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Home Front: Culture Wars
O to Tackle Climate Change with Executive Orders
2013-03-11
Obama has nominated two people to his Cabinet, following through on using executive power to set climate-change and energy policy if Congress doesn't act in accordancw with his imperial wishes. He nominated Gina McCarthy, a former regulator and expert on air-quality law, to head the Environmental Protection Agency, and physicist Ernest Moniz, who advocates phasing out coal, to run the Department of Energy. Only McCarthy is addressed in this article.
The battle over climate change is heating up in Washington -- as President Barack Obama's nomination of Gina McCarthy to lead the Environmental Protection Agency sets the stage for a struggle over regulations intended to reduce carbon dioxide and other emissions. A big part of McCarthy's job, Obama said will be to ensure that "we're doing everything that we can to combat the threat of climate change."

But Senate passage of a climate change bill that might impose new costs on the oil, coal and gas industries seems unlikely, especially since the Republican-majority House would be nearly certain to oppose any such effort.

Seeming to acknowledge this reality,
Ooooh, ouch. I wonder if the journalist did that on purpose?
Obama said in his State of the Union address, "I will direct my Cabinet to come up with executive actions we can take, now and in the future, to reduce pollution, prepare our communities for the consequences of climate change, and speed the transition to more sustainable sources of energy."

"Of the four big priorities that the president is sketching out -- climate change, the budget, gun control, and immigration, climate change is the one area where the president already has in existing law a lot of tools to address the problem," said David Doniger, policy director for Climate and Clean Air at the Natural Resources Defense Council. In its mission statement the NRDC says, "Climate change is the single biggest environmental and humanitarian crisis of our time."

Ultimately, Doniger said, legislation will be needed to bring about deep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, or carbon pollution, "but you can get a very big start on that under the Clean Air Act principally and under some of the energy efficiency laws."
This president's legacy will become very, very interesting if the latest hypothesis - - that AGW is all that's keeping us from the next ice age -- turns out to be true. Fallen Angels, anyone?
Many of EPA's decisions end up having their fate determined by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. "Every major EPA Clean Air Act regulation attracts a D.C. Circuit legal challenge - often from both environmental groups and industry," Danish said. "In addition, the scope of EPA's authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases is a still-evolving area. For this reason, Obama's nominees for D.C. Circuit judgeships could be as important for the fate of his climate policy as his nominee for EPA Administrator."
Posted by:Bobby

#5  Democracy is for the weak. Certainly The One need not lower himself to ask anyone's permission...
Posted by: Iblis   2013-03-11 19:49  

#4  Whoa, the Bammer is going to order the Sun + Space Rocks to surrender ... ... or else???
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2013-03-11 19:27  

#3  David Doniger, policy director for Climate and Clean Air at the Natural Resources Defense Council. In its mission statement the NRDC says, "Climate change is the single biggest environmental and humanitarian crisis of our time."

the NRDC is the organization which came up with the infamous Alar scare of the 80's. For those who don't know the NRDC came up with some decade-old studies about the use of Alar on apples and created a big scare - schools refused to include apples with lunches, etc...

Problem was the so-called studies were decades old and farmers had stopped using Alar about 10 years earlier.
The NRDC knew this. The media knew this. But they continued and persisted in their claim that apples were covered in poison insecticide.
The action devastated the Apple industry in eastern Washington.
Junk science is their stock and trade.
Posted by: CrazyFool   2013-03-11 18:16  

#2  Why doesn't he just order the climate to stop changing?

The picture of King Canute is very appropriate, but Bambi may not get the reference.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia   2013-03-11 18:07  

#1  With what money?
Posted by: Water Modem   2013-03-11 15:15  

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