Elections Shake Up Climate Policy Picture
Guest essay by H. Sterling Burnett
The election of Donald Trump as the next president of the United States has left reeling the environmental lobbyists and activists and international leaders committed to reducing fossil fuel use to meet the Paris climate agreement. As the Washington Post noted, “Trump comes into office with a plan to toss out most of what President Obama achieved on energy and the environment.”
Trump, who has called the alleged human-caused climate change catastrophe a “hoax,” vowed to “cancel” the United States’ participation in the Paris climate accord. Trump also has committed to scrapping the Clean Power Plan, the Obama administration’s signature effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Trump has said he will review and possibly reverse the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) determination carbon dioxide is a pollutant endangering public and environmental health (the “endangerment finding”). Trump can’t undo the endangerment finding with the stroke of a pen, but he is in a position to get that done over time. Reversing the endangerment finding would end the legal justification for a range of climate regulations. In the process, it also would end radical environmental activists’ ability to use the courts to impose climate policies on an unwilling public whose elected representatives have repeatedly rejected climate policies.
Before the election, Trump said he would reverse Obama administration rules imposing undue burdens on businesses. In particular, Trump said he would cut EPA’s budget dramatically, virtually reducing it to an advisory agency, and review all EPA regulations, eliminating many of them because, “Over-regulation presents one of the greatest barriers to entry into markets and one of the greatest costs to businesses that are trying to stay competitive.”
Trump says he wants to open up more federal lands to oil and gas drilling and eliminate regulations that have contributed to the decline of the coal industry.
The Washington Post reported,
“Scott Segal, co-head of government relations at the legal and lobbying firm Bracewell, said in an email a Trump administration would be ‘clearly in favor of enhanced exploration and production of oil and gas as a tenet of energy, economic and national security policy.’”
Environmentalists and some foreign dignitaries fear what Trump’s election means for America’s climate commitments and environmental policies. “We’re feeling angry and sad and contemplative,” Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, told the Post.
Asked by the Post how “the environmental movement would deal with a President Trump, Bill McKibben, founder of the climate action group 350.org, said in an email
‘[I] don’t really know.’”
The Guardian reports international climate negotiators at the United Nations’ climate talks in Morocco say “it would be a catastrophe if Trump acted on his pledge to withdraw the US from the deal, which took 20 years to negotiate, and to open up public land for coal, oil and gas extraction.”
Speaking to reporters at the Morocco meeting, Ségolène Royale, the French environment minister who helped negotiate the Paris accord, said Trump could not easily withdraw the United States from the treaty.
“The Paris agreement prohibits any exit for a period of three years, plus a year-long notice period, so there will be four stable years.”
On this point Royale is whistling past a graveyard. Trump can end the United States’ participation in the Paris climate agreement either directly or indirectly. Directly, he can “unsign” the agreement. Regardless of the text of the agreement, because it has not been ratified by the U.S. Senate as required by the Constitution, it has no force of law in the United States. And because the treaty sets only voluntary goals with no legal enforcement mechanism, other countries have no legal way of enforcing the agreement’s terms on the United States.
Indirectly, Trump can scuttle the country’s participation by reversing Obama’s climate actions and not replacing them with alternative climate policies. If Trump does this, U.S. participation in the Paris climate agreement dies from neglect.
SOURCES: Climate Change Weekly; Washington Post; and The Guardian
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Trump isn’t wasting any time….
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/11/13/trump-reportedly-looking-for-way-to-pull-us-out-climate-agreement.html
Now maybe we can get back to funding start-up promising EFFICIENT sources and use of energy that do not impact and harm the environment like wind and solar have.
And I know this is a dream, but possibly determine what our plans might look like in advance of the usual cyclical ice sheet advance when everybody in Canada is now bunking in our backyards and polar bears have gotten used to dumpster diving?
Plea to Trump: We don’t need to plan to mitigate anything when the planet is warm. It’s when it’s cold that we need some advance planning. And just in case you think you would want to stop the cold from advancing, remember, the ice advance clears the atmosphere of evaporation which will allow the oceans to recharge their batteries. Perpetual evaporation isn’t sustainable, though it would be nice.
Pamela: I am mitigating the warm climate down here in Houston. I have functioning air conditioners in my home and in my cars.
Didn’t Gore declare that air conditioning was more of threat than ISIS? How could you ?!! (Sarc)
Why cause a hassle and pull out?
The agreement has NO, none, ZERO “BINDING” requirements only “guidelines” based upon a per capita ratio. So, just ignore the POS. Basically the “agreement” allows the doubling, again, of the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. PERIOD. If Climate Change is caused by CO2, how does that help? That fact alone tells me the whole thing is a SCAM. China or India, either, take your pick, is building 10 to 20 COAL fired power plants for each one that Obama’s CCP has shut down. They have cut back and greatly reduced the numbers of Renewables built. However, the USA should not make any payments. All payments should be based upon CO2 emitted by each person TOTAL. i.e. China should pay more than USA since they emit more than USA.
The agreement is in terms of “Per Capita” emissions. What do you think the population of the USA is going to be compared to the population of China or India in 20 years? They can double their emissions and still meet the “guidelines” for CO2 reduction in the “Agreement”- because their population will double. They, together, are building 20 to 40 coal plants a week and will continue building them for the next 15 years. The agreement is a farce, designed to force the USA to ship ALL manufacturing to china and Asia.
