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Health & Science

Obama to continue efforts to curb greenhouse gases, push energy efficiency

By Juliet Eilperin and Steven Mufson,November 07, 2012

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Robin Roy, who directs building-energy and clean-energy strategy for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said efficiency upgrades for buildings are not only “energy savings opportunities — they’re cost effective.”

Roy noted that by 2030 the United States would save enough energy annually to equal eliminating roughly 50 coal power plants if it brought its residential building codes up to the latest U.S. standards.

Obama, who has only a few times invoked his presidential authority to designate federal lands off-limits to development, also is likely to designate new national monuments in his second term.

Environmentalists, who played a significant role this year not only in the presidential election but also in more than half a dozen Senate races and a few key House contests, made it clear they were far more focused on the administration than Congress for the immediate future.

League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski, whose group spent $14 million this year — winning seven out of its eight targeted Senate races and at least three and possibly four of its targeted House races, described the Senate as “a firewall” against legislation that would continue to win approval in the GOP-controlled House.

While Obama might have been environmentalists’ favored candidate Tuesday, it is clear they will start pressuring him right away on several issues, including a push to reject the Keystone XL pipeline. On Nov. 18, the group 350.org will kick off its “Do the Math” tour in Washington with a White House rally, where they will push Obama to block any decisions favoring fossil fuel.

“The biggest thing we need to do right away is not give any more gifts to the fossil fuel industry,” said Bill McKibben, 350.org’s co-founder. “And that begins with Keystone.”

Fred Krupp, who heads the Environmental Defense Fund advocacy group, said the administration will have to decide by the end of the week whether to require airlines to comply with European requirements for buying pollution allowances to offset their carbon emissions.

But Krupp warned against circumventing Republicans. “Part of leadership is listening,” he said, “and he and all the senators really need to approach these energy and environment issues by listening to find where that center is to provide real change.”

Obama, who did not speak frequently about climate change during the campaign, made it clear in his acceptance speech early Wednesday that he would pursue the matter. He listed cutting U.S. dependence on imported fuel as one of his top priorities for the next term and said, “We want our children to live in an America . . . that isn’t threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet.”

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