Obama Outfoxes GOP Naysayers

Obama Outfoxes GOP Naysayers

by Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse

The niding, nithering, naysayers keep searching for the issue to bring President Obama down, moving from health care to Olympics to climate change legislation. Part of the Goppies' strategy is fear-mongering lies, delay and obstructions, like delaying health care reform to delay climate change reform to neuter Obama's effectiveness with negotiations in Copenhagen.

The naysayers love that climate change news can be frightening, depressing, and sometimes complicated and continue to obstruct with their counter plan of no votes in Congress.

However, just looking at news from the past week, Obama does not need Congressional legislation to address climate change. Indeed, Obama, States, communities, nations, environmental groups, and businesses are working now to address climate change. Congress can join or find itself irrelevant.


TOP STORY: Obama's takes steps to enhance U.S. position at Copenhagen (or how to flip the bird at naysaying GOP while protecting people and planet).

President Obama is not likely to sign climate change legislation before the Copenhagen meeting that starts in December, partially due to GOP delay and obstruction strategy. The naysayers, "patriotic" as they are, were hoping to handicap Obama's negotiation with foreign countries on climate change. They pursued this strategy, knowing that many have issued "dire warnings that failure to agree on a post-Kyoto treaty to limit greenhouse gas emissions is a matter of life and death". Foreign leaders have stated clearly: "There is no plan B. If we do not realize plan A, we go straight to plan F, which stands for failure." And that's what the naysayers want, Obama to fail.

The GOP is banking on countries that are nervous about a repeat of Kyoto, where Clinton supported the measure but Senate rejected. Some have expressed concern, supported by polling data, that Americans are generally climate change illiterate, which the GOP can use to prevent real climate change reform.

Well, here's some news for the blithering naysayers. While the EPA prefers that Congress set up the cap-and-trade system, if Congress does not pass legislation, the EPA could work with the states to accomplish the same:

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In fact, Obama can use the EPA to extend state carbon market programs. If all states adopt climate change programs, then there is a national system without using Congress:

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Obama is not sitting around hoping that Congress will do the right thing, but has provided a little nudge in the form of the EPA moving to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and large industrial facilities.

This move by Obama outfoxes the GOP wanting to impact international agreements because Obama's proposed rule will regulate the same group of 6 greenhouse gases governed by the Kyoto Protocol. These actions can provide some evidence to other countries negotiating at Copenhagen sufficient to move forward.

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This past week also brought examples of how the drafting of climate change legislation by Congress has had beneficial impacts on both the courts and businesses that address climate change solutions:

• Kerry's Climate bill may overrule federal court decisions rejecting hybrid taxi plans: Cities have tried to set fuel efficiency standards for taxicabs by requiring that all taxis be hybrids. Federal courts previously ruled that a federal law preempted any authority for local governments to regulate fuel economy standards for vehicles. However, Kerry's climate change bill includes the Green Taxis Act of 2009 that will amend existing federal laws so that cities can require hybrid taxis.

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