President Obama has invested a lot in enabling climate change and facilitate the reduction of pollution that would be a positive thing for the future generations. The president has promoted environmental friendly sources of energy to enable a change from fossil fuel dependency to a new renewable energy economy while ensuring economic growth and development. The Clean Air Act has been the law governing the transition process but the president has faced huge challenges from issues relating to the following topics.
The involvement of interest groups in the lawmaking process
The role of the parties in policymaking and the way that partisan polarization is at work with reference to this issue.
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The relationship between states and the Federal government
Money in politics is a negative vice in our country due to the implications of the elected congress and senate. Money is becoming the main threat of democracy as the proposed wishes of the majority are forsaken to satisfy the wishes of the few wealthy people. The issue of clean power plan is likely to affect the millionaires and billionaires in the fossil fuel industry as the clean power plan proposes ways that will replace their investments. During elections these wealthy people invest most of their resources to fund the campaigns and ensure that the people they propose and support are elected to Congress and Senate. This Congress and Senate are just puppets of these wealthy people thus will only pass laws that do not disadvantage their sponsors. The issue makes it difficult to pass bills that intend to facilitate clean power plan either directly or indirectly (Rahm, 2010). The proposed issues on provision of permanent subsidiaries is likely to create direct competition for the fossil industry thus the congress will delay or fail to support such projects whereas they may support if the subsidies will enable their sponsors benefit economical. For instance, past surveys portray that importing production of solar panels from Chinese companies is cheaper than funding a local company. These results means that congress should support Chinese companies to begin production in the domestic market rather than fund the local industries but such a move would be a disadvantage to the sponsors who may be the owners of the local company hence the congress and senate will decline from passing such bills.
The two party political system has had many benefits but has also led to huge constraints on issue that will make one party’s leadership better than the other thus the party in opposition tends to oppose most of the proposed bills by the ruling party (Somin, 2016). The lack of majority in both Legislation Houses, makes it difficult for the government to impose changes as the law requires that a majority of votes in both houses for the president to approve a bill into law. If for instance the party in power has more seats in the either of the houses, one house will ensure the bill does not pass. The Republican since Obama came to power has fought hard to see most of his bills fail but it was impossible during his first term since he had a majority in both houses which is not the case in the current term. Most of the opposition congress and senators tend to use issues like economic gain and other important issues to limit the success of climate bills. They may also blackmail the party in power to support one of their bills for them to reciprocate by supporting environment bills. Lastly, the issue of climate change has been opposed by use of vague statements for instance the politicians may argue they are not scientists thus have no mandate to conserve the environment (Rahm, 2010).
The proposed clean power plan by the EPA has raised some issues that will lead to constraints in promoting climate changes. The EPA exceeds the statutory authority and it is a violation of federalism. The EPA has set some limits of emissions for every state and requires the states to use carbon tax or regional cap and trade which is a direct interference with the private sector which are under the State and local authority (Richardson, 2012). The set standards for the entire state and their source of energy exceeds EPA statutory authority.
States have their laws that should ensure cooperation with the federal government but the federal government should not try to force the states to act against their interests or laws as such an act is a violation of the federalism of the states. The EPA has set the national and is forcing or mandating the states to administer its plan of clean power plan which violates the states’ rights as the EPA should only set the national standards of pollution and allow the states to administer the needed changes to ensure that the changes do not affect the economy and development of the states. “ EPA’s plan confronts the States with an unforeseeable choice and essentially remakes the agreement between them and the Federal Government that has existed since the Clean Air Act was enacted in 1970 .” (Loris, 2015). The issue of federalism and States’ power has been a contentious issue and a major cause of the Civil War hence the EPA should honor the rights of the States if it wants to achieve its goals and objectives. The EPA claims that violation of the set limits by the States would lead to being sanctioned from receiving traffic tax. Traffic taxes are the major revenue earners for states thus such a move will only lead to more resistance of change as the EPA will affect the economy and rights of the states.
References
Rahm, D. (2010). Climate change policy in the United States: The science, the politics, and the prospects for change . Jefferson, N.C: McFarland & Co.
Loris, N. (2015, July 7). The Many Problems of the EPA’s Clean Power Plan and Climate Regulations. The Heritage Foundation . Retrieved December 16, 2016 from, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2015/07/the-many-problems-of-the-epas-clean-power-plan-and-climate-regulations-a-primer
Richardson, B. J. (2012). Local climate change law: Environmental regulation in cities and other localities . Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.
Somin, I. (2016). Democracy and political ignorance: Why smaller government is smarter .
