Today is the day when the administration rolls out its plan to address Climate Change or, at the detractors will argue, the first day of the War on Coal. Justin Gillis and Henry Fountain have an excellent piece on this up at the New York Times. At 10:30am, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Gina McCarthy, “will deliver remarks on what steps EPA is taking under the Clean Air Act to carry out President Obama’s Climate Action Plan to cut carbon pollution from existing power plants, the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. The announcement will outline a common sense and flexible approach to cut harmful pollution, protect public health, continue economic growth, and spur innovation.”
After her remarks, Ms. McCarthy will take questions, and the War on Coal will begin in earnest. This effort, not the Keystone XL pipeline decision, will be the key to President Obama’s legacy on the environment. You will be deluged with stupid hyperbole from both the coal industry and their lackeys and the hard-liners in the environmental movement. What you are unlikely to hear from anyone not affiliated with the administration is any kind of full-throated defense of Obama’s policies.
“What you are unlikely to hear from anyone not affiliated with the administration is any kind of full-throated defense of Obama’s policies.”
Why not? How come there’s so much more daylight between the Obama administration, which does some very good work, its base, and the previous Bush administration and its base?
Kevin Drum calls this the “hack gap”.
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/05/examining-hack-gap-economics-edition
There’s very little money in being fair.
Or reasonable.
But it cost money to get ridiculously stupid or corrupt ideas into the national conversation because no one would otherwise insert stupid or corrupt ideas.
Well said boo.
Well, it’s worth noting that Bush’s base abandoned him i the end. Remember how they decided he wasn’t a real conservative?
But I know what you mean, there is a real difference there. I think it’s also related to the fact that Republicans don’t do policy anymore, so what is there to debate? While liberals are debating the best approach to climate change, conservatives already know the whole thing is a hoax, and anything we try do about it will destroy the economy. It’s two completely different conversations.
It was difficult to see that there was much daylight between what Bushco implemented and what the conservative base wanted. When daylight was ever created, the far right base would push back and obtain concessions—remember the Bushco cave on Harriet Meyers and the switch to the pathological Alito? When has such a thing happened with the progressive base?
Here the simple low-hanging fruit of the Keystone decision has dragged on for years, demonstrates the scope of the “daylight” and will likely still end in defeat for environmentalists. Such a thing was inconceivable for conservatives with Bushco.
Further, Bushco openly conceived of itself as “conservative”, it overtly declared it was “conservative”. Has Obama ever claimed he is a progressive? Or lib’rul? Since such things are still anathema to the American boob, Obama couldn’t do so, even if he was one. And Hillary certainly isn’t going to describe herself thusly, either. So the daylight will continue….
No point trying to figure out “why not” because Booman’s prediction is incorrect. Paul Krugman has already provided a counterexample in his blog, and I don’t think he’ll be the only one. This is obviously not the be-all and end-all but it is a big effing deal, and plenty of people will recognize that.
It’s tricky. As far as doing anything at all, the plan is awesome. But as a plan, it really is inadequate. And that’s OK, actually, because any plan that’s based on executive authority will necessarily be inadequate, but that’s no reason not to be more ambitious. Where we’re at right now, it’s basically a question of mitigating the damage from climate change, not preventing it. So how much mitigation do we want? The best case scenario is where we cut carbon emissions to zero right now. That isn’t going to happen, obviously, but that should be the benchmark.
Just wondering…
Might this “war on coal” give Alison Grimes a way to distance herself from Obama if she moves toward Obamacare, as I hope she does?
good for the EPA
Well, this hardliner feels that any progress whatever on the most crucial issue facing the nation and world is obviously welcome. But because of the horrendous American “conservative” movement, decades have been squandered, decades filled with “conservative” lies and inaction, when it turns out that the short-term thinking humans didn’t actually have that much time to turn things around. So is this a half measure or is it enough to substantially reduce the insanity of burning massive ancient fossil fuel deposits for the foreseeable future?
