President Obama's Climate Change Action Plan - Details

With enough of Congress (in bed with entrenched fossil fuel industries) thwarting the will of the people, it's good to see this coming from the executive branch. This is the most assertive action on the environment from the President since 2009.


Summary:

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/20...erm-plan-to-address-climate-change/?mobile=nc

Read the details here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...the-white-houses-big-new-climate-change-plan/


Some progress has already been made, as greenhouse gas emissions for 2011 were 7% below 2005 levels, even as GDP was 5-6% higher. Coal has been replaced by natural gas and renewables, and Americans have reduced their usage of energy through efficiency.


Full transcript of the speech here:


http://thinkprogress.org/climate/20...peech-unveiling-plan-to-cut-carbon-pollution/

Overall, the speech was well-received among experts and activists.

http://www.livescience.com/37742-obama-climate-change-plan-reactions.html


Meanwhile, in places like California, where specific climate change mitigation action has been implemented, unemployment has fallen by 3.5%, and clean energy jobs are outpacing other sectors. What's good for the environment is often what's good for the economy.


http://theenergycollective.com/silv...-cap-and-trade-auction-sells-out-record-price

Just 2 years ago, fossil fuel shills (with no evidence) were declaring economic and fiscal gloom and doom would result in California, worsening 12% unemployment. The rate is 9% now.

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Colum...lifornias-New-Way-to-Self-Destruct.aspx#page1

Like President Obama stated:

The American people largely agree with the President.

http://www.georgetown.edu/news/georgetown-poll-climate-change-action.html


74-21 support-oppose in this poll:


http://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...3cc2986-e984-11e1-9739-eef99c5fb285_page.html


President Obama: We don’t have time for a meeting of the flat earth society.

 

Hussein Obama's war on the American people escalates.

Jobs will be hit hard.
Electric power will become VERY expensive and unreliable.
Consumers will be saddled with inferior products.
Taxpayers will be gouged worse than ever.

"...pursue solutions across federal and state governments and the private sector..."

Taxcutter translates into English:
More regulations and more taxation.

If there is one silver lining in all this it is that all regulations and taxes that come from it are only built on an Executive Order. A rational President can eliminate all of it with a stroke of a pen.

 

Your claims are comically alarmist and not supported by any rational analysis. Fossil fuel addicts roll out such claims anytime they face pollution regulations.

 

yeah I am sure once the people see the increase on their power bills they will just be ecstatic over this. I bet all those oil and coal state voters are just tickled to death also

this plus gun control plus Obama care will guarantee and GOP House and Senate in 2015

 

Your track record on predictions:

http://www.politicalforum.com/curre...ma-tied-49-percent-ohio-2.html#post1061880723

http://www.politicalforum.com/elect...al-election-predictions-3.html#post1061911967

Rasmussen and Gallup right-wing bias aside, polls are usually close to reality.

I thought this poll question was revealing:

United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll

"Has the hurricane made you believe that Congress and the President should address climate change more urgently even if it means enacting regulations that some say could raise the cost of electricity and other energy?"

Yes: 74%
No: 20%

http://www.pollingreport.com/enviro.htm

Besides the large public support for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, I find it interesting the support often holds with such loaded questions. Coal already has enormous external costs everyone is paying, whether or not it shows up in your electric bill.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/true-cost-of-coal-power.html

 

I don't buy your take on this. Do you have evidence to support your predictions?
You say jobs will be hit hard. How so? This will open up one or more job sectors. Electric power isn't all that expensive, and the price of harnessing green energy is getting cheaper as time goes on. The price of upgrading our nuclear power plants to make sure they are safe will be tremendous as will the cost of maintaining our current dependency on carbon fuel sources. The inferior product argument is quickly weakening. People are buying products that save energy more and more because the cost of carbon based energy is rising. Tax payers have been gouged for decades from the oil companies. Once we stop relying on them, we should see a tax break as long as our politicians will stop handing money out to companies that make billions in profits.

