President Obama achieved a great deal in his
first term to advance energy efficiency and renewable energy. But his objective
of making significant progress to slow climate change was not achieved. It was
beaten by the fossil-fuel lobby acting through the know-nothing opposition of
Tea Party Republicans or their brow-beaten colleagues.
With his reelection, in the teeth of huge
spending by his opponents, the President is in a good position to get through
some of his original program that was left on the table. The lessons of
Hurricane Sandy may help his case.
Obama's Eco-Achievements
Obama started by making solid appointments,
with Steven Chu as Secretary of Energy and Lisa Jackson as Environmental
Protection Agency Administrator. He supported climate-change proposals at
Copenhagen, and admitted that what was achieved there "was not enough".
Here's what he did achieve in his first term, mostly through his budgeting and
regulatory authority:
1. Obama
put energy efficiency and renewable energy on state agendas. The
$90 billion investment in green jobs in the stimulus bill may not immediately
have created 5 million new jobs — many states were not ready to take advantage
of the programs in a timely way. But it encouraged states and localities to
focus on needed environmental initiatives and the longer-term impact of their
efforts is real and
accounts for about half of the 23 percent lower projections in
just a few years of 2020 emissions.
2. His EPA
has twice raised auto fuel-efficiency standards under the Clean Air Act. Nixon's
Clean Air Act was the basis for the Obama EPA's higher Corporate Average Fuel
Economy ("CAFE") standards, first requiring 35.5 mpg fuel efficiency
by 2016 and now 54 mpg by 2025. By using existing legislation, Obama moved
America forward despite the Congressional stalemate.
3. He
regulated carbon emissions under the Clean Air Act. Obama's
EPA won a major victory in June 2012 when the U.S. Court of Appeals, DC
Circuit, unanimously affirmed EPA's ruling in 2009 that (1) greenhouse-gas
emissions pose dangers to public health and welfare and (2) four measures would
be instituted to regulate carbon emissions.
4. He
saved the U.S. auto industry and its technology-generating capacity. The
auto industry bailout was not just a job-creation success. By keeping this
major component of U.S. industry alive, the President kept the United States as
a strong player in electric-car technology and in the campaign to generate more
efficient batteries.
5. He has
used federal purchasing power to reduce carbon emissions. He
has made energy efficiency part of the mandate and procurement criteria of theGeneral Services Administration and has
supported the Energy Star rating program of the EPA and Department of Energy.
6. He has
supported four rounds of the ARPA-E program for energy technology research. The
Advanced Research Projects Agency, once part of the Department of Defense, has
an energy component administered by the Department of Energy. It has so far made
awards for 107 project awards, with amounts ranging from $400,000 to $6 million
each, for research on such topics as "electrofuels", carbon capture,
batteries, electric grid, thermal energy storage, and rare earth substitutes.
It would be hard to overestimate the long-term importance of this effort for
the United States and for the planet.
Why Obama Failed to Address Climate Change Directly
That Obama didn't succeed in doing more on
climate change reflects unpredictable developments. The BP oil spill early in
his first term discouraged offshore oil drilling, and the Fukushima nuclear
meltdown discouraged further nuclear power development, constraining his
options. But most important, the Republican House of Representatives adopted a
totally negative stance toward the President's climate-change goals. The entire
minority membership of a committee headed by Senator Barbara Boxer's committee
boycotted hearings on the House-passed Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill. I had
a ringside seat to observe the crackup of the legislation in the 111th
Congress, as senior economist for Congress's Joint Economic Committee. The bill
was debated to death in the Senate. After the election of more Tea Party
adherents in 2010, it was all over.
In 1970, it would have been hard to believe
that 42 years later the nation still would not have such a carbon tax or a
carbon-price-setting mechanism like a cap-and-trade system. Green issues then
had bipartisan support. President Nixon's strong Clean Air Act amendments to
the original 1963 Act created the EPA, William Ruckelshaus became its first
head (and the late Russell Train its second), and new water-pollution laws were passed after two years.
What stopped progress? OPEC's decision to
create an oil shortage. Inflation cascaded through private and public prices
and economic concerns overtook environmental ones. The GOP took on the mantle
of environmental deregulation in the name of promoting economic growth,
although significant instances of environmental progress have occurred under
Republican leaders since Nixon.
