On Capitol Hill, the ship of state is so bereft of rudder and sail that the crew is jumping overboard. The latest to abandon ship is Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, who minced no words about the dysfunctional Congress he is choosing to leave.

On Capitol Hill, the ship of state is so bereft of rudder and sail that the crew is jumping overboard. The latest to abandon ship is Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, who minced no words about the dysfunctional Congress he is choosing to leave.

Forget for a moment about health care and financial reform. On national energy and environmental issues, which have been stalled in the congressional queue, we have a critical national security threat, a danger to public health and welfare, and national policy that encourages American families to inadvertently fund terrorists.

Those are among the reasons the paralyzing partisanship on Capitol Hill is so serious a dereliction of duty.

So what can the President of the United States do? Quite a lot if he’s willing to use the executive powers he’s been given by the Constitution, the courts and past Congresses.

That’s what President Obama is planning now, according to the New York Times. “With much of his legislative agenda stalled in Congress,” the Times reports, “President Obama and his team are preparing an array of actions using his executive power to advance energy, environmental, fiscal and other domestic policy priorities.”

“We are reviewing a list of presidential executive orders and directives to get the job done across a front of issues,” White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told the Times.

Let’s hope this is more than a shot across Congress’s bow. We’ve fallen to a point at which the relationship between the Executive and Legislative branches is not so much checks and balances as mutual assured gridlock. For several years now, much to the discomfort of leaders as philosophically diverse as George W. Bush and Carol Browner, more environmental policy seems to be made by the Judicial Branch than by the other two.

Before elaborating on the president’s powers, let’s recall why energy and environment are so much more important to Main Street than gas molecules accumulating in the atmosphere. There’s American competitiveness and jobs in the emerging global green economy, of course.

But amidst the ridiculous arguments about leaked e-mails and whether blizzards on the East Coast prove that climate change isn’t real, America’s military and intelligence communities have been trying to tell us something for the past several years: If you believe in a strong and secure America, if you support our troops, if you don’t want part of every gasoline dollar to end up financing terrorism, you need to support our transition away from carbon-intensive fuels, to the type of “clean energy economy” that President Obama advocates.

I’ve quoted often in the past from the important work of the Military Advisory Panel at the Center for Naval Analysis, whose conclusions have been embraced by other flag officers and intelligence agencies, but three quotes deserve repeating:

• U.S. dependence on fossil fuels undermines economic stability, which is critical to national security;
  

• The U.S. should not pursue energy options inconsistent with the national response to climate change. Diversifying energy sources and moving away from fossil fuels where possible is critical to future energy security;

• Some of the attacks on our troops and on American civilians have been supported by funds from the sale of oil. Our nation’s energy choices have saved lives; they have also cost lives.

I’m among the bloggers who’ve been sharply critical of the White House for not wanting to “get out ahead of Congress” on these issues. For example, although the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate greenhouse gases, President Obama has embraced the very low goal established in the House-approved Waxman-Markey bill, and he’s made even that goal contingent upon Congress passing a final climate bill.

In many other instances during his first year in office, however, Obama has made good use of his presidential powers to advance U.S. leadership on energy and the environment. It’s important that he expand on that record. He has no lack of ideas or authority. Dozens of organizations and initiatives, including the Presidential Climate Action Project, have submitted scores of recommendations to the Obama team since the 2008 election on energy policy and climate change.

Before Obama took office, the Center for Energy and Environmental Security at the University of Colorado Law School analyzed executive authority as it relates to energy and climate policy. The Center reviewed 96 provisions in current U.S. law where climate change, global warming or greenhouse gases are mentioned explicitly; it also reviewed 370 executive orders going back to 1937.

It identified and created a searchable database of 112 relevant statutory delegations of authority for presidents to address energy and climate. The Center’s overall conclusion is that “Congress has delegated to the President substantial authority to develop climate change policy and organize and manage federal operations to address the issue.”

