For example, last week alone,

Published electronically with hyperlinks to the material behind the ideas, PCAP is the result of 22 months of work involving more than 200 people. Its proposals come from some of the nation’s leading experts on climate and energy policy, from original research, from members of the project’s prestigious national advisory committee and from present and former federal employees who understand the inside workings of government and whose desire to do something about climate has been pent up for the past eight years.
Among the several white papers and studies PCAP commissioned is a keep-it-simple plan for capping and trading carbon emissions, proposed by Yale economist Dr. Robert Repetto, and recommendations from international experts – including Alden Meyer at the Union of Concerned Scientists and Daphne Wysham of the Institute for Policy Studies -- on what the president should do to make the United States an honest partner in international negotiations over climate action.
PCAP also includes policy roadmaps from the
Because we anticipated that the legislative branch might be sensitive about presidential abuse of power in the wake of the Bush Administration, the PCAP team commissioned an extensive analysis of the president’s authority to act on climate and energy without waiting for Congress. Scholars at the University of Colorado School of Law studied the 96 current statutes in the U.S. Code that specifically address climate change; many of our landmark environmental laws; 140 federal court cases and 370 executive orders going back to 1937. They analyzed about two-dozen executive orders proposed by PCAP and identified the specific statutes that give the president the authority to implement them.
The conclusion: President Obama will take office with plenty of power to jump-start federal leadership on climate and energy security and to begin
That conclusion doesn’t leave the nation’s lawmakers off the hook. PCAP contains 75 major action items for Congress. At the top of the legislative list is a two-part plan to mobilize the marketplace for the new economy:
PCAP also recommends that President Obama do the following:
--> Seek a bilateral agreement with
--> Reinstitute specific carbon-cutting goals for the federal government (they were removed by the Bush Administration) and mobilize the game-changing procurement power of the government to buy green energy and products.
--> Forbid political censorship of federal climate science and give government scientists the right of last review of their technical conclusions.
--> Set ambitious new energy and climate goals for the country. We should reduce our greenhouse gas emissions 30 percent by 2020; cut our oil imports in half by 2030; raise the CAFE standard to at least 50 mpg by 2025; achieve zero-net-carbon buildings by 2030; and cut energy consumption in half by 2030.
--> Begin regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. Regulation will help convince the international community that we’re serious. More importantly, regulation will begin cutting emissions even before cap-and-auction takes effect, and curb emissions that a cap-and-auction system cannot.
--> Order agencies to review the more than 200 financial assistance programs administered by the government and redirect them wherever possible to invest in the new economy rather than the old.
--> Appoint climate experts rather than lobbyists to senior positions. We have provided President-elect Obama’s transition team a list of 250 senior jobs where we believe climate expertise is critical, along with the names of 200 experts who should be considered for appointments.
These investments in a new energy economy – including a market-based system to gradually raise the price of fossil fuels -- won’t be easy in this time of economic hardship, but they are necessary. The cost of not acting is much higher and much more painful.
-------------
William S. Becker is the Executive Director of the Presidential Climate Action Plan (PCAP), a project of the University of Colorado, Wirth Chair, charged with producing a 100 day action plan on climate change for the next President of the United States, and the author of THE 100 DAY ACTION PLAN TO SAVE THE PLANET, available in eBook format from St. Martins Griffin.
Related articles:
The 100 Day Action Plan to Save the Planet
Struggling for Obama's Soul
Labels: Barack Obama, Bill Becker, Climate Change, Environment, Global Warming, PCAP, Politics