By Arpita Bhattacharyya, Center for American Progress

President Obama’s strong remarks on climate change yesterday left the environmental community hopeful that actions will soon follow his words. The Center for American Progress has laid out a blue print for how the President can move forward on climate change and energy, and most of those recommended actions can be taken now through executive orders, including setting carbon-pollution standards for existing power plants, oil refineries, and other major industrial sources under the federal Clean Air Act.

If President Obama takes these up, he will inevitably face push back from members of Congress who falsely claim that the economic costs are too high for crucial Environmental Protection Agency public health regulations. In reality, these regulations have saved thousands of lives and strengthened our economy. China’s extreme air pollution earlier this month serves as reminder of why we can’t let anti-public health rhetoric shake our resolve on crucial live saving regulations.

Air pollution levels in Beijing literally went off the charts earlier this month. On the normal scale of 1 to 500 for measuring small pollution particulates harmful for health known as PM2.5, the U.S. Embassy monitors in Beijing recorded 755 on January 12th. To put that in context, 50 or below is considered good air quality by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Air Quality Index. 301 to 500 is considered extremely hazardous and people are advised against going outdoors. The 755 rating surpassed the “crazy bad” pollution record set two years ago in China. The Chinese government responded by pulling government vehicles off the road and limiting activity at construction sites. Meanwhile, hospitals were full of patients with heart and respiratory ailments. China’s challenges with pollution serves as a reminder for Americans on how important Environmental Protection Agency regulations are for protecting public health.

While China’s air pollution problems may sound extreme and incomparable to air quality here in the U.S., we actually did face a very similar environmental situation during its industrialization. The reason? Tight regulatory standards for public health didn’t exist yet. In the 1940s and 1950s, smog had blanketed major cities while sewage and industrial waste infected U.S. rivers. In 1948, pollutants trapped over the industrial city of Donora, Pennsylvania killed twenty and permanently injured hundreds.

Slowly, the American Public became more aware of the effect of pollution on public health and demanded action.

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By Jessica Goad, Manager of Research and Outreach, Public Lands Project, Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Republicans on the House Natural Resources Committee spent Thursday morning learning that their four bills introduced to speed up permitting of renewable energy on public lands in reality would have very little effect on renewable energy development. Indeed, agency witnesses testified that the policies could have the opposite effect — creating more lawsuits and delaying projects.

As became clear during the hearing, the Department of the Interior and the Forest Service already have the authority to do what three of the bills propose — exempt projects with no environmental impact from the environmental review process. The key difference with the bills promoted by Republicans is that they completely exempt wind and geothermal testing facilities from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), a law designed to minimize conflict with projects from the start. According to the government witnesses, this could lead to more delays in permitting. Bureau of Land Management Deputy Director Mike Pool explained bluntly that the GOP legislation would create “more lawsuits”:

I believe any action that would shortchange the NEPA process would result in more lawsuits.

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Pool further noted in his testimony that the legislation could have “unintended consequences.” Because of this, the wind and solar energy industries did not come out in favor of the three bills that would affect them. While thanking Representative Kristi Noem (R-SD) for her leadership in introducing one of the bills, Chris Taylor, testifying on behalf of Element Power (a solar and wind company) and the American Wind Energy Association, stated that the problems his organization sees with permitting wind testing facilities “can be improved within the confines of NEPA.” In other words, the legislation is not needed.

As ten witnesses testified before the committee in two different oversight hearings a few weeks ago, consistent and reliable financing is the biggest roadblock to renewable energy development on public lands. Taylor of the American Wind Energy Association reiterated that point today, saying: “Far and away the biggest challenge facing the wind industry right now is the lack of stable federal policy support, namely long-term financial incentives and a demand-side policy like a clean or renewable electricity standard…it needs to be clear that any changes that are made to make it easier to site projects on public lands will be of limited use if projects aren’t able to be built because federal tax incentives…or because the lack of demand-side policies limit the market for renewable energy.”

Republicans killed off the best mechanism for long-term policy support for the renewable energy industry when they demonized climate legislation, which would have allowed the market to determine the most efficient mechanism for making desperately needed reductions in carbon pollution. They continue to slash clean energy programs and prop up the oil and coal industries with new pollution subsidies.

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Written by Sarah Collins, intern with the Energy Opportunity team at the Center for American Progress and a graduate of the University of Michigan Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, and Brad Johnson.

Thursday, the Obama administration took an initial step to require all federal agencies to consider global warming impacts in their actions. This year is the fortieth anniversary of the enactment of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which requires federal agencies to prepare environmental impact statements for proposed projects. Among three new draft guidance documents issued yesterday by the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) with regard to the implementation of the NEPA was “Consideration of the Effects of Climate Change and Greenhouse Gas Emissions” (GHG). The draft guidance is two-fold:

— MITIGATION: Agencies should “evaluate proposed mitigation of GHG emissions,” particularly for projects that would be responsible for “25,000 metric tons of direct CO2-equivalent GHG emissions.”

— ADAPTATION: Agencies should take into account how “climate change impacts” could affect the project — for example, “climate change can affect the integrity of a development or structure by exposing it to a greater risk of floods, storm surges, or higher temperatures.”

The administration action follows the recommendations made two years ago by the Center for American Progress and other organizations. On May 5, 2008, the Center released “An Executive Order to Require Consideration of Global Warming Under the National Environmental Policy Act,” proposing measures released today in the guidance documents. Recommendations in the report outlined an Executive Order for NEPA that would provide an essential foundation for public information, increase understanding of the costs and consequences of federal actions, encourage federal actions that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and promote investments that help adapt to the effects of global warming. The Center’s report was prepared by Christopher Pyke of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, and CAP environmental policy director Kit Batten, now Science Advisor in the Office of the Deputy Secretary of the Department of the Interior.

The Center’s recommendation followed up on concerns outlined in a February 28, 2008 petition of the International Center for Technology Assessment, Natural Resources Defense Council, and Sierra Club with the Council on Environmental Quality regarding the need for inclusion of global warming analyses in federal review documents.

Notably, however, the White House “does not propose to make this guidance applicable to Federal land and resource management actions.” This is a glaring omission, with respect to both climate change effects (for example, on wetlands and floodplains) and global warming emissions (for example, if the Energy and Interior departments coordinated on financing, planning, and permitting a series of projects on federal lands such as solar installations, wind farms, or oil and gas development).

This action is part of a comprehensive effort by the Obama administration for the executive branch to take climate change into account after eight years of inaction, above and beyond the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulatory steps and the State Department’s international diplomacy. These include new policies and considerations by the Department of Defense, the the Securities and Exchange Commission, and government-wide emissions-reduction plans.