WHITE HOUSE -- In a continued effort to shape the domestic debate on combating global warming without requiring onerous regulations on U.S. businesses, President George W. Bush unveiled on Wednesday a new target for stopping the growth of the nation's greenhouse gas emissions by 2025.

Video: Bush Remarks On Global Warming

"To reach our 2025 goal, we will need to more rapidly slow the growth of power sector greenhouse gas emissions so that they peak within 10 to 15 years, and decline thereafter," Bush said. "By doing so, we will reduce emission levels in the power sector well below where they were projected to be when we first announced our climate strategy in 2002. There are a number of ways to achieve these reductions, but all responsible approaches depend on accelerating the development and deployment of new technologies."

Without naming specific policy goals, he said he favored "realistic" emission reduction targets and "principles" he thinks Congress should follow.

While the administration has backed some mandatory programs, it has preferred largely voluntary measures to broadly address global warming. In his speech, however, the president also invited a discussion of market-based approaches.

The president remains opposed to a Senate bill that would require mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions, calling that proposal unrealistic and economically harmful.

"I believe that congressional debate should be guided by certain core principles and a clear appreciation that there is a wrong way and a right way to approach reducing greenhouse gas emissions," Bush said. "Bad legislation would impose tremendous costs on our economy and American families without accomplishing the important climate change goals we share."

Senate Democratic leaders plan to begin debate in June on legislation that would cap greenhouse gases and allow polluters to ease some of the cost by buying emissions credits. Bush said his proposals aim to avoid having greenhouse gas emissions regulated by the federal bureaucracy.

For example, the Environmental Protection Agency already is under orders from the Supreme Court to determine whether carbon dioxide is endangering public health or welfare. If so, the court said, the EPA must regulate CO2 emissions. But Bush said this kind of regulation doesn't address broader concerns.

"The Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act were never meant to regulate global climate change. For example, under a Supreme Court decision last year, the Clean Air Act could be applied to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles," Bush said. "If these laws are stretched beyond their original intent, they could override the programs Congress just adopted. ... Decisions with such far-reaching impact should not be left to unelected regulators and judges," he said.

Carbon dioxide is the leading greenhouse gas, so named because its accumulation in the atmosphere can help trap heat from the sun, causing potentially dangerous warming of the planet.