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Obama Outlines Ambitious Plan to Cut Greenhouse Gases Obama Outlines Ambitious Plan to Cut Greenhouse Gases
(about 4 hours later)
WASHINGTON — President Obama, declaring that “Americans across the country are already paying the price of inaction” on climate change, on Tuesday announced sweeping measures to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and prepare the nation for a future of damaging weather aggravated by rising temperatures. WASHINGTON — President Obama, declaring that “Americans across the country are already paying the price of inaction,” announced sweeping measures on Tuesday to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and prepare the nation for a future of rising temperatures.
Embracing an issue that could define his legacy but also ignite new battles with Republicans, Mr. Obama said he would use his executive powers to require reductions in the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the nation’s power plants. Embracing wholeheartedly an issue that could define his legacy but is sure to ignite new political battles with Republicans, Mr. Obama said he would use his executive powers to require reductions in the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the nation’s power plants.
That was the centerpiece of a three-part plan that includes new federal spending to advance renewable energy technology, as well as spending to protect cities and states from the ravages of storms and droughts that are exacerbated by a changing climate. The carbon cuts at power plants are the centerpiece of a three-pronged climate-change plan that will also involve new federal funds to advance renewable energy technology, as well as spending to fortify cities and states against the ravages of storms and droughts aggravated by a changing climate.
Saying science had put to rest the debate over whether human activity was warming the earth, Mr. Obama said, “The question now is whether we will have the courage to act before it is too late.” Mr. Obama waded more deeply than he has before into the dispute over the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry heavy crude oil from Alberta to depots and refineries in the Midwest and on the Gulf Coast. He said he would not approve the 1,700-mile pipeline if it was shown that it would “significantly” worsen climate change.
“As a president, as a father and as an American, I am here to say, we need to act,” he said to students and others gathered in a sunbaked quadrangle at Georgetown University. “I refuse to condemn your generation and future generations to a planet that is beyond saving.” The president’s comments were ambiguous: He did not specify what aspects of the project he was including or what level of climate impact he considers “significant.” Opponents and backers of the pipeline found support for their positions in his remarks.
For Mr. Obama, it was a bold attempt to stake out an achievement that could define his legacy as president. But unlike with the health care overhaul, he is being forced to rely on executive authorities, since passing legislation to address climate policy would be a near impossibility in a deeply divided Congress. On the broader climate challenge, however, Mr. Obama was unequivocal. Saying that science had put to rest the debate over whether human activity was responsible for warming the earth, he told an audience at Georgetown University, “The question now is whether we will have the courage to act before it is too late.”
He briefly addressed the pending decision on whether to allow the construction of a 1,200-mile pipeline from oil sands formations in Alberta to refineries in the Midwest and the Gulf Coast. Mr. Obama, who has been under heavy political pressure from opponents and supporters of the $7 billion project, said the pipeline should be built only if it did not have a major effect on the climate. “As a president, as a father and as an American, I am here to say, we need to act,” Mr. Obama said to students and others gathered in a sunbaked quadrangle, mopping his brow with a handkerchief, as if to dramatize his point. “I refuse to condemn your generation and future generations to a planet that’s beyond fixing.”
“And our national interest will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution,” Mr. Obama said in a statement that cheered pipeline opponents. “The net effects of the pipeline’s impact on our climate will be absolutely critical to determining whether this project is allowed to go forward.” It was by far Mr. Obama’s boldest attempt to grapple with one of the seminal challenges of the time. But it also starts a clock ticking, with the president aiming to draft and put into place a complicated set of rules in just two years, to meet his pledge of reducing the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020.
He did not lay out the criteria for measuring the project’s effect on the climate or say how big an impact he was willing to accept. Those decisions are still months away, White House officials said. While Mr. Obama dwelt on what he said was the less partisan nature of antipollution movements in the past, his reliance on executive branch regulations and other administrative actions, which do not require Congressional approval, is an acknowledgment that legislation to tackle climate change would be a near-impossibility in a deeply divided Congress.
Republicans were quick to condemn the president’s proposals, saying they constituted a government overreach that would constrict energy production and strangle the nation’s economic recovery. Republicans were quick to condemn the measures, saying they constituted a government overreach that would constrict energy production and strangle the nation’s economic recovery.
“These policies, rejected even by the last Democratic-controlled Congress, will shutter power plants, destroy good-paying American jobs and raise electricity bills for families that can scarcely afford it,” Speaker John A. Boehner said in a statement released before Mr. Obama spoke. “These policies, rejected even by the last Democratic-controlled Congress, will shutter power plants, destroy good-paying American jobs and raise electricity bills,” the House speaker, John A. Boehner, said in a statement.
It also fulfilled, belatedly, a promise Mr. Obama made as a presidential candidate in 2008 to tackle the threat of a warming climate. During his first term, climate change took a back seat to more pressing problems, including the financial crisis and the collapse of the auto industry, and then to his decision to make the health care overhaul his first big legislative initiative. Even the timing of the speech ran into headwinds, coming in a week of major Supreme Court decisions, the drama over the travels of the National Security Agency leaker Edward J. Snowden and a debate in Congress over immigration reform.
