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Barack Obama’s on Thin Green Ice
Darren Samuelsohn, Politico
President Barack Obama’s relationship with environmentalists sits on thin ice after a major league meltdown over whether he will really defend their biggest demand: EPA climate change rules.
President Barack Obama’s relationship with environmentalists sits on thin ice after a major league meltdown over whether he will really defend their biggest demand: EPA climate change rules. Tensions have crossed into the danger zone between the two camps after a year of cross-ups, including the failure to get a cap-and-trade bill through the Senate and Obama’s embrace of what historically have been green no-no’s like oil drilling and nuclear power.
Angst grew this week after Obama failed to use a major energy policy speech at Georgetown University to explicitly back the EPA’s global warming agenda. Then, in what might have begun as a misunderstanding over acronyms, the AP reported that the president was leaning on House Democrats to accept a GOP-authored budget rider that would thwart EPA’s greenhouse gas regulations.
The White House furiously denied the story, but the fate of the budget debate over the next eight days could govern the relationship between the administration and environmental community through the 2012 election.
(2 April 2011)
Obama’s Vow to Cut Oil Imports Sounds Familiar
Melinda Burns, Miller-McCune
… Half of U.S. oil imports come from the Western Hemisphere, mainly Canada and Venezuela, and about 17 percent come from the chaotic Persian Gulf region — from Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. In a preview of its forthcoming Annual Energy Outlook to 2035, the federal Energy Information Administration estimates that the price of crude oil in 2035 will be $125 per barrel (using 2009 dollars as a constant). The current price of oil is $106 per barrel. Absent any new policies aimed at reducing imports or consumption, the U.S. will still be importing about 40 percent of its oil in 2035, the forecast said. The full report will be released on April 26.
In his speech, Obama talked about a “clean energy standard,” his goal for getting 80 percent of the nation’s electricity from clean sources by 2035. He promised to help strengthen incentives for biofuels, improve the fuel-efficiency of heavy trucks, boost the production of American batteries for electric cars, and seek “historic investments” in high-speed rail and mass transit so that America could “win the future.”
“… the only way for America’s energy supply to be truly secure is by permanently reducing our dependence on oil,” Obama said. “We have to find ways to boost our efficiency so that we use less oil. We have to discover and produce cleaner, renewable sources of energy with less of the carbon pollution that threatens our climate. And we have to do it quickly.”
But does the country have the will to do it?
(31 March 2011)
Obama’s “Secret” Climate Adaptation Plan
Michael Cote, GOOD magazine
On March 4th, in a move surely designed to side-step Congress, Obama’s Council on Environmental Quality issued instructions to all federal agencies on how to adapt to climate change. All agencies, from the Food and Drug Administration to the Department of Defense, will be required to analyze their vulnerabilities to the impacts from climate change and come up with a plan to adapt. Thousands of governmental employees will be trained on climate science, like it or not.
The changes aren’t limited to just federal agencies. Countless numbers of private businesses that sell, build, provide logistics or maintenance, or anything else to the government will be forced to comply with new Federal climate adaptation guidelines—all because of Presidential Executive Order 13514.
How far reaching is this adaptation action? The National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) is holding a training and workshop conference on Obama’s Executive Order in May. NDIA is the primary private industry group that supports the Department of Defense. To be clear, NDIA connects the DoD to bomb makers Raytheon, bullet manufacturers Sierra Bullets, and the designer of the stealth bomber, Northrup-Grumman. Now NDIA is training defense contractors on climate science and analysis based on a little known Executive Order.
How did this happen?
(28 March 2011)
