Climate Politics

Energy Future Coalition calls for more efficiency funds in stimulus bill

A coalition of environment, labor, and business groups is petitioning Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to increase funding for energy efficiency in the Senate economic stimulus package, at least to the level in the already-passed House version of the bill. The Energy Future Coalition is promoting a “Rebuilding America” plan that would retrofit 50 […]

Schumer calls for increase in transit funding in stimulus package

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is pushing to get more mass-transit money into the Senate version of the economic stimulus package, teaming up with Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a fellow New York Democrat, who successfully squeezed an additional $3 billion for transit into the House stimulus bill last week. “In order for our economy to get the […]

EPA Administrator Jackson's first public appearance

Those of you who did not make it to New York on Jan. 29-30 for the 20th anniversary celebration of WE ACT for Environmental Justice, a national conference on Advancing Climate Justice: Transforming the Economy, Public Health and Our Environment, missed an inspirational high. You also missed a political milestone.

The event marked the first public speech by new EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, who laid out the nation's new environmental-justice and climate-change priorities. President Obama echoed Jackson's sentiments and made a statement to the Muslim world by giving his first TV interview to Al Arabiya television.

Civilized, reasoned discussion and debate on environmental health and inequality, on the complexities of climate change economics, on cap-and-trade, cap-and-dividend, carbon charges, and on greening the economy as we invest in new infrastructure framed the formal content. But those substantive sessions were just the subtext.

Barney Frank on why tax cuts can’t do it all

“I never saw a tax cut fix a bridge. I never saw a tax cut give us more public transportation. The fact is, we need a mix.” — Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chair of the House Financial Services Committee, refuting arguments from Republicans that the economic stimulus bill should be scrapped in favor of their […]

John Podesta talks tough on Obama’s energy plan

“If people want to continue in practices that were more appropriate in the 1950s than today, then I think that they’re going to have to understand that Obama campaigned on a promise of energy transformation. And he intends to fulfill it.” — John Podesta, Obama’s transition chief and president of the Center for American Progress

Obama may be able to implement cap-and-trade under the Clean Air Act — but should he?

The following is the fourth in a series of guest posts from the Constitutional Accountability Center, a progressive legal think tank that works on constitutional and environmental issues. It is written by online communications director Hannah McCrea and president Doug Kendall, who also help maintain CAC's blog, Warming Law. (Part I, Part II, Part III)

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In previous posts, we've spelled out specific steps President Barack Obama can take to encourage Congress to pass legislation establishing a strong cap-and-trade program. Yet there has been speculation as to whether the President already has the authority, under the Clean Air Act, to establish a cap-and-trade program without waiting for Congress to act.

In actuality, there is no straightforward answer to whether the administration can introduce cap-and-trade for CO2 under the CAA. For one thing, the EPA has never successfully implemented a cap-and-trade program for any pollutant without congressional approval. The Bush administration tried twice, once with the Clean Air Mercury Rule (regulating mercury emissions) and again with the Clean Air Interstate Rule (regulating sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide emissions), though both programs were ultimately struck down by the D.C. Circuit on unrelated grounds. (Note: The D.C. Circuit temporarily reinstated the Clean Air Interstate Rule in December in order to preserve its environmental benefits while the EPA promulgates new rules. However, the court made clear that it still viewed the program as unlawful.)

The only time cap-and-trade has been permitted to go forward is when it was explicitly approved in CAA provisions, as was the case with the EPA's famous Acid Rain Program regulating SO2 and NOx. Georgetown Law professor (and newly-appointed EPA adviser) Lisa Heinzerling noted in testimony [PDF] before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce that this by itself might be grounds for prohibiting cap-and-trade for CO2 under other sections of the Act, "because [the acid rain] provisions explicitly permit emissions trading, it might be argued that the provisions that do not mention trading do not allow it." (Emphasis added.)

Precedent thus provides little insight as to whether a full-fledged cap-and-trade program for CO2 emissions under the existing CAA would withstand a court challenge. Moreover, Heinzerling's congressional testimony reveals that while certain provisions of the CAA lend themselves to establishing targets for CO2 emissions, the language of the Act only somewhat supports then using cap-and-trade as the mechanism for reducing total emissions. She concedes:

RNC chooses as new leader the author of 'drill, baby, drill'

After a contentious and somewhat clownish leadership battle, the Republican National Committee has finally (after six ballots) chosen its next leader: Former Maryland Lt. Governor Michael Steele.

Which gives me an excuse to share a little-known factoid: it was actually Steele -- not Sarah Palin, not Newt Gingrich, not Rudy Giuliani -- who coined the slogan "drill, baby, drill," which is likely to go down in history as the apotheosis of Republican intellectual achievement in the early 21st century.

