White House Official: Obama Will Use Executive Powers to Meet Climate Goals

The Obama administration is doubling down on its commitment to aggressive climate action despite an incoming Republican Congress that will undoubtedly oppose it, White House senior adviser John Podesta said Wednesday, saying the President can use his executive powers to meet his carbon reduction goals.

The comments, reported by the Financial Times[$], were reportedly meant to assure other world leaders that the United States can still meet the ambitious climate goals set out under its historic agreement with China, even with a Congress led by a party that largely believes climate change does not exist.  Under that agreement, the U.S. pledged to emit 26 to 28 percent less greenhouse gases in 2025 than it did in 2005.  China, still a developing country, promised to get 20 percent of its energy from non-fossil-fuel sources by 2030, and to peak its overall carbon dioxide emissions by that same year.

“We’re building our game plan around authorities that exist in current law,” Podesta said, “not in the need to get a major, massive new climate reduction program put in place by the Congress.”

Using Presidential power to address climate change is far from a new theme in the Obama administration.  Indeed, when Obama made his landmark climate speech in June of 2013 — months before Podesta was appointed his adviser — he specifically announced his intention to bypass a deadlocked Congress and direct the Environmental Protection Agency to issue strict limits on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

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