Too bad Obama has been so wrong about fracking. Keeps me from being able to accept him as the environmental president. Natural gas is a fossil fuel, methane (which leaks from wells and pipelines) is 30 to 100 times as potent a green house gas as carbon dioxide, and the process is contaminating water, air and land throughout Appalachia.
From: ec-bounces@osenergy.org [mailto:ec-bounces@osenergy.org] On Behalf Of Paul Wilson Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2015 10:17 AM To: WV Chapter Energy Committee; Frank Young; Gary Nelson; Jim Kotcon; Jim Sconyers; Jonathan Rosenbaum; Karen Grubb; Sally Wilts Subject: [EC] Fwd: [CONS-WILDLANDS-INFO] Obama env. legacy
fyi, paul w.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Clayton Daughenbaugh claytonhd@xmission.com Date: Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 10:59 AM Subject: [CONS-WILDLANDS-INFO] Obama env. legacy To: CONS-WILDLANDS-INFO@lists.sierraclub.org
http://host.madison.com/news/opinion/column/spencer-black/spencer-black-obam...
Spencer Black: Obama poised to become the environmental president
Spencer Black represented the 77th Assembly District for 26 years and was chair of the Natural Resources Committee. He currently serves as the vice president of the national Sierra Club and is an adjunct professor of urban and regional planning at UW-Madison.
Amid the happy rituals of the season, Christmas Eve this year also marked a sadder centennial. It was on Dec. 24, 1914, that the great environmentalist John Muir died. Muir, father of the national park system and founder of the Sierra Club, left a lasting environmental legacy. Now, 100 years after Muir's death, someone in many ways quite different than Muir is also creating an imposing environmental legacy. While he is not a reincarnation of Muir, Barack Obama is building a monumental environmental legacy.
The president's greatest lasting impact may prove to be moving the nations of the world to finally address the climate crisis. For years, there has been an international logjam on climate while the threat to the well-being of future generations looms larger. Obama has used his executive authority to put America on track to significantly cut the greenhouse gas pollution that causes global warming. Obama's bold action led to a historic agreement with China, the world's biggest greenhouse polluter. The China-U.S. deal in turn set the stage for a preliminary international agreement reached in Lima in December. The nations of the world are convening in Paris later this year to finalize a pact. If Obama's climate initiative leads to a meaningful international agreement, Obama will rightfully secure his environmental legacy.
The Obama climate initiative is wide reaching. He has encouraged clean energy, enacted strict conservation standards and used his authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon emissions from coal plants. His policy will double the fuel efficiency of cars and light trucks and for the first time impose emission standards on commercial trucks, vans and buses. His actions have helped lead to tripling the use of wind power to generate electricity and a 400 percent growth in solar energy.
Obama has also used his authority under the Clean Air Act to significantly improve air quality by ordering the first-ever national limits for mercury, arsenic and other toxic air pollutants from power plants as well as requiring a sharp reduction in smog pollution that crosses state lines. He has improved water quality by protecting millions of acres of wetlands and limiting water pollution from mountaintop removal coal mining.
Using a Teddy Roosevelt-era law, the president created 13 new national monuments, protecting more than a million acres of biologically important public land, including the Organ Mountains in New Mexico and the San Gabriels in California. Additionally, he stopped uranium mining that threatened the Grand Canyon and blocked oil and gas drilling in Bristol Bay, Alaska, one of our most pristine environments.
Obama is well on his way to earning a place in history as the environmental president, despite unyielding opposition from the Republican Congress. To cement that legacy, he will have to act boldly. Some upcoming key decisions:
Will he reject the Keystone XL Pipeline, which would transport dirty tar sands oil?
Will he protect vulnerable public lands by declaring the Grand Canyon watershed and the Greater Canyonlands of Utah as national monuments?
Will he veto environmentally destructive bills passed by a polluter-friendly Congress?
Will enact tough rules to control methane, an extremely potent greenhouse pollutant?
Time will tell, but perhaps Obama will be added to the list of environmental heroes alongside folks like Teddy Roosevelt, John Muir and Gaylord Nelson.
Read more: http://host.madison.com/news/opinion/column/spencer-black/spencer-black-obama-poised-to-become-the-environmental-president/article_e48700c4-e418-5fb6-bbc9-b951be2829a8.html#ixzz3OLA8SdzN http://host.madison.com/news/opinion/column/spencer-black/spencer-black-obam...
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