Obama's State of the Union Could Ramp Up Climate Fight with Republicans

Despite the new Republican majority and the oil industry gunning for the president’s agenda on emissions cuts and the Keystone XL pipeline, Barack Obama will show he’s no lame duck on climate change, White House officials insisted ahead of his second-to-last State of the Union Address.

After using his executive authority over the last 18 months to propose new carbon pollution rules for power plants, an historic emissions deal with China and – just last week – the roll-out of measures aimed at methane, Obama will also likely tout new smog rules on Tuesday. 
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But a year after stating the increasingly obvious yet again – “Climate change is a fact,” Obama said in his 2014 address before Congress – it appears the president may have to use the high visibility of the speech to re-affirm science before he can double down on his action plan.

And then, a few minutes later in what could make for a fiery political night on the environment in between talk of taxes and housing, Joni Ernst will take the national stage to deliver the official Republican response to Obama’s address.

Ernst, the freshman ​senator from Iowa elected on a promise to “make ’em squeal”, does not accept that climate change is real.  Neither do a large number of Republicans in power in Congress, despite new research released last week showing that majorities of moderate and liberal Republican voters do, in fact, accept the existence of climate change.

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