 

I am going to criticize the President's plan from an environmental perspective:

Stricter regulations do nothing to counteract cost shifting. The way to reducing carbon emissions in an environmentally responsible manner throughout the production process for both suppliers and customers is through the imposition of a simple carbon emissions tax system. A carbon emissions tax easily internalizes the cost of the negative externality within the production process, and does not necessarily lead to as much cost shifting as new regulations. Also, it is easier incentivized through reduction and or eliminate of other business taxes. As a libertarian and an environmentalist, I propose that the President eliminate all local, state, and federal taxes currently under law, and replace them with three taxes capable of generating the same or greater amount of revenue: a general transaction tax, a financial transactions tax, and a carbon emissions tax (or more broadly, a class of GHG emissions taxes). We can reduce government, stimulate the economy, and protect the environment all at the same time.

The first step to increasing renewable energy usage is by creating a level playing field between fossil fuels and alternative energy sources. This requires elimination of all energy subsidies. I think you will find that in a few years after this policy is put in place, the cost of fossil fuels in comparison to alternative energy will be about even, and as society becomes more educated and innovative in its efforts of creating renewable energy sources, the market will turn in renewable energy's favor. All that the government needs to do in terms of an extra nudge is ensure that fossil fuels companies have the rules, regulations, and legislation that favor them repealed.

While this is an excellent idea proposed by the Obama Administration, I also know that this administration is incredibly duplicitous when it comes to transparency on any matter. I do not believe for one second that the American public will have enough information to truly empower themselves to make good decisions when it comes to ecological sustainability. For that to truly happen, the President would have to begin revealing information that is currently filed under one of the many exceptions of the FOIA, and that is not going to anytime soon.

Again, if the market is truly allowed to find an equilibrium regarding energy, I can assure you that matters such as fuel standards will become obsolete problems of the government. Oil and natural gas have very little room for innovation. The last major innovation in the fossil fuels sector was the discovery of hydraulic fracturing by Haliburton. That innovation occurred in the 1940s, and it has taken over 50 years for the practice just to become economical. Solar and wind energy are progressing faster through private sector innovation alone. I would not be worried about the fossil fuels industry out-innovating the renewables industry in a race to the top.

I agree with this policy for federal buildings, as that is an entirely intra-governmental regulation, but for appliances, I think the issue is much more institutional. We need to be encouraging individual self-reliance through ecological sustainability. Having people voluntarily go off the grid by putting wind turbines and solar panels to provide them with electricity, using well water and rainwater for drinking water, laundry, and showers, and encouraging back-to-the-earth initiatives through community food and agriculture initiatives that promote the consumption of low-energy food preparation techniques are excellent ways of accomplishing such.

Efficient housing does require mandated standards, but voluntary changes to lifestyles. It requires that people empower one another to go off the grid, provide their own energy, water, and to be innovative through their own creative visions with the goal of creating the most efficient and sustainable housing possible. We should not be standardizing energy efficiency; we should be allowing markets to build around the idea of energy efficiency.

Again, allowing people to voluntarily change their lifestyles, not government imperatives, is the way to go. Super pollutants can be easily reduced simply be further encouraging the use of public transportation and carpooling, harkening back to simplistic everyday practices of food and water collection, and promotion of civil society initiatives increasing public awareness of the dangers of forest fires. Most people I know would gladly go back to living a more ecologically wise lifestyle. They just do not like it when a higher authority tells them that they have to, and neither do I. Human beings work accomplish the most when left to their own devices. Leave people like me to their own devices and we will clean up the planet one person at a time.

This one is as easy as pie. The government does not need to increase loans to utility companies and farmers. Simply allow utilities companies the greatest amount of economic freedom to provide alternative energy sources to their customers, and I am certain that customers will choose them. Also, deregulate agriculture and farming, eliminate the USDA, (if need be) charge Monsanto for innumerable national and international criminal offenses, redistribute farmlands among interest individuals (not companies), and allow said individuals to begin experimenting with a variety of agricultural practices, and, if I know the individual American well enough, they will overwhelmingly favor food production and collection processes that are organic, lack GMOs, support community cooperative and individual community gardens, and that are self-sustainable through on-site composting and recycling efforts.