White House aides said the timing for Mr. Obama’s speech had been set weeks ago. But the initiative is likely to be at least somewhat drowned out by a rush of competing and compelling news: a series of major Supreme Court decisions; the drama over the travels of the National Security Agency leaker Edward J. Snowden; a debate in Congress on comprehensive immigration reform; and the failing health of Nelson Mandela, the former South African president. White House aides said they had long planned for Mr. Obama to deliver the speech before July 4 and that it was important to announce the measures as early as possible because of the length of time needed for the Environmental Protection Agency to finalize the regulations.
Mr. Obama leaves for a weeklong trip to Africa the day after the climate speech. But the president’s broader proposals were somewhat overshadowed by his reference to Keystone. Mr. Boehner’s spokesman, Brendan Buck, said, “The standard the president set today should lead to speedy approval of the Keystone pipeline.”
Mr. Obama proposed the first limits on carbon pollution from existing power plants and promised to complete pending rules for new plants. He will direct the Environmental Protection Agency to work with states and industries to devise standards for emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases from existing power plants by June 2014, the aides said, and will finalize the rules in June of the following year. In a draft environmental impact statement issued in March, the State Department concluded that the net impact of the pipeline on the climate would be small, because even if it was not built, the oil would still be extracted and sold in other markets.
The president will also direct the agency to complete standards for new fossil fuel power plants by the end of September. The rules, first proposed in April 2012, were supposed to be completed by April but are being rewritten to address potential legal and technical problems. Still, Mr. Obama suggested the State Department would have to go further to justify the $7 billion project than it had up to now. The president said the pipeline’s net effects on the climate would be “absolutely critical” to his decision whether to approve it.
Daniel P. Schrag, a geochemist who is the head of Harvard University’s Center for the Environment and a member of a presidential science panel that has helped advise the White House on climate change, said he hoped the presidential speech would mark a turning point in the national debate on climate change. “Allowing the Keystone pipeline to be built requires finding that doing so would be in our nation’s interests,” he said. “And our national interest will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution.”
“Everybody is waiting for action,” he said. “The one thing the president really needs to do now is to begin the process of shutting down the conventional coal plants. Politically, the White House is hesitant to say they’re having a war on coal. On the other hand, a war on coal is exactly what’s needed.” Russell K. Girling, the chief executive of TransCanada, the company seeking a permit to build the pipeline, said the project easily met Mr. Obama’s criteria. He said that multiple reviews had found that the Canadian oil would move to market by truck, rail or other pipelines if Keystone were not built — methods that are less clean and efficient.
The administration will also begin a new round of fuel efficiency standards for heavy-duty trucks to continue improvements already in effect for model years 2014-18. The plan includes new efficiency targets for appliances and buildings to cut carbon pollution by three billion metric tons cumulatively by 2030, equivalent to half of a full year’s total emissions. Opponents said they were pleased by the president’s statement, saying it raised another hurdle to the project.
The president will commit to $7 billion in financing for international climate mitigation and adaptation projects, primarily in developing countries and nations most vulnerable to rising seas and other climate-related threats. But it is not clear now much of that is new money and how much is already committed under existing international aid programs. “Any fair and unbiased analysis of the tar sands pipeline shows that the climate effects of this disastrous project would be significant,” said Michael Brune, president of the Sierra Club.
The package includes $8 billion in loan guarantees for innovative energy efficiency and fossil fuel projects, including efforts to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions from power plants burning coal and natural gas. For Mr. Obama, the speech addressed a promise he made as a candidate in 2008 to tackle the threat of a climate change. During his first term, climate change took a back seat to the financial crisis, and then to his decision to push health care reform.
Taken together, the officials said, the pieces of the plan would allow the United States to meet Mr. Obama’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. That was the promise Mr. Obama made at the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen in December 2009. Advocates for the power industry say the government is the wrong agent to reduce carbon emissions, given that the falling price and expanded use of natural gas has already helped reduce them.

Justin Gillis contributed reporting from New York.

“The administration needs to explain why it needs old-style, command-and-control regulation when the market is moving in that direction anyway,” said Scott H. Segal, who represents utilities at the law firm Bracewell & Giuliani.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: Democratic lawmakers who have pushed climate measures were jubilant, however, with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island saying it could open the door to further Congressional action.
Representative Henry A. Waxman, the California Democrat who pushed cap-and-trade legislation intended to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions, said of Mr. Obama’s package, “It’s good for the economy, it’s good for environment, it’s good for the U.S.”
Mr. Waxman’s legislative partner, Representative Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, appeared headed for a victory Tuesday in a special race to fill John Kerry’s Senate seat. Mr. Markey, some analysts said, benefited in that race by promoting his climate credentials.
Among those who have waited more than four years for Mr. Obama to act, the reaction this week was mostly relief.
“He’s going after the heart of the problem,” said Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University. “This is a watershed, assuming he follows through.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: June 25, 2013Correction: June 25, 2013

An earlier version of this story misstated the amount of heavy oil that would be carried by the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. It is 800,000 barrels per day, not 800,000 gallons.

An earlier version of this story misstated the amount of heavy oil that would be carried by the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. It is 800,000 barrels per day, not 800,000 gallons.