President won’t wait for Congress

President Obama’s unveiling of a national climate plan on June 25, 2013, is arguably the major environmental policy he has issued in his 4-plus years in the White House.  The plan is clearly intended to address what the president perceives as human contributions to climate change and appease the liberal environmental community that has been disappointed by the administration’s inability to push a climate bill through Congress.  In his speech, the president said that he is willing to work with Congress, but the nation cannot wait for partisan gridlock to clear up before acting more aggressively to mitigate the climate crisis.

So far, responses to the plan from environmental groups and congressional Democrats have been positive. 

“The president is taking up the mantle of educator-in-chief on climate change,” said Angela Anderson on behalf of the Union of Concerned Scientists.  “His speech was striking because it revealed a deep understanding of the consequences of climate change we’re already seeing.  He recognizes our responsibility to protect future generations and he made the case that our prosperity and our climate are intrinsically linked.”

 “The President is absolutely right to act now,” said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-CA), ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.  “We have a moral imperative to protect the environment for our children and future generations.  We are at a crossroads.  Every year we delay, the impacts will worsen and the costs will rise.  But if we act now, we can lead the world in developing the clean energy technologies of the future.”

But the business community and Republican lawmakers were unimpressed. 

“It is unfortunate that on a matter of such importance to all Americans that the administration has chosen to bypass our elected representatives in favor of unilateral actions and go-it-alone tactics,” said the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

“The pattern of behavior from this administration is to hide their true plans from the public and conduct business without transparency," said Senator David Vitter (D-LA), ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee  “Their plans, often developed in secret, result in job loss and added costs to taxpayers.  In almost the same breath, he laid the groundwork to implement regulations akin to a carbon tax – which would frustrate economic recovery; and waivered on the Keystone pipeline – which would obviously be a huge job creator.”

The president’s plan covers three areas: carbon pollution, preparation, and international actions.

Carbon pollution

Power plants.  The centerpiece of the plan is the regulation of greenhouse gases (GHGs) from new and existing fossil-fuel power plants.  The president actually said very little about this topic in his address.  However, a presidential memo released simultaneously by the White House focused entirely on power plants and listed the following specific actions:

• New power plants.  On April 13, 2012, the EPA proposed standards of performance for new fossil-fuel power plants.  In light of more than 2 million public comments on that proposal and ongoing developments in the industry, the EPA announced plans to issue a new proposal.  The memo instructs the EPA to publish that new proposal no later than September 13, 2013.  The memo further directs the Agency to issue a final rule in a “timely fashion” after considering all public comments, as appropriate.
• Modified, reconstructed, and existing power plants. The EPA is directed to propose carbon pollution “standards, regulations, or guidelines” for these facilities no later than June 1, 2014, and take final action on that proposal by June 1, 2015.  No later than June 30, 2016, states will need to submit their state implementation plans (SIPs) that describe how they will meet the final standards. 
• Development of standards.  The memo states that the EPA must “to the greatest extent possible” launch the GHG power plant regulations through “direct engagement with States, as they will play a central role in establishing and implementing standards for existing power plants, and, at the same time, with leaders in the power sector, labor leaders, non-governmental organizations, other experts, tribal officials, other stakeholders, and members of the public, on issues informing the design of the program.”  The final actions must also be tailored to reduce costs both to the industry and electricity consumers and make use of market-based instruments, performance standards, and “other regulatory flexibilities.”

Renewable energy.  The president set a goal to double electricity generation from wind, solar, and geothermal energy from current levels by 2020.  The president proposes to accomplish this by:

• Instructing the Department of Interior to issue permits for 10 gigawatts (GW) of renewable electric capacity on public lands by 2020;
• Encouraging expansion of hydropower generation at existing dams, including the Red Rock Hydroelectric Plant on the Des Moines River in Iowa as a high-priority permitting project;
• Deploying 3 GW of renewable capacity on military installations by 2025;
• Aiming to install 100 megawatts of renewable capacity for federally subsidized housing stock by 2020; and
• Directing federal agencies, through a June 2013 Presidential Memorandum, to streamline siting, permitting, and review of electricity transmission projects across federal, state, and tribal government processes.

Keystone XL pipeline.  The president did not offer encouragement to those calling for the State Department to approve the Presidential Permit needed to construct the pipeline on U.S. soil.  “[Our] national interest will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the impacts of carbon pollution,” said the president.  “The net effects of the pipeline’s impact on our climate will be absolutely critical to determining whether this project can go forward.”