I will respond to the other aspects of the plan in due time. For right now, I will let these thoughts simmer on these fora.

 

I appreciate the rational discourse (little of that here usually). Since you're responding to summary points, you're often not specifically addressing the actual elements of the plan, and your points often trail off in to less related topic (such as into GMOs).

Here is the PDF of the full plan.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/image/president27sclimateactionplan.pdf

I'll give you a chance to update your points based on the details. For example, the last summary point you're responding to is expanded here:

Specifically, this program addresses energy efficiency in rural areas. Why such a specific loan program is a good idea is because these individuals/businesses tend to be cash strapped and up-front costs for energy efficiency improvements (although they may pay off in the long run) are particularly high in these areas.

I agree that a price on carbon, with some sort of dividend revenue return approach, is the best way to go, but that's stalled in Congress. It's also not the only effective way to get the job done. Executive actions are Plan B. Plan C, the least effective, is to do nothing but offer verbal encouragement for individuals to personally reduce emissions voluntarily. That is also business-as-usual. It is marginally effective at most. It's a Tragedy of the Commons problem. Such problems require groups initiatives. The plans are not mutually exclusive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

 

I am well aware of the Tragedy of the Commons. It is something discussed throughout any international relations and affairs class, my occupational discipline. With that being said, there are also ample ways of civil society, aka group initiatives done through private efforts, of fighting the Tragedy of the Commons. I am partial to efforts on this variety, as opposed to coercive varieties done via the state, mainly because the state has proven to have trouble dealing with the Tragedy of the Commons. In my opinion, letting the state be the primary driver of combatting global warming/climate change is business-as-usual, particularly when the state and the state-centered international system has proven to be ignorant, duplicitous, and/or half-hearted in its efforts. I use the Rio+20 Summit from a few years ago as an example of the inaction of the state and state-centered international system in combatting global warming/climate change. In a statement of solidarity, practically all environmental civil society organizations walked out of the plenary meetings scheduled for them in opposition to the half-hearted commitments by states and multinational corporations in combatting global warming/climate change, environmental degradation, and in promotion of sustainable development. For me, the power of the state and its pertinent and protected institutions are the worst means of actually fundamentally altering the way our country tackles environmental issues, and if the power of the state must be used, it is best to keep the initiatives as simple as possible, hence why I am not a fan of using the regulatory system in combatting global warming/climate change, and instead favor more simplistic efforts, like a basic carbon dioxide emissions tax devoid of carbon trading or other incentives. I will address the points in the plan in further detail in due time, but for now, this is my general philosophy on environmentalism.

 

I'd offer up the Clean Air Act and its amendments as proof positive that government actions do work.

http://grist.org/article/2010-10-07-clean-air-act-cheaper-more-effective-than-industry-predicts/

http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpres...f8ad3485e788be5a8525784600540649!OpenDocument

In fact, it's the Clean Air Act that now authorizes the EPA to take action on greenhouse gas reductions, some of which just started to take effect in 2011. Proof is already in the pudding.

True enough that halfhearted efforts are going to get halfhearted results, and international agreements often fall prey to the lowest common denominator. But that's a matter of political will, not a failure of the regulation itself. The effectiveness of government action is a product of how strong it is.

Back to the Tragedy of the Commons, the individual, even if convinced of the problem and a need to reduce pollution, is not going to feel it's effective unless most others are doing it, and thus may have less incentive to do it. That's one problem with simply saying it's a matter of individual encouragement or public education. That's why many people support the government taking action on the matter, willing to accept emissions reductions personally when it's done broadly (see polls on the matter), as their own efforts won't happen in vain. Of course, there are others that are against any sort of government regulation, perhaps deeply distrusting government, but you could argue that's another matter of individual encouragement.

