Speeches delivered by the president to a national television audience hew to this assumption: If the words and proposals survived vetting, the president must have wanted them there. So when, in his second inaugural and State of the Union addresses, President Obama devoted unexpectedly large passages to climate change, it did not go unnoticed.
“But for the sake of our children and our future, we must do more to combat climate change,” Obama said in the State of the Union. If Congress dithered, Obama warned, he would take executive action instead: “But if Congress won’t act soon to protect future generations, I will. 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.”
Was it an empty promise?
Grist’s Philip Bump smells weakness. Last week, Bump reported on a meeting he and a small group of reporters attended the morning after the SOTU with administration officials, including Nancy Sutley, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality and Heather Zichal, deputy assistant to the president for energy and climate. The reporters asked what steps Obama would take on climate absent action from Congress.
Here’s Bump:
“We’re not in a position to say, ‘These are the 15 things we’re going to do,’” Zichal said, “but I think the point here is that we have demonstrated an ability to really use our existing authority — permitting-wise, what we can do through the budget — to make progress.” She noted that the administration has opened up federal land to renewable-energy development and reduced greenhouse gas emissions from the government itself. And don’t forget the work done to improve the energy efficiency of walk-in freezers and battery chargers.
Bump pressed Zichal for details on the administration’s plans to regulate existing power plants:
“The president demonstrated last night that his preference, his stated goal, is that he would welcome an opportunity to work with Congress on a bipartisan, market-based approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” Zichal replied. “Whether or not that’s a reality certainly remains a question.”
Zichal repeated Obama’s commitment to the issue, and then said, “At this point in time, it would be a little premature to put the cart before the horse on existing sources, because we have yet to even finalize the proposal on new.”
In a follow-up post two days later, Bump cited a Politico story in which Obama was asked what executive action on climate might look like:
“The same steps that we took with respect to energy efficiency on cars, we can take on buildings, we can take on appliances, we can make sure that new power plants that are being built are more efficient than the old ones, and we can continue to put research and our support behind clean energy that is going to continue to help us transition away from dirtier fuels,” he said.
To which, Bump concludes: “Obama himself confirms that he’s not prepared to take drastic action in the absence of Congress doing anything. His threat, as we suggested two days ago, is empty.”
I’m not so sure.
Nowhere in the accounts above does Obama rule out ordering the EPA to regulate existing power plants, responsible for roughly one-third of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. A bruising confirmation battle awaits the next EPA administrator, no matter the nominee; the White House may simply be delaying the inevitable fight over regulation of the nation’s fleet of aging coal-fired power plants by not revealing plans or strategy until after the new administrator takes office.
Obama also appears ready to nominate Gina McCarthy, the current assistant administrator for the EPA Office of Air and Radiation, to succeed the recently departed Lisa Jackson. (The National Journal’s Coral Davenport tweeted yesterday that the announcement could come as early as Friday afternoon before reporting later that an announcement next week was more likely.)
In a profile of McCarthy published last week, Davenport reported that the EPA air chief has earned a reputation as tough but fair regulator from environmental advocates and industry representatives alike.
“At EPA, as a regulator, you’re always asking people to do things they don’t want to do,” Charles Warren, a Reagan administration EPA official who represents industries for Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel, told Davenport. “But Gina’s made an effort to reach out to industries while they’re developing regulations. She has a good reputation.” McCarthy's likely nomination is a signal that Obama expects the next EPA administrator to preside over four difficult years of rulemaking.
Last, comments from an unnamed senior Obama adviser, reported on Wednesday by the National Journal’s Ronald Brownstein, writing at Quartz, suggest the White House believes regulating coal-fired power plants is smart politics and won’t hurt the economy. Brownstein argues that Obama is “now in a better position to withstand—and even welcome—the confrontation with the energy industry” over EPA regulation thanks to political and economic shifts.
Brownstein writes that an EPA move on coal-fired power plants would mark the administration’s latest attempt, after pushes on immigration, gay rights, gun control, and the federal budget, to appeal to and motivate what he calls Obama’s “coalition of the ascendant” (young people, minorities, and socially liberal college-educated whites, especially women).
Here’s Brownstein:
One senior Obama adviser said the White House now believes that forcing the GOP to debate the issue will benefit Democrats politically by creating hurdles for the GOP with younger voters. “Republicans will eventually realize their position on climate for young people is the equivalent of their position on immigration for Latinos,” said the adviser.
The adviser also says that the White House believes that economic conditions, namely the shale gas boom, make regulating coal-fired power plants more feasible. Again, Brownstein:
If an (effective) ban on coal does produce a boon for natural gas, it could change the politics of regulation in two big respects. First, it would be harder to claim that new emissions limits would make electricity prices spike. As important, it means coal jobs lost through regulation would be replaced, and possibly exceeded, by jobs producing and distributing natural gas. The senior Obama adviser says this would strengthen Obama’s hand if the EPA acts. “There is no question that what is happening in domestic production…gives you a permission structure to take on this issue,” the adviser said. “There is a substitute [for coal] now. Before it was a leap of faith.” [my emphasis]
Is Obama’s pledge to act unilaterally on climate in the face of implacable (and largely Republican) opposition in Congress unfulfilled? Sure. But is it likely to prove “empty”? Hardly.
