The niding, nithering, naysayers keep searching for the issue to bring President Obama down, moving from health care to Olympics to climate change legislation. Part of the Goppies' strategy is fear-mongering lies, delay and obstructions, like delaying health care reform to delay climate change reform to neuter Obama's effectiveness with negotiations in Copenhagen.
The naysayers love that climate change news can be frightening, depressing, and sometimes complicated and continue to obstruct with their counter plan of no votes in Congress.
However, just looking at news from the past week, Obama does not need Congressional legislation to address climate change. Indeed, Obama, States, communities, nations, environmental groups, and businesses are working now to address climate change. Congress can join or find itself irrelevant.
TOP STORY: Obama's takes steps to enhance U.S. position at Copenhagen (or how to flip the bird at naysaying GOP while protecting people and planet).
President Obama is not likely to sign climate change legislation before the Copenhagen meeting that starts in December, partially due to GOP delay and obstruction strategy. The naysayers, "patriotic" as they are, were hoping to handicap Obama's negotiation with foreign countries on climate change. They pursued this strategy, knowing that many have issued "dire warnings that failure to agree on a post-Kyoto treaty to limit greenhouse gas emissions is a matter of life and death". Foreign leaders have stated clearly: "There is no plan B. If we do not realize plan A, we go straight to plan F, which stands for failure." And that's what the naysayers want, Obama to fail.
The GOP is banking on countries that are nervous about a repeat of Kyoto, where Clinton supported the measure but Senate rejected. Some have expressed concern, supported by polling data, that Americans are generally climate change illiterate, which the GOP can use to prevent real climate change reform.
Well, here's some news for the blithering naysayers. While the EPA prefers that Congress set up the cap-and-trade system, if Congress does not pass legislation, the EPA could work with the states to accomplish the same:
Browner, a former U.S. EPA administrator during all eight years of the Clinton administration, left open the door on a cap-and-trade system being set up if Congress never passes a law doing the same. She cited EPA's effort in the 1990s in issuing a model rule to help states set up a cap-and-trade system for smog-forming nitrogen oxides. EPA did that even though it didn't think it had the federal authority to set up a cap-and-trade system on its own, she said.
"There are ways it can be done," she said, before adding, "It's much better if Congress does it."
In fact, Obama can use the EPA to extend state carbon market programs. If all states adopt climate change programs, then there is a national system without using Congress:
Ten eastern U.S. states have formed the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. In addition, California and several other states in the West plan to regulate six greenhouse gases from smokestacks and tailpipes beginning in 2012.
Obama is not sitting around hoping that Congress will do the right thing, but has provided a little nudge in the form of the EPA moving to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and large industrial facilities.
This move by Obama outfoxes the GOP wanting to impact international agreements because Obama's proposed rule will regulate the same group of 6 greenhouse gases governed by the Kyoto Protocol. These actions can provide some evidence to other countries negotiating at Copenhagen sufficient to move forward with an effective agreement to combat climate change.
Obama does not stand alone. States are also working with the international community to address climate change issues. At the Governors' Global Climate Summit, 30 governors and senior officials from around the world backed a strong Copenhagen agreement and agreed to work together on other solutions for global warming.
In addition to Obama, States, and global leaders, 1,000 U.S. mayors (representing 85 million Americans) have signed a climate protection pledge to make their cities more energy efficient.
This past week also brought examples of how the drafting of climate change legislation by Congress has had beneficial impacts on both the courts and businesses that address climate change solutions:
There were more examples from this past week of businesses changing to climate change smart, new technologies permitting innovative measures and energy efficiency measures employed by States and cities:
BUSINESSES GET CLIMATE CHANGE SMART
Businesses know that climate change will hurt economy as well as environment: Report found that "climate change could cost nations up to 19 percent of their GDP by 2030."
INNOVATIVE MEASURES
ENERGY EFFICIENCY
This week also focused on how climate change impacts water and natural resources.
WATER & NATURAL RESOURCES
Climate Change News is new environmental series created by Meteor Blades and Patriot Daily to highlight the historic U.S. legislation and international treaties currently debated.
Please join us each Sunday at 7 pm PDT.
This series balances the issues by presenting the bad news so that we can work toward addressing them AND by presenting the good news of how President Obama, states, communities, businesses, environmental groups and the world are moving ahead with climate change reforms that don't need GOP votes.