Obama can hide his climate policy from Congress, but he cant run away forever
US President, Barack Obama, is set to have another go at forcing the US to cut its greenhouse gas emissions. And it looks like he’s learned from the congressional bashing he took last time out. Instead of pushing for new legislation, the President appears set to introduce regulations that won’t need Congress’s approval.
Obama has made some bold statements about climate change in recent months, telling a Berlin audience this week that climate change was “the global threat of our time”. Environmentalists hope the President’s new package will prove more successful than his first term efforts. The US House of Representatives passed an Obama-backed climate change bill in 2009, but the Senate abandoned its efforts a year later after it became clear Republicans would not approve the bill.
That failure has led Obama down the regulatory route, circumventing Congress. While his strategy may lead to some short term gains, it risks creating longer term problems.
Short-term gain
The main advantage of implementing climate regulation is that it can start being effective without the need to involve Congress.
Legislation could take two years to pass and would be almost certain to fail as the Republicans currently control the House and the Democrats do not have a large enough majority to force legislation through the Senate.
Obama’s package won’t be announced until July but it is expected to include measures to curb coal power plant emissions, improve energy efficiency, and incentivise renewable energy development. Most of the regulations would be the responsibility of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and are based on existing legislation.
That seems like a smart move in short-term – but Obama’s attempts to smuggle climate controls past Congress could create serious problems later.
Litigation
This isn’t the first time the EPA has been asked to take responsibility for climate action in place of an intransigent Congress. A quick look back shows just how hard it may be to get the new package in place.
In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that it was the EPA’s job to regulate harmful greenhouse gas emissions under provision in the Clean Air Act. The decision has since been upheld in the face of numerous appeals.
While the EPA eventually came out on top in that fight, it was pretty bruising. Obama’s new regulations risk repeating history.
Sources “close to the EPA” told the Financial Times of concerns that the package isn’t robust enough to withstand the inevitable legal challenges. Going through the litigation rigmarole would suck up time, resources, and political capital Obama may wish to save for other items on his second term agenda.
While environmental groups say the new regulatory package shows Obama is serious about addressing climate change, their praise may be premature. Whether or not the President has the mettle to go twelve rounds in the courts will be the real test of his climate change commitment.
Polarisation
Choosing to circumvent the legislative process could act as a red rag to congressional Republicans. Obama’s actions are an open invitation for Republican legislators to claim climate action inevitably means big government, anti-enterprise regulation.
Republican ex-congressman Bob Inglis and former Heartland Institute vice-president Eli Lehrer yesterday gave a hint of what Obama’s opponents are likely to make of the climate package:
“To conservatives like us, complicated new regulation is our worst nightmare”.
And that’s coming from two conservatives who are ope to the prospect of climate policy. Just wait until Senator James Inhofe – who famously calls global warming “a hoax” – and his congressional buddies get wind of Obama’s plans.
By turning his back on Congress, Obama looks to be giving up on the idea that he can form a workable legislative consensus on climate change. His strategy may help cut the US’s emissions in the short-term, but it risks further polarising the climate change debate and creating problems for those he leaves in his wake.
Obama can hide, but he can’t run forever
The EPA may also suffer from Obama’s strategy. The agency is already unpopular with congressional conservatives and these measures will only make it more so.
Climate change is already a totemic issue used by liberals and conservatives alike to parade their ideological credentials and Obama’s approach will likely serve to encourage such displays. Likewise, a vocal minority already sees climate change as a mechanism for liberal ideologues to force big government agendas on an unsuspecting public and skipping over Congress could reinforce such suspicions.
Obama has decided to shove the cart down the hill in the hope the horse will chase after it. But in doing so, he is taking a big risk. If the US is to pull itself out of the litigious quagmire and garner a genuine, lasting groundswell of support for climate action, the President can’t run from Congress forever.