The President will have to walk a careful line to avoid the impression he wants to lead like the Bush-Cheney White House where national laws, international treaties and the U.S. Constitution itself were regarded as subservient to executive whims. But grounded in the public interest and the president’s legitimate powers, it’s a line Obama can walk and defend.

If President Obama fully uses his authority, the United States can continue making progress toward a clean energy economy. Meantime, the November election is an opportunity to begin fixing our broken Congress by removing the Members who are putting their petulant partisanship ahead of the nation’s welfare.

Article by Bill Becker appearing courtesy Sustainlane.

photo: EliasDelaTorre

Related posts:

• Clean Energy: U.S. and China Establish Extensive Cooperation
• Oil, Waxman-Markey & Obama’s Advantage on Climate Change
• Energy Results Teams Up With Best Buy
• The Recovery Act: Laying the Foundation for a Clean Energy Economy
• Our Latest Open Innovation Ecosystem: Energy.Data.Gov

CleanTechies is fortunate to have some of the sharpest minds in the energy and clean tech industries as regular readers, but even if you don’t have a Ph.D., you should be able to answer this quick math quiz: “Which price tag is cheaper, $8 billion or free?”

Don’t hurt yourselves!

On Tuesday, President Obama officially announced $8 billion in government loan guarantees for construction of two new nuclear plants in Georgia, the country’s first expansion of nukes in more than 30 years.

A day later, the Vermont state legislature officially began deliberations on the question of relicensure of Entergy’s Vermont Yankee nuclear plant. While there are some transaction costs associated with keeping Vermont Yankee open past 2012, the cost is nowhere near $4 billion.

Given the commitment the president made to clean, domestic nuclear power just 24 hours earlier, you would expect the White House to jump right in on the question of relicensure in Vermont, right? Not so fast.

Political observers saw the president’s Georgia announcement as more than just a fit in the president’s running “clean energy economy narrative.” It was also a continuation of the political nod to the GOP (and Blue Dog Dems) that began with the Waxman-Markey compromise and came into full flower with the announcement of the proposed Kerry-Graham Senate climate bill, complete with clean coal subsidies, offshore drilling and a lot of nuclear.

But, if the White House saw the long-term potential in a nuclear “olive branch,” they may have underestimated the political peril in entering the nuclear fray just as debate is beginning to rage about relicensure of many of the nation’s plants.

Surely the White House will cite Tip O’Neill’s political axiom that “All politics is local,” and attempt to steer clear of the black-and-blue battle brewing in the Green Mountain State. But it will be difficult for the president to keep a straight face on the $8 billion commitment while remaining silent on the relicensure of an existing plant. To do so would vitiate the political purpose of the nuclear play in the first place.

That leaves two choices: get behind relicensure or point out why the White House is all about nukes — just not this one, in particular.

Vermont  Yankee is in some trouble, giving the latter option some promise. The plant is embroiled in an ill-timed revelation of tritium leaks and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has been very public in opposition to relicensure. But, to make these arguments about Vermont Yankee in particular would force the White House to acknowledge some of the most damning arguments that nuclear opponents offer in general: safety and spent fuel.

The president might point out the technological distinctions between the existing Vermont plant and the proposed next generation, but that kind of nuance is tough to convey in an emotional political fight like this.

Moreover, if the White House decides to weigh in against relicensure in this particular fight, they have set a precedent for coming battles, as other 1970’s-era plants come up for renewal or closure during the Obama presidency, and well before the Georgia plants will come online.

On the other hand, getting behind relicensure as consistent with the $8 billion commitment is politcally perilous. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” still stands. Guantanamo remains open, and more troops are in Afghanistan today than a year ago. And, never mind a public option, a health care bill of any kind remains very much in doubt. That’s the GLBT coalition, the anti-war crowd and the health care constituency, three stalwarts of the progressive block, all left unfulfilled.

Backing Vermont Yankee risks further alienating environmental progressives, a fourth tent pole of the coalition that swept Obama into office 15 months ago. The timing could not be worse. The president’s approval ratings have already slipped below 50 percent just as mid-term elections loom for 2010.

