Bush’s Change on Climate due to SC Decision
[ Most people don’t get this but Bush’s stance on emissions hasn’t changed - but it has to accept last years Supreme Court Ruling. Post ruling regulations need to be put in place, or the litigation will be endless as courts mandate levels instead of legislators and agencies ]
Senior White House officials last week told a group of conservative Republican lawmakers in a private meeting that the administration wants Congress to act on climate change to avoid regulating carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping—or greenhouse—gases under existing laws.
Perino says the administration is concerned about a potential regulatory “train wreck” as a result of climate-related court rulings.
“Recent court decisions hold the very real prospect that the federal government will regulate greenhouse gas emissions with or without a new law being passed,” Perino said. “To us, having unelected bureaucrats regulating greenhouse gases at the direction of unelected judges is not the proper way to address the issue.”
Several of the conservative GOP lawmakers who heard the White House presentation last week said they viewed it as a move toward endorsing a limited type of “cap-and-trade” emissions reduction proposal, targeting power plants, and a reversal of long-standing administration climate policy.
The new White House climate initiative comes as Bush appears, in the view of congressional Democrats and environmentalists, as increasingly irrelevant in the climate debate both on the domestic and international stage.
All three presidential candidates—Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain—favor a more aggressive program on climate change than does Bush, all supporting mandatory limits on greenhouse gases.