The budget battle begins…

Obama’s weekly address on Saturday:

“I realize that passing this budget won’t be easy.  Because it represents real and dramatic change, it also represents a threat to the status quo in Washington.  I know that the insurance industry won’t like the idea that they’ll have to bid competitively to continue offering Medicare coverage, but that’s how we’ll help preserve and protect Medicare and lower health care costs for American families.  I know that banks and big student lenders won’t like the idea that we’re ending their huge taxpayer subsidies, but that’s how we’ll save taxpayers nearly $50 billion and make college more affordable.  I know that oil and gas companies won’t like us ending nearly $30 billion in tax breaks, but that’s how we’ll help fund a renewable energy economy that will create new jobs and new industries.   I know these steps won’t sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business, and I know they’re gearing up for a fight as we speak.  My message to them is this:

“So am I.”

Wow!  The battle is on.  NGOs are mobilising to get this passed, while lobbyists are stepping in to stall the budget.  This is from MoveOn.org’s latest campaign. Unfortunately they don’t have it online yet so I’ll post it in full here…

10 things you should know about Obama’s plan (but probably don’t)

The plan:

Makes a $634 billion down payment on fixing health care that will go a long way toward paying for a more efficient, more affordable health care system that covers every single American. [source]

Reduces taxes for 95% of working Americans. And if your family makes less than $250,000, your taxes won’t go up one dime. [source]

Invests more than $100 billion in clean energy technology, creating millions of green jobs that can never be outsourced.[source]

Brings our troops home from Iraq on a firm timetable, finally bringing the war to a close—and freeing up almost ten billion dollars a month for domestic priorities. [source]

Reverses growing income inequality. The plan lets the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans expire and focuses on strengthening the middle class. [source]

Closes multi-billion-dollar tax loopholes for big oil companies.  [source]

Increases grants to help families pay for college—the largest increase ever. [source]

Halves the deficit by 2013. President Obama inherited a legacy of huge deficits and an economy in shambles, but his plan brings the deficit under control as soon as the economy begins to recover. [source]

Dramatically increases funding for the SEC and the CFTC—the agencies that police Wall Street. [source]

Tells it straight. For years, budgets have used accounting tricks to hide the real costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush tax cuts, and too many other programs. Obama’s budget gets rid of the smokescreens and lays out what America’s priorities are, what they cost, and how we’re going to pay for them. [source]

This is the change we voted for. President Obama has done his part, now we need to do ours.

And of course, not mentioned here is the cap-and-trade mechanism that has also been included in the budget.  I’m glad Obama is making good use of his 100-day honeymoon!

A way around a GOP filibuster on a US climate bill?

This is from the NYT yesterday.  If Senator Boxer et al. manage to include a cap-and-trade scheme in the budget, I’ll be very impressed.

As part of his budget blueprint submitted to Congress today, Obama included almost $645 billion in assumed revenue by 2019 for a new cap-and-trade program.

Senator Inhofe sounds pretty angry, calling the idea “liberal arrogance”… Let the battle commence!

New Inauguration Climate Report Released

What Kind of Change? Obama's Climate Policy in 2009

To honour the fact that we now have a new and talented President of the United States of America, I co-authored a report on Obama’s 2009 climate policy strategy for Climatico.

I was very impressed by Obama’s Inauguration speech.  It marked a significant change from his campaign speeches when he would use his prowess in public speaking to whip the crowd into a frenzy.  This was a more measured and intelligent speech, addressing both the challenges ahead and the immense possibility for change that has emerged out of this hardship.

Some of my favourite lines in his speech addressed climate change in a way that no previous president has ever discussed the issue.

“Each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.”

“We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories.”

“And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect.”

“Let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter”

Finally a president that ‘gets it’ on energy and climate change.  Good luck to him!

Boxer Confronts EPA Head on CO2 Midnight Ruling

Cross-posted from Climatico.