Other elements covered by the president included eliminating tax incentives for fossil fuels; a $7.9 billion (30 percent) increase in funding across agencies for research, developing, and deploying clean energy technologies; increasing fuel economy standards for heavy-duty vehicles for the post-2018 model years; investing in research and development for advanced biofuels, advanced batteries, and fuel cells in every mode of transportation; reducing carbon emissions by 3 billion metric tons through energy efficiency standards for appliances and federal buildings; phasing down the use of hydrofluorocarbons; developing an interagency methane strategy, which includes plans to support production of oil and gas while reducing venting and flaring of methane; and restoring forests, wetlands, and other resources that remove carbon from the atmosphere.

Preparation

Actions called for by the president follow up on an October 2009 Executive Order (EO 13514) that directed federal agencies to include climate change adaptation strategies in their Strategic Sustainability Performance Plans.  The actions include:

• Directing agencies to identify and remove barriers to making climate-resilient investments; identifying and removing counterproductive policies that increase vulnerabilities; and supporting more resilient investments through agency grants, technical assistance, and other mechanisms. Climate risk management is to be fully integrated into federal infrastructure and natural resource management planning, Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Funds, grants for brownfields cleanup, and HUD grants to assist in recovery following Hurricane Sandy.
• Requiring that existing federal programs continue to provide targeted assistance to communities to prepare for the impacts of climate change, including through the Federal Highway Administration, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and annual federal Environmental Justice Progress Reports.
• Enhancing resilience in rebuilding following Hurricane Sandy through federal relief programs.  Programs that provide financial assistance include the Federal Transit Administration ($1.3 billion to locally prioritized projects to make transit systems more resilient to future disasters); Department of Interior ($100 million in competitive grants to promote resilient natural systems and $250 million in support projects for coastal restoration and resilience); and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ($20 million to study reducing the vulnerability of Sandy-affected coastal communities to future large-scale flood and storm events).
• Identifying and taking actions in specific sectors, including energy production, health care, insurance, land and water resource conservation and management, agriculture, and forestry.  These efforts would include launching a new National Drought Resilience Partnership and expanding forest and rangeland restoration to reduce those areas’ vulnerability to catastrophic fire.

International

Mainly because of congressional opposition, the United States has not legally committed itself to any international treaty to reduce its GHG emissions.  However, in 2009, during an international conference in Copenhagen, the president pledged to reduce U.S. GHG emissions by    17 percent by 2020 compared with 2005 levels.  In his speech, the president emphasized that the world still looks to the U.S. for leadership in climate change. 

The plan contains only one new international action–a call to end U.S. support for public financing of new coal-fired power plants overseas.  This call does not include the most efficient coal technology available in the world’s poorest countries and power plants that employ carbon capture and sequestration technology. 

International climate actions taken by the U.S. before the president’s speech include:

• Cooperating bilaterally with key major emerging economies.  Existing initiatives include the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center, the U.S.-India Partnership to Advance Clean Energy, and the Strategic Energy Dialogue with Brazil.  The president cites as an example an agreement between the U.S. and China in June 2013 to phase down production and consumption of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), a powerful GHG, under the Montreal Protocol.
• Negotiating a global free trade agreement on environmental goods and services under the World Trade Organization (WTO).  The plan calls for negotiation at the WTO of a plurilateral agreement to eliminate tariffs on environmental goods with countries that account for 90 percent of global trade in environmental goods.      
• Supporting reduction of emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) globally.  The U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) works bilaterally and multilaterally through the Forest Investment Program, the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, and the Tropical Forest Alliance 2020. 
• Supporting international cooperation to reduce so-called “super-pollutants,” gases and aerosol pollutants that are highly potent but short-lived once emitted to or formed from emissions in the atmosphere.  The Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Reduce Short-Lived Climate Pollution was formed among a group of like-minded countries in February 2012 to promote reduction of methane, black carbon, HFCs, and other pollutants with potent influence on the climate.

Congress Is Watching

In a report issued the day after the president’s speech, the Congressional Research Services (CRS) said that “for the most part,” the president’s plan envisions actions that do not require further authority from Congress; however, some would rely on appropriation of funds to specific programs.  The CRS notes that the Congressional Review Act empowers Congress to overturn an administration rule by enacting a joint resolution of disapproval.  But the resolution would need the president’s signature to take effect.  While the president’s approval of such a resolution would be extremely unlikely should the EPA finalize the power plant rules, the Congress may still proceed so that its opposition would be on record.  Congress still has the ability to enact climate change legislation that would coalesce the many independent executive branch actions addressed in the plan.

Again, a great deal of attention is now focused on the State Department’s upcoming announcement on whether the Keystone pipeline will receive the permit it needs.  A decision in either direction will be highly polarizing and will have a strong impact on how the president’s climate plan acquires or loses credibility. 

Click here for the president’s address.

Click here for the CRS report.

William C. Schillaci
BSchillaci@blr.com