I was there -- it was the third day of the RNC in St. Paul; Steele was one of the introductory speakers. Prior to this the slogan was "drill here, drill now, pay less," which works for a bumper sticker but is too long and complex for the right's base. It was Steele who freestyled the somewhat more digestible and catchy version.

It obviously caught Palin's ear, because she repeated it in her speech, and then it took off.

Congratulations, GOP. You've chosen well. Or at least appropriately.

The Clean Air Act is President Obama's key to triggering cap-and-trade

The following is the third in a series of guest posts from the Constitutional Accountability Center, a progressive legal think tank that works on constitutional and environmental issues. It is written by online communications director Hannah McCrea and president Doug Kendall, who also help maintain CAC's blog, Warming Law. (Part I, Part II)

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A debate has been rumbling over whether it is possible for the EPA to establish a cap-and-trade program for carbon emissions under the existing Clean Air Act. We'll discuss that debate in Part IV of this series. Setting aside that debate for a moment, the Act can still serve as an important catalyst for congressional action on climate change, if used effectively by the new Obama administration. Happily, Obama's all-star climate team seems to clearly understand this important truth.

The history here by now qualifies as environmental lore. Back in 1999, a group of concerned organizations, led by the tiny but bold International Center for Technology Assessment, petitioned the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases under the CAA, arguing that the threat to human populations posed by climate change meant each of these chemicals fell within the Act's definition of an "air pollutant" that "endangers public health or welfare." After several years of legal prodding, and under Bush-appointed leadership, the EPA denied the petition. EPA claimed it did not have the authority to regulate GHGs and that, even if it did, it would defer regulation until climate science and policy, including foreign policy, became better developed.

Several U.S. states and environmental groups then challenged the EPA's decision in federal court, ultimately resulting in a landmark 5-4 Supreme Court ruling against the EPA issued in April 2007. The Court not only held that the EPA had the authority to regulate GHGs under the CAA, but that it was unjustified in delaying its action based on policy considerations not enumerated in the CAA itself.

The Court's ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA [PDF] was an historic moment in the fight against climate change. With federal action at an alarming standstill, the highest court in the land informed former President Bush that his administration already had the power it needed to address GHG emissions on a national level. Specifically, the Court held that the EPA could apply its broad authority under the CAA to regulate CO2 as a pollutant, and therefore did not need to wait for Congress to begin aggressively addressing climate change on a more comprehensive basis.

Kansas legislature reviving last year’s coal fight

The Kansas legislature is once again attempting to pass a bill to get two new coal-fired power plants built in the southwestern part of the state, an attempt to override state environmental officials. Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has gone head to head with Sunflower Electric Power and the legislature on this issue. The battle began in […]

President Obama should clear the way for state innovation on climate policy

The following is the second in a series of guest posts from the Constitutional Accountability Center, a progressive legal think tank that works on constitutional and environmental issues. It is written by online communications director Hannah McCrea and president Doug Kendall, who also help maintain CAC's blog, Warming Law. (Part I)

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In a 1932 dissenting opinion, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously wrote: "It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens chose, serve as a laboratory, and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country."

In the absence of federal action on climate change under the Bush administration, state and local governments have been taking advantage of this "happy incident" by passing measures that will reduce their contribution to global warming. Last September, ten northeastern states began auctioning allowances in the country's first mandatory regional cap-and-trade program, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), while several western states began working with Canadian provinces to set up a similar program under the Western Climate Initiative.

Signaling that the nexus of leadership in U.S. climate policy lies currently at the state level, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger hosted the Governors' Global Climate Summit in November, ostensibly to facilitate a high-level meeting between international and American leaders that bypassed the federal government. Unsurprisingly, California has led state efforts in advancing climate policy, and is currently in the process of adopting the largest and most comprehensive greenhouse gas reduction program in the country. These initiatives signal that Justice Brandeis's vision of states as "laboratories" of regulation is very much alive in the realm of climate policy.

Of course, state innovation has been most visible (and most contentious) when it comes to auto emissions standards, as seen with this week's blockbuster news that President Barack Obama is ordering the EPA to revisit the California waiver denial. As Grist readers may recall, in 2004 California formally adopted the "Pavley standards," an aggressive enhancement of auto emissions standards that would require a 30 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions for new vehicles by 2016. Normally, states aren't allowed to depart from federal auto emissions standards in this way, but under Section 209 of the Clean Air Act, California has special permission to set better-than-federal fuel economy standards, provided it obtains a waiver of preemption from the EPA. Once California gets a waiver, other states are allowed to adjust their own standards to match California's, creating a mechanism in which states gradually bring about a nation-wide reduction in auto emissions.