The GOP's Opposition to Environmental Rules Is Negotiable
President Reagan, for example, may have cut
social and environmental budgets, including one-third of EPA spending, but in
his second term he did something important. He noted the high cost of
ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) gases and he promoted a worldwide
reduction via the 1987 Montreal Protocol. This Protocol has been described as
the most successful international convention ever, signed by 197 countries and
the European Union, and it has stopped the growth of the ozone hole although
some aerosol substitutes, such as hydrofluorocarbons, continue to contribute to
global warming even though they don't damage the ozone layer.
President George W. Bush during most of his
administration was, like Reagan, antagonistic to environmental regulation, but
in the latter years of his presidency he championed significant initiatives to
conserve natural resources that became law, and he moved the country along on
the path toward greater energy efficiency.
Given that Reagan and Bush 43 added valuable
environmental achievements late in their second terms, President Obama has some
encouraging precedents. The fact that his re-election results are strong may
have something to do with Republican leaders entering the 113th Congress with a
more serious inclination to cooperate with President Obama than two or four
years ago. He now has a real opportunity to achieve more of the change he
promised in 2008.
Proposals for the President's Second Term
Climate-change legislation deserves to be near
the top of the President's second-term agenda. Even if the United States
magically reduced its emissions to zero, the planet will be threatened by the
continuing rapid industrialization of China, India and other emerging
economies. For the United States to exercise global leadership on this
important topic, it must do more at home.
Some things will happen on their own. The
Energy Star rating has been shown in several articles by Professor John Quigley
and others to raise the value of a property significantly for both sale and
rental, so this certification has legs. Venture capitalists are supporting
renewable energy projects. Vehicle manufacturers are hard at work on fuel and
battery efficiency. HSBC Bank projects the low-carbon economy will
triple to $2.2 trillion a year by 2020.
The President in his second term has a
Groundhog Day chance to push forward programs and laws that directly address
climate change. Through the last two Congresses, Carol Werner at the EESI has faithfully been pushing out
information on a large number of Congressional initiatives in the arena of
clean energy and climate strategies. Here are five ways ahead that seem to me
to be most promising:
1. A
carbon tax. The lack of progress of the Waxman-Markey bill in the
Senate despite support of the President's Climate Action Partnership has
reopened bipartisan consideration of a direct tax on carbon of perhaps $20 a
ton. This might add 10 percent to the cost of gasoline, but it would lead to
correct signals being provided throughout the economy. Pigou-type taxes on
pollution ("tax bads, not goods") are viewed with a friendly eye by
many analysts on both the left and the right.
2. Trading
permits — the Cantwell bill. As a backup for a carbon tax or a
parallel strategy, the limited cap-and-trade bill proposed by Senator Maria
Cantwell (D-WA) is a good plan that could be a focus for bipartisan
negotiation. It creates an "upstream" (at the power-generation source)
market for carbon among large energy producers and users. It seems to me easier
to understand and execute than the broadly based Waxman-Markey bill.
3. Championing
state and local initiatives. With Hurricane Sandy as the backdrop,
support local environmental investments and rethinking of zoning and building
codes or planning for surge protectors. Green incentives in the stimulus bill
have encouraged states and localities to act to improve energy efficiency and
reduce emissions. Without a carbon tax or a national market for carbon permits,
these efforts need encouragement. The President can help revitalize them with
national support of subnational and private investments.
4. Using
the Presidency to make the case for change. Michael Northrop,
program director for sustainability at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, urges the President to
use his second-term status to tell the truth about the U.S. coal industry, its
grave impact on climate change, its declining share of electric-power fuel, its
declining employment. Coal employs 40 percent fewer Americans than a few years
ago as U.S. solar jobs grow 13 percent annually. He recommends the President
convene a national bipartisan climate action planning council composed of
sitting and former state and local officials, company CEOs and civic leaders,
with leadership by a senior advisor in the White House appointed for this task.
A good idea.
5. Continued
agency actions. Since the Congress is unpredictable, the most reliable way
forward is to continue exercising executive authority through the EPA,
Department of Energy and other agencies to lower emissions and to build
clean-energy markets. The President has already done much by using federal
buying power to support clean-energy markets, but he can do more. Catalogs of
options include those of the Center for Climate Strategies and
the Presidential Climate Action Project.
The timing of Hurricane Sandy could not have
been better for purposes of bringing more business leaders on the side of
action to address climate change. Stay tuned and make your voice heard.
Dr. Marlin is Chief Economist for the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice in Newark, NJ. The views expressed in this post are not necessarily those of the Institute. The abopve post appeared on the Sallan Foundation site a few days ago.
