Obama issues landmark climate change rule

By Alex Guillen

Announcement kicks off one of the biggest battles of his presidency.

President Barack Obama on Monday issued a landmark environmental regulation designed to begin shifting the U.S. power industry away from climate change-causing fossil fuels.
“Climate change is no longer just about the future that we’re predicting for our children or grandchildren, it’s about the reality that we’re living with every day,” Obama said at a White House event.

The rule’s release now kicks off one of the biggest battles of Obama’s presidency, with Republicans in Congress taking aim at the measure they contend is part of the administration’s “war on coal,” and conservative state leaders and coal companies readying the legal challenges that are likely to run for years.
Unlike with Obamacare, a law passed by Congress, the carbon rule is an executive branch action that could be undermined by a future president. And since it doesn’t require states to submit their strategies to cut the greenhouse gas until 2018, the outcome of next year’s election a crucial factor in the keeping the plan on track.
The rule from the Environmental Protection Agency limits carbon dioxide emissions from the nation’s power plants, particularly from coal, in an effort to press for the use of cleaner burning natural gas and zero-carbon sources like nuclear, solar and wind, and energy efficiency.
It represents one of the broadest forays by any president into environmental protection, and will play a major role in Obama’s legacy. And it is a critical part of the U.S. effort to demonstrate to other nations that the country is taking action to combat climate change. The U.S. is the second biggest carbon emitter in the world after China, and Obama has made a reaching a global climate change pact at the December international talks in Paris a top priority.
The EU’s commissioner for climate action, Miguel Arias Canete, praised the plan as “a positive step forward in the genuine efforts of the United States to cut its emissions” ahead of the summit.
Critics of the administration have complained that the EPA has exceeded its authority with the rule and other recent regulations, trampling on states’ rights and endangering the economy in the process.
Republicans in Congress are expected to attempt blocking the rule, though any legislative efforts are unlikely to overcome a presidential veto.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has called on governors to resist the rule, called the rules “another blow to the economy and to the middle class.”
Speaker John Boehner called the plan “an expensive, arrogant insult to Americans who are struggling to make ends meet.”
Republicans running for president quickly denounced the rule.
“Climate change will not be solved by grabbing power from states or slowly hollowing out our economy,” said former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) called it “catastrophic” for utility bills. And Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker derided it as a “buzz saw on the nation’s economy.”
And states and industry groups are planning to sue over the rule in a case widely expected to ultimately reach the Supreme Court.
It was the high court that originally laid out the groundwork for the rule during the George W. Bush administration, when it ruled that EPA can indeed regulate carbon dioxide. But EPA’s foes hope to convince the Supreme Court that the regulation overreaches the legal authority of the Clean Air Act provisions by promoting renewable energy and energy efficiency as strategies to lower emissions.
“It’s going to be very difficult for the EPA to address why it thinks it can go from power plant to plug and reach out into your living room without specific authority to do so,” West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey told POLITICO ahead of the rule’s release.
Under the rule, states will have until as late as 2018 to tell EPA how exactly they plan to meet individual reduction goals. Overall, the rule aims to achieve a 32 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector over 2005 levels by 2030. States must reach initial reduction goals starting in 2022.
States have fairly broad discretion to choose how they comply with their individual reduction targets, including using more zero-carbon sources of power, instituting efficiency programs and joining with other states to create regional efforts.
At least six governors have indicated they will resist submitting a plan to EPA, a strategy that is expected to put them at risk of having a plan imposed by EPA. Experts say federally written plans are limited in compliance options and could end up costing those states more.
In the past decade, coal’s share of the U.S. electricity market has dropped from 50 percent to 39 percent, and EPA projects that with the carbon rule, coal will continue to drop to just 27 percent by 2030.
Coincidentally, the rule’s release came just hours after Alpha Natural Resources, a major Virginia-based coal producer, filed for bankruptcy protection, citing an “historically challenged coal market.”