David Wojick: Not possible, Beta.
Taken literally, to say that it is ‘not possible’ is not the same thing as saying it is ‘not likely.’
My position here is that although it is not likely that President Obama will adopt a comprehensive broad-spectrum strategic plan which can actually achieve his highly ambitious GHG reduction targets, there is nothing except the prospect of severe political backlash which prevents him from unilaterally taking aggressive action against all major classes of GHG emissions being produced from all major classes of carbon emitters, doing so from within the boundaries of a creatively-interpreted regulatory envelope.
He has done this kind of thing before in other areas of public policy decision making and has not been successfully thwarted. He or his successor could do it again if they were of a mind to push the regulatory envelope as far as it might legally be pushed in reducing America’s GHG emissions, all of the President’s existing authorities being taken into account.
For example, the President could legally issue an Executive Order declaring a carbon pollution emergency. He could then follow up with a series of coordinated actions on the part of all departments and agencies of the Executive Branch, actions which directly or indirectly constrain the production, supply, and consumption of all carbon fuels.
A key part of that GHG reduction strategy would be for the President or one of his designated surrogates to petition the EPA Administrator to act in concert with other US Government departments and agencies by first publishing an EPA Endangerment Finding for CO2 written under CAA Section 108; then by setting a NAAQS for CO2 based upon the conclusions of the Section 108 Endangerment Finding; and then by developing a corresponding EPA regulatory framework which takes full advantage of Section 108 provisions.
If the President and his advisers were willing to risk the inevitable political backlash which would come from imposing what is, for all practical purposes, a fossil energy rationing program combined with what is the regulatory equivalent of a legislated tax on carbon, he could go far in achieving the ambitious GHG reduction targets he seeks — 28% by 2025, 32% by 2030, and 80% by 2050.
Ongoing debate concerning the scientific truth of today’s mainstream climate science is a low-priority, largely backwater issue among America’s voters. Only when America’s leaders start asking the American people to accept serious personal and economic sacrifices in the name of fighting climate change will the public debate over the validity of today’s mainstream climate science reach a critical mass.
A black swan/pink flamingo public issue criticality event, occurring in the form of a Presidential Executive Order declaring a carbon pollution emergency, would instantly transform the current political situation as it affects climate change issues, and would produce immediate fallout in the form of an intense public debate concerning the value and validity of today’s mainstream climate science.
