suggested raising efficiency standards in our buildings like we did in our cars and trucks. Some believe we should set standards to ensure that more of our electricity comes from wind and solar power. Others wonder why the energy industry only spends a fraction of what the high-tech industry does on research and development – and want to rapidly boost our investments in such research and development.”

That approach will likely disappoint environmentalists and other proponents of the cap-and-trade model. Many had hoped that the president could use the oil spill as a catalyst to move the House bill through the Senate. Instead, much like during the health care debate, he seemed to take a hands off approach.

Cap-and-trade essentially sets a national limit on the amount of greenhouse gases that are permitted to escape into the atmosphere in a given 12 month period, with the limit decreasing each year. The right to pollute would then be auctioned off to companies that emit large amounts of greenhouse gases. If the company has pollution credits remaining, it could then sell them to other companies.

The goal is to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions by providing a financial incentive for the use of renewable energy sources and a financial disincentive to those companies that do not move in the direction of cleaner energy sources.

The House bill would reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. to 17 percent below the 2005 levels by 2020 and 80 percent below the 2005 levels by 2050.

Despite the president’s ambivalent approach, members of both parties in Congress heard only what they wanted to in the speech.

Not mentioning cap-and-trade specifically would seem to suggest that the White House has moved away from that approach and is open to alternatives. Not so say Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT), sponsors of a similar measure in the upper chamber.

“This could be a historic leadership moment,” the two senators said in a joint statement. “There can be no doubt that the president is rolling up his sleeves to ensure we establish a market mechanism to tackle carbon pollution, create hundreds of thousands of new jobs each year, strengthen energy independence and improve the quality of the air we breathe.”

Republicans were not willing to give up the fight either, slamming the president for supporting a plan that appears to have lost the support of the White House.

“To suggest in any way that this oil spill is a rationale for a national energy tax, which has nothing whatsoever to do with this horrendous environmental catastrophe, is something I don’t think that many of my members are likely to buy,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said.

Even though he avoided specifics and said he was open to ideas from both Republicans and Democrats, the president said that the one thing he would not tolerate was inaction.

“Now, there are costs associated with this transition,” he said. “And some believe we can’t afford those costs right now. I say we can’t afford not to change how we produce and use energy. Because the long-term costs to our economy, our national security, and our environment are far greater.”

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