Will Obama Follow Through on his Climate Change Rhetoric?

During his inauguration speech and again in last night’s State of the Union speech, President Obama was pushing for action on climate change.  Last night he said:

“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…As long as countries like China keep going all-in on clean energy, so must we.”

And now, finally, he has the political capital to put that statement into action.  The only question is, will he?

According to this article, the president does indeed have the power — through the Environmental Protection Agency — to impose new greenhouse gas emission standards on ALL power plants, new and already-existing.  And the EPA also has the power to impose stricter emission standards on airplanes.

He also talked in his SOTU speech about “drilling for clean energy.”  Some of the revenue from oil and gas drilling on federal land would be used for research and development of alternate/sustainable energy sources.

We’ll see what Exxon Koch has to say about that.

Former EPA administrator Carol Browner said:

“The president was clear about the magnitude of the challenge and resolute in his determination to use his executive authority to take action, especially if Congress won’t.”

The president of the World Resources Institute — uh oh, Agenda 21 — said:

“The administration can make significant progress in reducing emissions...by enacting standards for existing power plants, which represent the largest portion of U.S. emissions.”

We’re gonna be seeing a lot of high-powered well-organized opposition to any action on climate change.  Mr. President, DON’T back down.