In his February State of the Union address, President Barack Obama forcefully declared that the U.S. government can no longer afford to ignore key environmental issues. While the significant emissions restrictions for new power plants proposed last March by the Environmental Protection Agency could lay the foundation for much-needed progress, insiders have made public that the Obama administration is looking not only to delay implementing regulation, but also to reduce restrictions and allow for more lenient greenhouse gas emission standards.
Instead of embracing the opportunity to make valuable environmental policy impact without the shadow of re-election looming on the horizon, this move makes it obvious that Obama is engaged in a disingenuous balancing act between the environmentalists he claims to support and powerful industrial interests.
The president’s failure to adequately tackle environmental challenges is evidenced in his recently proposed the Energy Security Trust, a $2 billion, government-sponsored plan for clean transportation energy research. Though seemingly proactive, a closer look reveals the trust will be funded by royalties received from offshore oil and gas leasing. This is a backhanded and insufficient effort to fight climate change.
Instead of triangulation between polluters and the planet, the White House should seriously consider the carbon emissions tax proposed by a group of Democratic congressmen earlier this month. Issuing a carbon tax would be the easiest, most effective solution to environmental as well as energy and budget concerns.
A carbon tax has the potential to both improve air quality and reduce the deficit. Research conducted by the nonpartisan think tank Resources for the Future points out that taxing $25 per ton of carbon emissions could raise roughly $125 billion per annum, allowing for a reduction of the deficit by $1.25 trillion over the next 10 years (the so-called sequester aims to reduce the deficit by $1.2 trillion in the same 10 years).
Central questions surrounding the proposal still remain, including the best allocation of carbon tax revenue. However, the idea is simple and effective: government taxation of fossil-fuel emissions that would shift the cost of pollution from the public to the corporations.
Without the concern of reelection, there is little reason for the president to appease dirty industries, even if their leaders have political clout. Rather, Obama should be thinking in terms of socially and environmentally just policy. Because in as little as 30 years, when the planet is wracked by more extreme droughts, storms, and rising seas, our posterity won’t accept that it wasn’t politically convenient enough to act.
