Interesting how the declining price of fuel is pushing SUV sales and distracting people from thinking about efficiency. If we are to get to cleaner air standards, including reduced carbon levels, how will we do it if transportation does not contribute?
Yes, tougher clean air standards will increase some costs. Yet, by forcing an investment in reduced energy use and renewables, the long-term returns, as shown, will be great.
We think the economy will easily handle the tougher standards and the increased health benefits of choking on less carbon and air pollution will more than compensate for the added fees.
White House insists tough new carbon restrictions are legal under Clean Air Act
The White House insisted on Sunday it was on strong legal footing as it unveiled details of ambitious carbon-reduction plans that are likely to be fiercely opposed by coal-burning Republican states.
The US supreme court determined in 2007 that this anti-pollution legislation, which was originally aimed at mercury and sulphur emissions, could be used to tackle greenhouse gases too.
But the Obama administration’s decision to tackle climate change by introducing new rules through amending pollution regulation rather than an attempt to pass so-called “cap and trade” legislation or implement a carbon tax has been attacked by several states, who plan a series of legal challenges.
Similar administration attempts to circumvent opposition in Congress with executive actions on immigration reform have become bogged down in the courts. The 2007 supreme court ruling on the Clean Air Act, however, gives environmentalists hopes that carbon reduction efforts may prove more resilient.
Speaking to reporters on Sunday ahead of a formal announcement of the new carbon rule by Barack Obama on Monday, White House adviser Brian Deese said the new EPA rules represented the “biggest step that any single president has made to curb the carbon pollution that is fuelling climate change”.
A White House statement said: “Taken together these measures put the United States on track to achieve the president’s near-term target to reduce emissions in the range of 17% below 2005 levels by 2020, and lay a strong foundation to deliver against our long-term target to reduce emissions 26 to 28% below 2005 levels by 2025.”
Crucially, the US hopes that leading by example will put it in a stronger position to negotiate international reductions at the Paris climate conference in December and build on bilateral talks with China and Brazil.
Later this month, Obama will make trips to Nevada and the Alaskan arctic – the latter the first by a sitting president – to talk up renewable energy investments and the threat from climate change ahead of a US visit by Pope Francis in September. The pope has also backed the moral imperative of carbon-reduction strategies.
Details of the US rules, which began emerging over the weekend but were announced formally on Sunday afternoon, confirm slightly higher targets for carbon reduction than were envisaged in draft proposals last year, at a cost of $8.4bn.
McCarthy said the higher target was mainly because renewable energy investment and efficiency gains among electricity customers were improving faster than expected.
She stressed that the EPA had listened to industry concerns in its decision to allow an extra two years to phase in the new rules and to lower the target for mandatory carbon capture equipment in coal plants.
The administration argues that its approach leaves it up to individual states to determine if overall carbon emissions can be best reduced on the demand side, through making existing plants more efficient or by swapping coal generation for renewable sources, nuclear and gas.
“They can cut carbon pollution in whatever way makes sense for them,” said McCarthy.
Nonetheless, the administration stuck to its uncompromising position on the overall necessity of the rule change.
“Over the next few days we will hear the same tired old plays from the old special interests playbook,” said McCarthy, who argued “climate change is personal”.
Republican candidates to replace Obama in the White House were quick to express their opposition to the move.
“President Obama’s carbon rule is irresponsible and overreaching,” said the former Florida governor Jeb Bush, in a statement. “The rule runs over state governments, will throw countless people out of work, and increases everyone’s energy prices.”
The Florida senator Marco Rubio followed a similar line.
“A lot of what these people are advocating for would hurt our economy badly,” he said. “If you’re a single mom in Tampa, Florida and your electric bill goes up by $30 a month, that is catastrophic.”
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