Obama’s Climate Policy Bind
April 13th, 2009Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.
The Obama Administration has painted itself into a corner on climate policy, with no really good options for moving forward. The New York Times characterizes the Administration’s recent actions on climate policy as follows:
Has the administration scaled back its global-warming goals, at least for this year, or is it engaged in sophisticated misdirection?
Maybe some of both. While addressing climate change appears to be slipping down the president’s list of priorities for the year, he is holding in reserve a powerful club to regulate carbon dioxide emissions through executive authority.
That club takes the form of Environmental Protection Agency regulation of the gases blamed for the warming of the planet, an authority granted the agency by the Supreme Court’s reading of the Clean Air Act. Administration officials consistently say they would much prefer that Congress write new legislation to pre-empt the E.P.A. regulatory power, but they are clearly holding it in reserve as a prod to reluctant lawmakers and recalcitrant industries and as evidence of good faith to other nations.
Industry lobbyists and members of Congress who are engaged in writing energy and global warming bills say they are well aware of the E.P.A. process bearing down on them.
“Once the Supreme Court declared carbon dioxide to be a pollutant under the Clean Air Act, E.P.A. had no choice but to act,” said Representative Rick Boucher, a moderate Democrat from a coal-producing region of Virginia. “Most people would rather have Congress act. We can be more balanced; we can take into account the effects on the economy. But if we don’t undertake this, E.P.A. certainly will.”
Still, the agency’s regulations would take months to write and years to become fully effective. Meanwhile, Congress is already starting work on energy and climate legislation, though without significant guidance from the White House, at least in public.
Republicans must be drooling over the possibility that EPA will take extensive regulatory action on climate change. Why? Because the resulting political fallout associated with any actual or perceived downsides (e.g., like higher energy prices) will fall entirely on Democrats and the Obama Administration. Far from being an incentive for Congress to act on its own, the looming possibility that EPA will take regulatory action is a strong incentive for Republicans to stalemate Congressional action and a nightmare scenario for Democrats.
Expect the Republicans to call the Obama Administration’s “EPA will regulate unless you act” bluff.
Then expect a protracted “you go first” stalemate between EPA and Congress as no one will want to be responsible for increasing the costs of energy.
As the New York Times suggests, some environmentalists are getting restless, but have so far not spoken out too loudly. This free pass on criticism won’t last forever.
The administration’s caution leaves many environmental advocates frustrated, although most are reluctant to speak on the record for fear of alienating their allies inside government.
One environmental and energy lobbyist with close ties to the White House said the administration had been inhibited by a number of factors, including vacancies in many top policy jobs, an intense early focus on the financial and economic crises, and an unwillingness to alienate business and Congressional leaders with a heavy-handed approach.
“With those realities, coupled with the fact that the president himself realizes this is harder to do in the midst of recession, they are basically content to see what Congress will do,” this lobbyist said. “Plus, Henry Waxman has put together a very serious piece of legislation, and that in my mind justifies their lack of forceful intervention. That’s just where they are now.”
April 13th, 2009 at 11:21 am
Tough choice. Follow the will of the majority of the citzenry or cave to the special interests demanding that their priorities be given the force of law. I predict that Obama will do everything possible to placate the special interests while misleading the citizenry about what he is doing (standard politics). I predict that the news media will try to help him in the effort to mislead with propaganda. And I predict that the web will make the propaganda far less successful than it would have been in the past.
April 13th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Here in Massachusetts, the progressives were excited to hear word of a 26 cent gas tax. Now, the proposal has been cut in half, and it’s still only in rumour stage. Somehow, the number of people in favor of drastic increases in energy costs gets smaller as the time to legislate the increases gets nearer. No doubt the same will be true on the national level.
“Vote for me – I made you spend your children’s tuition fund on energy!”
April 13th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
[...] Cross-posted from Prometheus: The Science Policy Blog [...]
April 13th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
[...] Obama’s Climate Policy Bind Cross-posted from Prometheus: The Science Policy Blog [...]
April 14th, 2009 at 11:12 am
Drool, drool! LOL, perhaps the Planet-savers and “social engineers” finally got enough rope to hang themselves! They seem to have caught themselves in a dilemna which probably has no outcome that doesn’t expose them for the charletans that they are.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
Well, I sure hope “The Obama Administration has painted itself into a corner on climate policy, with no really good options for moving forward.” That would be the best news I’ve heard all year. As the Earth continues to cool while CO2 continues to increase (pretty much proving that CO2 does not drive climate), that “corner” that Obama’s in is going to get tighter and tighter. And anyone foolish enough to stay in that corner is going to look increasingly silly. Anyway, here’s to the good news!!!
April 15th, 2009 at 5:22 am
The choice is easy. Congress needs to do a real analysis of the AGW issue and force a debate in which both sides have their say on the record. Force GISS to disclose the way it is homogenizing the raw data coming from stations and have a station audit done to determine the errors due to the UHI effect. Once the facts come out there will be no pressure from the vast majority of the public to do anything about CO2 emissions and Obama and the Democrats can take credit for having the wisdom to do a real scientific review of a subject that hasn’t had one. There will be little to lose because the environmentalists will not vote Democrat and can still be kept with the Democrats by promising regulatory action on some other issue that they can worry about. (The ozone hole is getting much bigger now so they can look to some other ban on other chemicals that do not effect it just as they did with CFCs.)
April 17th, 2009 at 4:56 am
[...] Pielke Jr. concisely explains why the CO2 litigation campaign that begat Massachusetts v. EPA could and should be a political [...]
April 17th, 2009 at 8:06 am
[...] CO2 litigation campaign that begat Massachusetts v. EPA turns out to be too clever by half. As Roger Pielke, Jr. and Michael Shellenberger astutely observe, Team Obama’s threat to regulate greenhouse gases [...]
April 17th, 2009 at 9:18 am
[...] CO2 litigation campaign that begat Massachusetts v. EPA turns out to be too clever by half. As Roger Pielke, Jr. and Michael Shellenberger astutely observe, Team Obama’s threat to regulate greenhouse gases [...]
April 17th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
[...] The CO2 litigation campaign that begat Massachusetts v. EPA turns out to be too clever by half. As Roger Pielke, Jr. and Michael Shellenberger astutely observe, Team Obama’s threat to regulate greenhouse gases via [...]
April 21st, 2009 at 3:09 pm
The threat of having the EPA regulate greenhouse gases effectively forces Congress to produce a climate bill. Nobody really wants GHGs regulated under the Clean Air Act– to do so would inflexible therefore would be more damaging to the economy that the same emissions reduction under a market-based policy. It is reasonable to assume that Democrats and Republicans alike will be scrambling to come up with a climate change bill rather than leave it to the EPA. In order to pass the senate, such a bill will probably end up with weaker GHG reduction targets than most environmentalists would like. The bottom line is that a national response to climate change is long overdue. It needs to happen immediately, but if it does we will probably end up with either weak congressional action or inefficient EPA regulation.