With the House now in Republican hands and major losses for candidates backed by environmental groups, the only way forward in the fight to curb carbon emissions lies with the regulatory powers held by federal agencies. But as Grist notes, Obama seems pretty lukewarm on that idea.
A cap-and-trade bill passed the House in 2009, but no similar bill made it to the floor of the Senate. Ahead of last December's Copenhagen summit, the Obama administration warned that if Congress did not act, the Environmental Protection Agency may regulate carbon.
Obama was non-committal on the idea Wednesday, saying that federal authorities were not 'protective of their powers' but wanted to 'make sure that the issue's being dealt with.'
Obama also said he sees a way forward on some energy-independence initiatives that both parties agree on, but almost no one else does. Conservatives still deny that climate change is happening, and when they talk about reducing our dependence on foreign oil, it's in the context of drilling at home. Support for the methods most likely to serve as a stopgap between dependence on oil and clean energy -- like natural gas and carbon-capture methods for coal -- aren't the kinds of revolutionary changes progressives wanted to see the Obama administration make. But Obama acts as though he believes those are the best options on the table, when forcefully asserting his executive authority to make changes could go a long way, too.
-- Monica Potts
