Unfortunately, we came up short, and assembling congressional support for climate legislation now looks even more daunting. There is no reason for optimism that any time soon there will be enough votes in Congress to adopt comprehensive legislation that will stem the tide of harmful climate change.
Congress’s continuing failure to even begin to deal with the challenge of climate change has left President Obama and the EPA with no choice but to use their legal powers to try avert a climate catastrophe. It would be irresponsible not to do so.
The Supreme Court, in 2007, affirmed that the executive branch has all of the authority it needs under the Clean Air Act to require greenhouse gas reductions from existing power plants. As designed, the act gives the federal government the authority to set the pollution reduction targets, but it is the states that write the plans to meet those targets.
That process will reduce the carbon pollution in the air, and, as importantly, will bring constructive policymaking down to the state level, where creative governors and their administrations can design plans to reduce pollution and address their states’ individual needs. Implemented correctly, these programs will build examples of successful action that will hopefully increase comfort with their adoption and application nationally.
This effort is already working, even in coal-based and manufacturing states like Kentucky and West Virginia, which are drafting white papers discussing what might be done under their plans. Kentucky’s legislature recently passed a law to limit the state’s authority to regulate under the Clean Air Act, but it did so in a way that assumed the state would regulate carbon pollution.
Eventually, the scale and reality of the climate-change challenge will demand that we return to Congress for the more comprehensive solution that requires changes in law. The EPA regulations cannot solve the issue on their own. The agency’s actions, however, can stimulate the innovation in the states necessary to design smart approaches to reduce pollution that can be translated across the country. And if those programs succeed, they may also help us build political consensus to act, because their example will show that we do not have to choose between addressing climate change and growing the economy.
This week’s actions by President Obama and the EPA are the best we can do to address the problem in the politics of today. Hopefully, they also will be the first step to a better solution in the politics of tomorrow.