Podesta confident that EPA rule on carbon emissions will stick

Future presidents are unlikely to undo the Obama administration's controversial rule to cut carbon emissions from power plants, even if they want to, presidential counselor John Podesta said Friday. Why not?

|
Michael Bonfigli/The Christian Science Monitor
Counselor to the President John Podesta speaks at the Monitor Breakfast for reporters on June 6, 2014 in Washington, DC.

White House counselor John Podesta aggressively defended the Obama administration's proposed rules for limiting carbon emissions from power plants during a breakfast hosted by The Christian Science Monitor in Washington on Friday.

“We’re committed to getting this done,” Mr. Podesta told reporters gathered at Washington’s St. Regis Hotel.

Claims by White House opponents that the rules will create massive job losses "have largely been debunked," Podesta said. "Every time that an environmental regulation has been put forward, the polluters say [the results will be] massive job losses, lights going off, electricity system crashing, bills going through the roof. They were wrong before, and they are wrong now."

Podesta also concluded that legal challenges to the rules are unlikely to be undone by any future Republican president, citing the fact that President George W. Bush was unsuccessful in overturning many environmental regulations put in place by his predecessor, President Bill Clinton. Under some circumstances, states will have until 2018 to file compliance plans. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) then has a full year to review the state plans.   

Even though some coal-state Democrats oppose the White House’s rules, Podesta predicted that the next president is likely to be supportive of the current president's latest climate-related moves.

“I’m fairly confident we’ll have a president who embraces the cause of tackling climate change and reducing emissions,” said Podesta, who served as Mr. Clinton’s chief of staff. “If you think about a challenge in the 2016 context and the politics of this in the 2016 context, if you’re a climate denier trying to run nationally I think you’re going to have a very hard row to hoe getting elected president of the United States.”

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Podesta confident that EPA rule on carbon emissions will stick
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/monitor_breakfast/2014/0610/Podesta-confident-that-EPA-rule-on-carbon-emissions-will-stick
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe