A departure from the past two years, in which the EPA quickly reversed several environmental policies initially set by President Bush, President Obama is now temporarily withdrawing from working on delayed environmental regulations dealing with governing smog and toxic emissions from industrial boilers.
New regulations were set to be in effect within the next several weeks. But with this delay, the EPA claims it needs until "July 2011 to further analyze scientific and health studies of the smog rules and until April 2012 on the boiler regulation."
The White House asserts that President Obama is in no way trying to back out of his original "aggressive environmental agenda." Instead some political analysts claim that he's merely reacting to a new political climate with a stronger Republican Party present in Washington.
It's a sticky situation. Personally, I'm kind of in the middle because I do believe in having more stringent environmental regulations, as the US releases emissions at a rate that is highly disproportionate to the amount of people that actually live here. In fact, we are the largest cumulative emitter of energy related CO2 emissions. Crazy! But on the other hand, environmental regulation costs money to enact and enforce. And in this delicate economy, I don't know if the US financially capable of spend this much money on it and possibly lose jobs along the way.
How do you guys feel about this sticky issue? Do you agree with Obama's position?
5 comments:
It's highly disappointing that the Obama administration is delaying work on environmental regulations, but I'm not surprised that this is happening. Obama has stretched himself thin with so many issues on his agenda, and I'm not surprised that the environment is not on the top of his list. But the government has to stop delaying work on the environment very soon because there are not "quick fixes" for the environment; i.e., the various problems in the environment require long-term solutions.
I too am in the middle with michelle, because I was excited to see Obama come in to office with an agenda that was set on more environmental regulations, but with the economy he inherited, sometimes priorities change..Although I do still wish that this was enacted, I can understand why the White House wouldn't, with the new Republican force and a struggling economy. The complications our country's emissions are making will be sad to face in the future.
Obama made numerous promises prior to his election, few of which he can actually keep.
While I typically advocate for more stringent environmental policies, I believe that we need to focus on more pressing issues. Controlling smog and toxic emissions is extremely important, but as Michelle said, we just don't have the financial capability right now. Furthermore, in face of the stronger Republican Party presence, President Obama needs to take caution in choosing the policies to focus on right now.
Obama is doing the right thing. Instead of focusing on an issue that remains under a cloud when its effects and timeliness are brought up, he is choosing to focus on an issue which affects us in the now. Obama is simply playing the game of politics correctly and admirably right now. Doing the best for his country while doing himself right politically.
This is just another example of Obama realizing that keeping with a liberal agenda even when the opposing party is so vehemently against anything he would try to do is impossible. Just like most mandate politics, he started off keeping on the track that he promised he would ride, but as time goes on there are a multitude of ways policy can be derailed. This obvious delay is just another one-sided compromise that Obama is unfortunately accepting without much of a fight. As always the environment and related policy is put on the back burner so the more "important" policy has a better chance of being passed.
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