For those not acquainted with the Bush Administration’s latest pastime I should probably introduce the concept of the ‘midnight ruling’.  Late in a presidency, an administration will often issue rulings that are unpopular but uphold the President’s worldview.  President Bush’s recent midnight rulings have predominantly been concerned with environmental deregulation.  The latest of these concerns the carbon dioxide emissions produced by coal-fired power plants.

As I reported earlier, a decision to disregard a Utah coal power plant’s carbon emissions when considering its environmental impact was overturned last Novermber.  However, on Thursday Stephen L. Johnson, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), went on the record to reject November’s overturning, “the current concerns over global climate change should not drive [the] EPA into adopting an unworkable policy of requiring emission controls.”

California Senator Boxer soon issued a statement responding,

This illegal document issued by Stephen Johnson makes it clear that he has become a renegade administrator…  Mr. Johnson’s latest action is intended to make the job of combating global warming more difficult and will add to the millions of taxpayer dollars he has wasted in defending his illegal decisions.

Boxer also wrote a letter (available here) to the Attorney General asking him to “intervene immediately” with Johnson’s “blatantly illegal memo.” Senator James Inhofe, who frequently clashes with Boxer, responded with a statement siding with the EPA.

So what does all of this mean?  Well, first that the regulation of CO2 (or lack of) has been one of the defining features of the President Bush’s time in office, and that he is keen to ensure that greenhouse gases are not controlled during his presidency. Obama has pledged to use his “executive authority without waiting for congressional action” to reverse Bush’s midnight rulings. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NDRC) issued a statement saying,

The ultimate consolation, however, is that today’s EPA offense is so ham-handed, so divorced from the law, that it can and should be reversed by the Obama administration with the stroke of a pen.

If the Attorney General does not intervene (which is, in my opinion, likely) then there will be a number of coal-fired power stations that progress far enough down ‘the pipeline’ that Obama will not be able to stop their being built when he takes office on January 20th.  The Justice Department said that it would review Boxer’s letter and respond appropriately, to which Joe Romm of Climate Progress replied, ““Appropriately”? This is the Department that signed off on torture. What the heck is a few coal plants to them?”

Obama Picks His “Green Dream Team”

Yesterday, Obama announced his pick for Secretary of Energy.  He chose a Nobel laureate who is a keen supporter of alternative energy, and who has said that people saying that they are uncertain whether climate change is being caused by humans is “reminiscent of the dialogue in the 1950s and ’60s on tobacco.”

No, it was not Al Gore!

Obama’s green team (L-R): Carol Browner, Lisa Jackson, Nancy Sutley, and Steve Chu, with Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

Obama picked the physicist and director of the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory, Stephen Chu - a decision that has won praise from scientists across theboard.  “His appointment should signal to all that my administration will value science,” the President-elect said in a press conference yesterday. “We will make decisions based on facts.”

“Now, should he be confirmed, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who specializes in climate change and renewable energy and already knows how to run a decent-size bureaucracy is going to be in charge of realizing Obama’s bold promises to lead the United States toward an energy-sustainable future. Symbolically speaking, one would be hard put to draw a sharper contrast between the Bush and Obama eras than what is achieved by this single appointment,”

commented Andrew Leonard of Salon.com.

Alongside Chu, Obama chose Carol Browner as his “Climate Tzarina” who will coordinate between the different government agencies that deal with energy policy.  He also picked chemical engineer and former environmental policy official Lisa Jackson to head the Environmental Protection Agency, which regulates air quality. Nancy Sutley, a Californian environmental officer, becomes head of the president’s Council on Environmental Quality.

Gene Karpinski, the head of the League of Conservation Voters, sums up the response from environmentalists, calling Obama’s choices “a green dream team“.

Obama has frequently said that tackling climate change and creating energy independence were high on his list of priorities, and these announcements reinforce Obama’s claim that he will take significant action to on these issues early in his presidency.