Tag Archives: georgetown

Trump’s latest move could throw environmental rulemaking into chaos.

by AnastasRicketso Posted on January 30, 2017

On Monday, the president signed “a big one”: an executive order mandating that for every new regulation created, two regulations must be eliminated.

The order also says that the total cost of regulatory changes should be zero. Rules related to the military, national security, and foreign affairs are exempted, of course.

Experts are scratching their heads over what this will mean. “The whole rule-writing area is now in complete chaos and environmental rules are going to be caught up in that,” said Georgetown environmental law professor Hope Babcock.

“An agency can’t just say here’s a regulation and goodbye two,” said Georgetown law professor William Buzbee. “Every change in regulation requires a new rulemaking. What this will really do — this is requiring so much work — is most agencies will have incentives to avoid doing any rulemaking.”

And getting rid of regulations isn’t easy. The president has to “faithfully execute” all laws and cannot undo agency regulations that enforce laws like the Clean Air Act. Any rollback, such as eliminating a species from the endangered list, would have to be completed in accordance with the Administrative Procedure Act, which takes time, according to Babcock. “You can’t just by executive fiat rescind a rule,” she said.

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Trump’s latest move could throw environmental rulemaking into chaos.

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This Likely GOP Presidential Candidate Actually Believes in Global Warming

by MillaZ18sqebdk Posted on May 11, 2015

Mother Jones

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a potential contender for the Republican presidential nomination, thinks climate change is real and caused—at least in part—by human activity, according to MSNBC.

Christie said he believes there’s “no use in denying global warming exists” but that he’s skeptical about most of the mainstream approaches to dealing with it. That includes cap-and-trade programs and unilateral steps to reduce America’s carbon footprint, such as President Barack Obama’s proposed restrictions on power plant emissions.

Christie’s comments essentially matched those he made in back in 2011, the last time he spoke publicly about the issue. In some respects, his position is refreshingly distinct from those of his probable rivals in 2016. Many of the GOP contenders—for example, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio—sit somewhere on the spectrum of climate change denial. But at the same time, Christie’s track record in New Jersey suggests that as president, he’d be unlikely to actually do much to confront global warming, even if he thinks it’s happening. As Climate Progress put it:

As governor, Christie withdrew New Jersey from the nine-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a cap-and-trade program aimed at reducing emissions, in 2011. Last year, Christie called RGGI “a completely useless plan” and said that he “would not think of rejoining it.” Christie even vetoed an attempt by the New Jersey state legislature to rejoin RGGI…New Jersey also doesn’t have a statewide climate change plan—the state is the only one on the eastern seaboard to not have one in place or be in the process of developing one, according to the Georgetown Climate Center.

Christie’s logic—that even if climate change is real, there’s nothing we can do to stop it—is out of step with mainstream science. And it ignores the growing international political momentum around climate action, which Obama has sought to lead. Moreover, if Christie thinks that kind of rhetoric is going to help him score points with Republican voters in the wake of the federal indictments handed down last week in the Bridgegate scandal, he has a long way to go: The latest polling puts Christie behind all of his serious opponents for the nomination.

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This Likely GOP Presidential Candidate Actually Believes in Global Warming

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Obama climate plan finally coming, on Tuesday

by Justin Elder Posted on June 23, 2013

Obama climate plan finally coming, on Tuesday

By Lisa Hymas

The White House

He’s thinking hard about that upcoming speech.

First we heard it from unnamed sources. Then we heard it from White House climate advisor Heather Zichal. And now we’ve heard it from Obama himself: The president is gearing up for a big speech in which he’ll unveil his long-awaited second-term climate plan.

Obama announced the news in his weekly video address on Saturday. “This Tuesday at Georgetown University, I’ll lay out my vision for where I believe we need to go: a national plan to reduce carbon pollution, prepare our country for the impacts of climate change, and lead global efforts to fight it,” he said in the video, which was set to overwrought music and peppered with gauzy scenes of American landscapes. (Watch for yourself below.)

Obama urged people to “share this message with your friends,” and WhiteHouse.gov even provided a handy sample tweet: “Climate change is one of the most serious challenges we face—and it’s time to act. RT this video from the President: http://wh.gov” (What, no hashtag?)

The video didn’t give any specifics about what will be in the plan, but Zichal and other advisors have suggested the basic outline:

1) Crack down on carbon emissions from power plants. Regulations on new plants are already in the works. The next step is regs on existing power plants, which would gradually force coal-fired plants to start shutting down. Considering that electric power plants produce about a third of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, this is a big deal.

2) Boost renewable energy development on federal land.

3) Increase the energy efficiency of appliances, industrial equipment, and public and private buildings.

4) Prepare for the climate impacts we’re already seeing.

That’s all stuff Obama can do without approval from Congress, though congressional Republicans will certainly try to throw up roadblocks.

And what won’t be in the plan? Anything about the Keystone XL pipeline. Obama seems intent on kicking that can further down the road.

Obama’s speech is scheduled for 1:35 p.m. ET on Tuesday.

Here’s the video from Saturday, with a transcript below.

In my inaugural address, I pledged that America would respond to the growing threat of climate change for the sake of our children and future generations.

This Tuesday at Georgetown University, I’ll lay out my vision for where I believe we need to go: a national plan to reduce carbon pollution, prepare our country for the impacts of climate change, and lead global efforts to fight it.

This is a serious challenge, but it’s one uniquely suited to America’s strengths. We’ll need scientists to design new fuels, farmers to grow them. We’ll need engineers to devise new sources of energy, and business to make and sell them. We’ll need workers to build the foundation for a clean energy economy. And we’ll need all of our citizens to do our part to preserve God’s creation for future generations — our forests and waterways, our croplands and snowcapped peaks.

There is no single step that can reverse the effects of climate change. But when it comes to the world we leave our children, we owe it to them to do what we can.

So I hope you’ll share this message with your friends — because this is a challenge that affects everyone, and we all have a stake in solving it together.

I hope to see you Tuesday. Thanks.

Lisa Hymas is senior editor at Grist. You can follow her on Twitter and Google+.

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Obama climate plan finally coming, on Tuesday

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