OBAMA 2.O / ENVIRONMENT
But even after a year of recordbreaking heat, Obama embarks on
his second term against the backdrop of a Congress that remains
stubbornly divided on questions
of climate and conservation, leaving little hope these issues will be
addressed through broad-based
legislation, which the administration has long said was the preferred route for such measures.
That will leave the president with
a long list of demands and expectations from his environmental
base and only the comparatively
narrow corridors of his own regulatory authority through which
to pursue any of it — should he
choose to do so.
Earlier this month, leaders of
more than three dozen prominent
environmental and conservation
organizations issued a letter to
Obama, calling on him to use the
bully pulpit of his presidency to,
among other things, place global
warming front and center in the
national discourse.
Clark Stevens, a White House
spokesman, said the administration has climate change squarely
in its sights. “The president has
made clear that he believes that
climate change is real, that it is
impacted by human activity and
HUFFINGTON
01.27.13
that we must continue to take
steps to confront this threat,” Stevens said, ticking off the accomplishments of Obama’s first term.
The administration, he added,
“will continue to build on this
progress and climate change will
be a priority in his second term.”
That assertion — and a number
of other environmentally contentious issues — will be closely
watched over the next four years.
Among the hot spots:
POWER PLANT EMISSIONS
Back in 2007, the Supreme Court
ruled that if the EPA determined
that greenhouse gases were a
threat to human health, those
“A host of additional environmental
issues will confront the president
over the next four years. “
emissions must be regulated by
the agency under the Clean Air
Act. Two years later, the EPA under administrator Lisa Jackson
determined just that: carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases
are a public health threat. In the
months and years that followed,
the agency issued new curbs on
emissions from cars and light
trucks, as well as from any new
power plant.