 

Yes, we know progressives love when Obama goes around Congress and acts like a dictator. Many thrills up the leg.

Oh, so that's why they are using less gas. It couldn't be because the economy is still in the (*)(*)(*)(*)ter and gas is twice as high as it was when he took office.

Unemployment in California remains near the highest in the nation, with "green jobs" companies losing billions of stimulus dollars.

http://www.pe.com/local-news/local-news-headlines/20130624-barstow-calico-solar-plans-withdrawn.ece

78% of Republicans support some type of conservation initiative, not Obama's entire package of climate change distractions.

You've earned your Democrat knee pads. Way to regurgitate Thinkprogress talking points.

 

It is not regulation in general that I dislike. Regulation, when done properly, works wonders. International organizations like the UN and their imperatives are almost completely built on governance, aka regulation. However, excessive regulation creates bureaucratic ambiguity, legal complexity, and economic uncertainty to the point that individuals and businesses resort to cost shifting rather than cost internalization, which merely perpetuates the Tragedy of the Commons. That is simply a fact of regulation, one that I knew for a while intuitively, but which was reaffirmed by a former Obama Administration Regulatory Czar's Foreign Affairs article on this exact matter. Regulations work best when they are simple, have a clear cost/benefit ratio, preferably one that has more benefits for as many entities as possible, and, when dealing with matters of environmental protection, one that internalizes negative externalities, aka costs, as opposed to shifting them.

Behavioral economics can reaffirm this notion. One of the key discoveries that behavioral economists have made with regards to societal entities is that humans often make decisions based on heuristics, or rules of thumb, as opposed to logic. With that being said, the owner of, say, a power plant may not react to stricter standards on carbon dioxide emissions by considering all the economic and ecological factors involved, and coming to a general rational decision. The power plant owner will likely use what limited knowledge he knows about business economics and, following suit, shift the costs of the negative externality onto his consumers, his workers, or both. In a broad-based cost/benefit analysis, the stricter regulations end up being rather detrimental, and on a larger, institutional basis, have cascading effects upon future public policy where businesses apply for exemptions from given regulations, or actively lobby to eliminate certain regulations, creating even more market inefficiencies and failures. To avoid these matters altogether, the government should reduce, streamline, and simplify the regulations on carbon dioxide emissions. That does not mean limiting the strength of the regulations themselves, but making the regulations clear, concrete, and easier to respond to.

So, what should the Obama Administration do? It should begin by having its officials toil through the hundreds of thousands of environmental regulations with greater ferocity than they already do, eliminating, consolidating, and simplifying any and all provisions that do not have clear, direct impact upon combatting global warming/climate change. Among the regulations that do work, he should order the streamlining and strengthening of their substance. More broadly speaking, the President should be pursuing a pro-business, pro-environment economic initiative by restructuring the tax code so that reduction of carbon dioxide emissions via a carbon emissions tax become more feasible and politically tolerable, namely by offering counter-proposals on taxation policy that satisfy the Republican Party, like the elimination of all existing local, state, and federal taxes with a general transactions tax and a financial transaction tax, both of which can sustain current government revenues while alleviating individual and business tax burdens by at least 50 percent, although on average probably closer to 75 percent. In this way, you actually make efforts at combatting global warming/climate change not only economically tolerable, but more ecologically centered as opposed to economically concerned, particularly over the long-run.

As for the Clean Air Act, I do not know enough about the law, its pertinent regulations, and the science behind them to actually provide a thoughtful response to the two articles you posted. I would have to first do an extensive amount of research to first fully accept the substance of those articles, then I would need to develop my thoughts on the law more concretely to give an informed opinion on the subject. Until then, I am just going to keep your statements and supporting evidence as food for thought.

 

lets see what happens when people in the coal and oil industry see their jobs disappearing and everyone sees their electric bills going up. Just guessing here but I don't think they will be happy with Obama

 

Regulations increase costs and decrease choice to the consumer.