Greens are already concerned. The House Waxman-Markey bill was widely panned on the left as an excess of compromise (at best), or a failure and sell-out (at worst). The Senate could not get a bill to the floor before the line in the sand that the Copenhagen conference represented, and the bill that is now working its way through the Senate has a lot of hardcore greens blue in the face.

It says a lot about American politics and the energy debate that even in today’s economic conditions, an $8 billion bet comes with better odds than a freebie, but that is the situation the White House faces.

Indeed, in the ultimate irony, a president who entered office with a friendly super-majority and high hopes for energy and climate reform is now at risk of running into the arms of the GOP and running afoul of his base on the most significant single energy technology play of his young presidency.

President Obama will have to keep his fingers crossed in hopes that as the debate in Vermont heats up, the prevailing winds will blow the fallout in a direction other than Washington.

photo: Topato

Related posts:

• Nuclear Power Plant Leaking Radioactive Waste
• Vermont Gets Surge of Electric Vehicle Charging Stations
• Electric Drive Components Made in Vermont
• Electricity from Cow Manure Has Market Potential
• Waste Issue Hurting Nuclear Revival, Panel Says

Several recent pieces – led by David Roberts’ posting at Grist – report that “the worst kept secret in DC” is that there’s “no way” the Senate is passing a climate bill this year.

Surprised? After all, as Roberts and Bradford Plumer at TNR point out, energy reform was once Obama’s “number one priority.” Is it conceivable that a President with 65+ approvals and the iconic status of Obama could fail to get his number one priority through Senate that has a fillibuster-proof majority from his own party, less than six months after taking office?

Well…”number one priority” is a designation in question now: its amazing how a Supreme Court seat and budget-busting health care reform have a habit of changing things.

Aside from that, Obama and the leadership clearly underestimated the reluctance of Brown Dog Dems to actually embrace a climate change bill. And, finally, the whole strategy seems to have been flawed if energy was really a priority.

For example, Dodd’s tobacco bill will get passed today, to the chagrin of many of the same Senators that will be hit hard on energy reform. Could the White House have asked Dodd to dial it back a little and hold off on something like that until they could get the concessions they needed.

Dems in the SE and industrial Midwest can only “bend” so far. Even on Obama’s lightning quick time line that brings Waxman-Markey to the floor by July 4, those key voters may already have bent past the breaking point.

So, if Waxman-Markey is out, what does that mean for US posture in Copenhagen? Should we anticipate action by the EPA in lieu of a climate bill? Stay tuned!

Related posts:

• NASA’s Hansen on Waxman-Markey: “it’s just stupidity”
• Cap & Trade – Obama’s Win Is the States’ Loss
• Three Strikes! Why Cap-and-Trade is Dead for 2009
• Will Washington’s Clean Tech Spending Spree Pay Off?
• Waxman-Markey’s Chevron Redux?

A powerful coal-state Democrat has inserted a 24-page provision into the U.S. Congress’s proposed cap-and-trade bill that would create a $10 billion Carbon Storage Research Corporation, including up to $500 million in “administrative expenses” over the next 10 years. The Web site Solve Climate said the institute would be operated by the coal industry and would research methods of storing carbon dioxide underground; it would be funded with a 50-cent-per-month surcharge on the utility bills of all U.S. households.

Critics contend that the Carbon Storage Research Corporation is a massive pork barrel project, and say it was included in the so-called Waxman-Markey bill to win the vote of U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher, an influential Democrat from Virginia. Said one analyst, “This is every industry’s dream — to have the proceeds of a monopoly tax dedicated entirely to your interests.”

This article originally appeared on Yale Environment 360 at http://e360.yale.edu

Related posts:

• Carbon Capture Project is Launched at UK Yorkshire Plant
• Carbon Sequestration – an optimal clean technology?
• Liquefied Coal May Become an Economically Viable Fuel Option
• U.S. Carbon Capture Projects Selected for Further Development
• Key CO2 Capture Project Is Suspended by Major U.S. Utility