During Obama’s presidency the US *doubled* oil production. Seriously, what part does this play in his legacy as a reducer of emissions? And now Trump is going to interfere? How, or even why, would he do that, except to increase it further? There is so much BS going on.
“During Obama’s presidency the US *doubled* oil production. Seriously, what part does this play in his legacy as a reducer of emissions?”
What part does Obama play in doubling oil production?
Answer: None. Oil production increased despite Obama, not because of him.
Exactly. Oil production increased, and increased, and increased, while Obama did nothing (well, next to nothing. IIRC he took credit for it). But he signed the Paris Accord, which does nothing. Yet Trump is the bogeyman for rescinding “what President Obama achieved on energy and the environment”. On what planet?? That’s what I mean by BS.
I got it now, JDN. We are on the same page.
A faux agreement, with ridiculous goals, that does nothing to the climate, that costs huge money, hurts people, and wastes decision maker time. Kill the Paris agreement with a stake through it’s heart. Good riddance to bad rubish. The climate kooks will be fun to watch as they see their delusions melt in the face of reality.
I’m sure the military will be glad to get back to work. Trump can end the “green Navy” initiative. No more $400 dollar a gallon algae/bio fuel. No more idiotic military “assessment” papers about “climate change” is a threat multiplier.
One of the first things Trump must do is kill this monstrosity.
Pretty sure that the “endangerment” finding could be reversed immediately by Congressional action. Just amend the statute to clearly state that CO2 is not a “pollutant.” End of story. With republican control in both houses, and Trump in the White House, this should not be too difficult.
Worried about a filibuster in the Senate? When the democrats expected to take the Senate, and assumed that Hillary would be in the White House, they were very open about their intentions to abolish the filibuster in order to push through their agenda. This should give the Republicans plenty of cover for doing the same, if they’re willing to use it.
Marty: I go nuts every time I hear this: A person is innocent until convicted. That is a misunderstanding of a rule of court procedure that “a person is PRESUMED innocent” at the outset of a trial. That legal presumption merely requires that the State make a prima facie case in order to go forward in a trial. After which the defendant may respond. It has nothing at all to do with actual innocence or guilt.
Jim Brock, retired lawyer.
When Donald Trump implements his policy to rid America of all the climate change nonsense, and diverts the money to genuine environmental causes e.g. clean water; clean air; etc., the silent majority around the world will celebrate like God has given us a new beginning … and joining the ‘Brexiteers’ and ‘Trumpeteers’ will be the global ‘Climateeers’.
Amen Mervyn. This is by far the best piece of political news which has occurred in my life to date. So good is it that some streak of natural cynicism cannot believe yet that it is actually going to happen. However, I suspect that the cork is now out of the champagne bottle and it isn’t going to back in again. Sarkozy in France is a skeptic and one of Theresa May’s first actions on entering No. 10 was to scrap the climate change department.
Everyone knows it’s Emperor’s New Climate but Trump is just the first with the balls to definitively call it as such.
The ‘Endangerment Finding” could be simply reversed by demanding a report of the effects on the living ecosystem of an atmosphere devoid of CO2. It wouldn’t be pretty.
Communism was relegated to the ‘dustbin of history’ (DBOH) by Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and other like-minded rational thinkers who treasured individual liberty above all else.
Of course, Reagan was dismissed as an ‘intellectual lightweight’ by his critics early on, back in the nascent echo chambers of 1980s neo-liberalism. Let’s try assigning labels and see which ones will stick. But Reagan outsmarted them, for he had Teflon on his side.
Now The Donald is inarticulate, I’ll grant you that. He lacks any buffer between his brain and vocal chords. Touché. But he has energy and stamina as evidenced by his modern day barnstorming campaign. If he has the resolve to go with it, when combined with the rumored advisers on ACGW, maybe, just maybe, we can be on the ‘right side of history’ and find another denizen for the DBOH.
That’s easy. Have Congress amend the Clean Air Act, that no colorless, odorless gas in a concentration with no toxicity at all can possibly be considered a “pollutant”.
Aha! Not so fast you neo-Nazi. Above 10,000 ppm some people can become drowzy in a crowded auditorium. And above 50,000 ppm, CO2 is toxic to humans. EPA regs will require a measurement within 100-ft of the stack for compliace. SO THERE! 😉
Yep, but first dihydrogen monoxide (a.k.a. hydroxyl acid) should be banned. It is responsible for countless deaths, including poor Jennifer Strange.
Plus, there is this thing called Congress. Even if Trump and Pence both keeled over tomorrow, Congress is not going to sign away sovereignty. That is one of those third rail thingeys.
Can a regulatory agency lie in reaching a finding? If not, the endangerment finding is illegal.
Until Congress ratifies it the Treaty has no legitimacy. Period. Full stop.
http://www.heritage.org/constitution/#!/articles/2/essays/89/pardon-power
“For instance, James Wilson argued during the Convention that ‘pardon before conviction might be necessary in order to obtain the testimony of accomplices.’ The public-policy purposes of the pardon were echoed by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in Biddle v. Perovich (1927): ‘A pardon in our days is not a private act of grace from an individual happening to possess power. It is a part of the constitutional scheme’.”
I agree with Heritage here. It’s only necessary that a crime has been committed, NOT that a conviction for that crime has been obtained. Note further that consent of the person being pardoned is irrelevant.
Biddle v. Perovich is at: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/274/480/case.html