Increased costs must be passed on. Prices go up and volume goes down. How much varies by product.

In all this there is one common denominator: The consumer gets hammered.

Obama cannot get around the intermittent nature of wind & solar, nor their very high maintenance costs. So he works to make everything else more expensive. The big loser is the consumer.

Best I can tell, Obama hates consumers.

 

"You say jobs will be hit hard. How so?"

Taxcutter says:
All goods and services have an energy cost component. Be it just keeping the office comfortable, process heating or cooling, or transportation - when energy costs go up, prices have to go up. When prices go up, sales volume goes down. The slope of the elasticity curve may vary from product to product, but nothing has a negative slope. To some extent, when prices go up, volume goes down.

In well-run firms, prices are set to optimize profits. When sales volume goes down, fixed costs must go down. The biggest and most effective means of cutting costs is laying off people.

Thus the logic path is as follows.

Higher energy cost -- higher prices -- lower sales volume -- need to cut fixed cost -- layoffs

So higher energy costs hammer the American worker. I cannot believe the unions go along with this.

- - - Updated - - -

"...the cost of carbon based energy is rising."

Taxcutter says:
Only because of government policies.

 

Stop clear cutting forest the size of england , scotland and wales every year and you won't have this problem!!!

It's obvious it's all about the tax dollars if they won't stop the clear cutting of forest around the world.

 

If you are serious about cutting the worlds carbon emissions encourage Obama to let the military let loose and kill billions of people... only real way to do anything about it. Taxing carbon emission will just forcefully lower peoples standard of living, especially the poor.

I guess its the same thing though, when electricity rates go up and people start turning the AC off in the summer to save money and die it has the same effect, at least it will most likely be elderly people. Then we wont have to spend extra money on medicare and Social security... hey Obama might be onto something here.

 

Neither China nor India will do anything other than pay lip service to combatting global warming. So Americans will cut carbon in vain.

Edit: The OP mentions the success of the regulatory scheme for carbon emissions in California. The regulatory system has just within the last year gone into effect and the full burden of regulatory costs have yet to hit the residents of this state.

 

Every time anyone even proposes using government to get us off the fossil fuel tit, the industry and its conservative lackeys all make the same doom and gloom predictions.

They never come to pass.

 

unlike the warming loonies predictions?

http://www.spiegel.de/international...by-forecast-on-climate-refugees-a-757713.html

oh and if you don't like that source try this one

http://asiancorrespondent.com/52189/what-happened-to-the-climate-refugees/

 

And why should Obama care? He's got his 8 years. Couldn't care less what happens to the country in a few more. Wouldn't be surprised when he moves out to become the president of the UN and lives in France or Switzerland.

 

The grand failure of all of this is the inability to price the damage to the commons. Without that, it is all ephemeral feel good crap.

Current climate models have failed at roughly 98% to predict the events of the past 15 years. How could anyone justify penny one when everything is uncertain beond any modeling?

.

 

Global Cooling morphs into Global Warming morphs into Climate Change.

Should be enough for even the most dull-eyed among us to sniff out a central planning power/money grab scam.

 

Interesting. A poll asking people if they would like govt to stop hurricanes.

THIS is the central problem, to me. Someone comes up with a hysterical explanation for weather. Someone else promises to fix it, if we give them money. Propaganda & misinformation proliferates. Facts are unimportant, only an emotional appeal.

Good idea. Stop hurricanes. ..might as well end tornadoes & tsunamis, while you're at it. ..oh, & californians would like you to do something about earthquakes, too, if you don't mind.

“The bullying of citizens by means of dreads and fights has been going on since paleolithic times. Greenpeace fund-raisers on the subject of global warming are not much different than the tribal Wizards on the subject of lunar eclipses. 'Oh no, Night Wolf is eating the Moon Virgin. Give me silver and I will make him spit her out.” ~P.J. O'Rourke