The U.S.'s top corporate executives agree on the need for energy and climate-change policies, but consider Congress' attempts at legislation to be largely piecemeal approaches to comprehensive issues, Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) Chairman and Chief Executive Rex Tillerson said Thursday.

In comments to reporters at a Business Council meeting in North Carolina, Tillerson dismissed notions that U.S. companies are at odds with each other over whether such government policies are necessary.

"I don't think there is a split over the need to do something," said Tillerson before ducking into meetings with dozens of fellow chief executives. "In discussion among ourselves, people are focused on serious challenges and serious solutions."

Much of the corporate push-back on legislative proposals dealing with energy conservation, carbon-emissions reductions and alternative energy, he said, stem from the limited focus of the proposals. He said the measures often fail to address the broader implications regulations to business competitiveness and the U.S. economic performance.

"One of the challenges of dealing with Washington, and it's not unique to this administration, is they look at issues in a very narrow way," he said. "It's a long-term problem with how we formulate policy. We've never really had a sensible, long-term policy" on energy.

Tillerson said it is unlikely that Congress will be able reconcile versions of energy legislation in the House and Senate and approve a single bill by the end of the year.

This week's Business Council meeting at a North Carolina resort is focused on energy issues. Tillerson was joined at the Business Council press briefing by Jim Owens, chairman and chief executive of Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) , and Jamie Dimon, chairman and chief executive of JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM).

The executives avoided specific questions about their companies, limiting their remarks to broader business issues and the results of the Business Council's survey, which showed a marked improvement in executives' outlooks about U.S. economic growth and the performance of their companies in the coming months.

Nearly 63% of the respondents said business conditions in their companies' industry sectors are improving, compared with 27% in the May survey.

The majority of respondents seeing improvement, however, described it as "moderately" rather than "substantially" better. Just 6% of the respondents said conditions are worsening versus 18% in May.

Nevertheless, executives expect sluggish economic growth in the coming months, with 64% forecasting U.S. gross domestic product to grow by 2% or less during the first six months of 2010. Almost half of the respondents expect unemployment to range from 9.6% to 10% early next year, while 26% see unemployment growing to 10.1% to 10.5%.

Owens noted that employment growth typically lags improvement in the GDP coming out of recessions.

"The magnitude of the drop [in economic growth] is unseen since the 1930s," he said "I think you'll see employment will grow after several quarters of GDP growth."

The council survey also showed that more executives want the Federal Reserve to dismantle credit market support to head-off inflation.

Almost half of the 115 surveyed chief executives said it was time for the Fed to unwind support, compared with just 15% of respondents in May.

The Fed's unprecedented moves to provide liquidity for frozen credit markets beginning in late 2008 have raised concerns that the central bank is potentially stoking inflation now that the worst of credit crisis has passed.

-By Bob Tita, Dow Jones Newswires; 312-750-4129; robert.tita@dowjones.com