The New Yorker examines the President’s latest budget and find it “represents a major dodge on climate change.” Hence columnist Ryan Lizza poses the headline question, “Has Obama already given up on climate change?”

Sure Obama has been talking a good game on climate in the second inaugural address and State of the Union:

But the budget released this week makes it clear that Obama’s surprising appeal to Congress was an empty piece of rhetoric. The phrase “climate change” appears twenty-nine times in the new budget, but there is no new plan for Congress to take up in Obama’s otherwise ambitious legislative blueprint. There are some worthy energy initiatives that could achieve modest reductions in emissions, but the budget is silent on what Obama will do to aggressively reduce carbon pollution by the biggest emitters, like power plants and automobiles.

If rhetoric cut emissions, we’d be carbon free already. But only action does.

Still, it is not as if Obama has the power to act:

It is not as if Obama doesn’t have the power to act. On many issues the President is at the mercy of Congress. He can’t reform gun laws or the immigration system, or rewrite the tax code, without coöperation from the House and Senate. Climate change is different. Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency, backed by the force of a Supreme Court ruling, has the authority to reduce carbon pollution through regulation. In 2010, when White House negotiators were trying to pass cap and trade, they presented reluctant senators with a promise (some called it a threat): pass a comprehensive bill to deal with the problem or the E.P.A. would move forward on its own. Three years later, the Administration has still not acted on that ultimatum. And, ominously for those who care about tackling climate change, Obama’s new budget proposes to reduce funding for the E.P.A. by 3.5 per cent compared to the current year.

Oh, well, it’s not as if team Obama is delaying action:

The Environmental Protection Agency said Friday that it would delay issuance of a new rule limiting emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from new power plants after the electric power industry objected on legal and technical grounds…

“We are continuing to work on the rule,” said Alisha Johnson, the E.P.A. press secretary. “No timetable has been set.”

No worries. It’s not like we’re in a hurry or anything (see Study: We’re Headed To 11°F Warming And Even 7°F Requires ‘Nearly Quadrupling The Current Rate Of Decarbonisation’). It’s not like inaction is incredibly costly (see IEA warns, “The world will have to spend an extra $500 billion to cut carbon emissions for each year it delays implementing a major assault on global warming”).

It’s not like delaying the rule for limiting emissions from new power plants delays the far more important rule for limiting emissions for existing power plants. Okay, well, it is like that, but it isn’t like Obama told the nation in February “If Congress Won’t Act Soon To Protect Future Generations, I Will.” The New Yorker also cites that remark and concludes:

Nothing in his new budget follows through on that promise. And if that doesn’t, what will?

Hakuna matata.

President Barack Obama’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2014 would eliminate $39 billion of special tax breaks for Big Oil companies over the next decade as part of comprehensive business tax reform. These companies earned billions of dollars in recent years due to high oil and gasoline prices and do not need additional support from taxpayers.

These tax breaks emerged over the past 100 years to help the then-nascent industry develop, and they relieved the oil and gas industry of $466 billion in tax payments to the federal treasury between 1918 through 2009, according to DBL Investors. Now that the oil and gas industry is fully developed and mature, President Obama’s budget would end this century of largesse.

The five largest oil companies — BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell — earned a combined total of $255 billion in 2011 and 2012, largely a result of higher oil prices. Meanwhile, these companies are producing less oil, have $72 billion in cash reserves, and are using one-quarter of their profits to buy back their own stock to enrich their largest shareholders (see Table 1). Reuters reported last year that Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and ExxonMobil — the three largest American oil companies — paid half or less of the standard corporate tax rate. President Obama’s budget recognizes that oil companies no longer need tax relief.

In contrast, the House of Representatives would continue to provide tax subsidies for one of the richest industries in the world. It passed an FY 2014 budget authored by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) that retains these existing special tax preferences and provides yet another tax break on top of them. What’s more, the House budget cuts the corporate tax rate by nearly one-third, which would provide more than $2 billion annually in additional tax relief to the five largest oil companies.

The American Petroleum Institute, or API, serves as Big Oil’s lobbying arm and is spending tens of millions of dollars on ads and lobbying to pressure Congress to retain these special tax breaks. API equates eliminating special tax breaks with tax increases, when in actuality such legislation would simply make Big Oil pay its fair share of taxes. Economists recognize that tax breaks are simply federal government spending through the tax code, which also contributes to the budget deficit.

Read more

By Bill Becker

With the exception of Alfred E. Newman and those who are taking advantage of legalized pot, we Americans are very good worriers. We are even able to worry about several things at once. It’s a kind of emotional multi-tasking and we do it all the time.

Nevertheless, it’s a skill that President Obama consistently underestimates when he talks about the politics of global climate change. The most recent example came in his meeting earlier this month with high-net-worth supporters in San Francisco. As the New York Times reported it, the President lamented that the politics of the environment are “tough.”

“You may be concerned about the temperature of the planet, but it’s probably not your No. 1 concern,” the Times quoted him as saying. “And if people think, well, that’s shortsighted, that’s what happens when you’re struggling to get by.”

He made a similar statement last Nov. 14 in his first post-election news conference:

There’s no doubt that for us to take on climate change in a serious way would involve making some tough political choices, and you know, understandably, I think the American people right now have been so focused and will continue to be focused on our economy and jobs and growth that, you know, if the message is somehow we’re going to ignore jobs and growth simply to address climate change, I don’t think anybody’s going to go for that. I won’t go for that.

The idea that we live in a one-worry-at-a-time political environment is encouraged by public opinion polls that ask citizens to identify their top issues – in other words, what worries them most. Climate change routinely falls well down the list behind all things economic.

The polls corner their respondents into false choices, however, because most of the issues people are asked to rank are interrelated. Oil prices have a big impact on the economy and jobs. The extreme weather attributed to climate change, which in turn is attributed to our use of fossil fuels, results in more federal spending, which deepens the budget deficit and pressure on taxes. Climate impacts around the world already are undermining international security. Some of the money American consumers spend on gasoline ends up in the Middle East supporting terrorism. And as study after study has concluded, using energy more efficiently and making the transition to renewable energy not only slows climate change; it also stimulates the economy and creates jobs. Breaking these issues apart, stuffing them into stovepipes and asking people to rank them is not nearly as informative as pollsters and politicians make it out to be.

As intelligent as he obviously is, President Obama should have no trouble stitching these issues back together to help the American people see the interconnections that exist in the real world between energy, climate, economy, jobs, national security, government spending, and other issues on the pollsters’ lists.

During his November news conference, President Obama continued:

If, on the other hand, we can shape an agenda that says we can create jobs, advance growth and make a serious dent in climate change and be an international leader, I think that’s something that the American people would support. So you know, you can expect that you’ll hear more from me in the coming months and years about how we can shape an agenda that garners bipartisan support and helps move this — moves this agenda forward.

So let’s hear from you, Mr. President. Since it’s so hard to put carbon back in the smokestack or to put the pieces back after our super-storms, let’s have a national conversation about climate change in the coming months rather than the coming years. Don’t worry about us. We’re world-class worriers. It’s a skill that’s been passed down from generation to generation. We, like you, are able to handle more than one important issue at a time.

– Bill Becker is Executive Director of the Presidential Climate Action Project (PCAP), an initiative of Natural Capitalism Solutions to help the President of the United States take decisive action on global warming and energy security.