It will be interesting to see what the climate scientists say about the scope of the proposed rules, whether they will really get us anywhere we desperately need to go, since most of the proposed power plant reduction goals have already been met. And a real climate “legacy” will require more than just the first rules on coal-fired plants—it will require action on ALL fronts (to use the war analogy), including the absurd Keystone scam on America.
As for the {Rightwing) “War on Coal” rhetoric, it’s a shame that so little has been done to get across the extreme necessity of reducing coal burning, and why exactly coal is indeed an enemy, as disastrous for the health of the planet as the Nazi Party was for the health of Europe. There is indeed a “war” on—except it’s a War on the Planet by BigOil and BigCoal, and they haven’t suffered any serious defeats to date.
Indeed, why simply have the EPA director announce this major step? Jesus, why not use it as the basis for an actual prime-time prez address to the nation (remember those)? That’s what is really needed—we need OUR rhetoric stepped up. Clearly, the concern is that action on the climate is a political hot potato–and as long as the “conservative” movement has no fear of its lying braindead denialism, it will keep on attacking.
Until Obama actually starts to express that our backs are already to the wall, that there already is a war on and we’re losing badly, this Rightwing “war” rhetoric will go unchallenged and continue persuade the ignorant, the misled and the propagandized. Time to (finally!) go on the offensive and attack, as the “conservative” enemy has no real argument (“I’m not qualified!”, “greatest hoax evah!” etc. etc.) It has only its oceans of money for lies and falsehoods to protect the profits of fossil fuel plutocrats–the true enemy.
When his plans are less ambitious than that of McCain’s 2008 plans, well, is it hyperbole to say that the plans aren’t good enough? Define hyperbole, because you seem to imply it means “stating the obvious truth” that this isn’t good enough to be meaningful, and will likely bear little if any fruit (as seen from Europe’s own cap-n-trade program).
Now if we don’t hand out so many permits as to make it worthless, it can work…in theory. Count me as skeptical that they’ll follow through with actual teeth, however.
both McCain’s 2008 plan and the President’s original plan in 2009 required an act of Congress, if you can explain to me how to get it through with our current Congress I’m all ears.
By leading. With leadership.
Yes and using the bully pulpit, I mean it worked for Teddy after all and he got shot once
Why does the plan need congressional authorization to be more ambitious? Is there a rule stating that once you try to go above 30% reduction in 2009 numbers by 2030 that Congressional authorization is needed?
There’s no reason why the EPA couldn’t have planned for 2020 reductions of at least 35 percent below 2005 levels, for example.
I’m not sure but I would guess that there are other aspects of society that go into the decision such as the economy and how much change it can handle at this point. Also, since most people who were making predictions thought 20% would be the high end of what to expect and the EPA announced 30% I think it’s probably a good start.
Goals need to be achievable too and if you make the number too big it’s more likely to be knocked down when it’s going slower than expected.
The 20% and 30% numbers are irrelevant, really. What matters is the baseline. A 30% reduction from one year could in fact be less reduction than 20% from another year.
Yes the goals need to be achievable, but if these goals are less than his campaign promise, I see no reason why those rules shouldn’t be pushed in the direction of his campaign promises, especially when it’s likely that the business community is going to actively try and water down what’s been proposed as is.
What is also true is that the doom and gloom wailing of economic hardship wrt environmental protection has almost always been wrong, as documented by KDrum:
Don’t Believe the Doom Mongering About Obama’s New Carbon Regs
And not to spam, but on this issue I’m a lot less willing to grade on a curve of what’s politically possible or feasible. We (people under 30 and beyond, and if the estimates turn out to be conservative (likely), then even more people) only have one shot at this. He doesn’t need Congress (though it’s preferable as it lasts past his admin). It needs to be more ambitious. The ACA needed legislation; Medicaid can’t just be expanded by HHS. The EPA, however, can enforce strong carbon regulations, stronger than what Congress is willing to pass (which at this point is nill). And with the only planet we have, it needs to be stronger than what’s proposed. Cap-n-trade in Europe was abysmal; carbon tax produced some benefits. Hopefully their mistakes will be learned from.
It’s true they can do what they want, but if you don’t want it reversed in the next administration, what’s politically feasible is important.