“Clean Air Act: Not the ideal solution”

In a recent Politico blog, Carter Roberts, WWF’s CEO, discusses what the recent EPA endangerment finding really means for climate action. Excerpts are reposted here.

[As word of the EPA decision broke in Copenhagen yesterday—8 December 2009] WWF’s on-the-ground COP15 team was immediately inundated with scores of inquiries from news media from around the world, all eager to learn if the Obama Administration had miraculously figured out some way to circumvent the seemingly unwieldy U.S. legislative process in meeting its proposed emissions targets. Of course it’s not quite that simple.

There’s no doubt that the EPA announcement was an encouraging sign to those in Copenhagen, as well as a warning to the delayers in the Senate, that the President is serious about tackling climate change…But the Clean Air Act does not represent the ideal solution for solving climate change. It doesn’t have the scope to bring about the economy-wide reductions that are being discussed in Copenhagen. Nor does it provide the price signal and flexibility that the private sector demands and that proved so effective in solving the problem of acid rain.

The Clean Air Act finding makes clear the connection between climate change and human health and the President is looking out for the health of Americans by acting on its findings. But for the President to be able to live up to pledges for U.S. emissions reductions, unleash the power of the market to solve this problem and engage the global community, we need to go further than the Clean Air Act--we need a strong climate bill.

And so, the message President Obama needs to deliver in Copenhagen is quite simple. He needs to tell the world that he intends to make passage of a climate bill in the first part of 2010 his top legislative priority. That would be something to celebrate.

To read Robert’s entire piece click here and to read all of Politico’s live commentary from Copenhagen, see The Arena.

Carter Roberts
WWF’s CEO