Obama's budget doubles down on climate fixes. Republicans vow to undo them

In addition to some $7.4 billion in research and development funding for clean energy and climate science, President Obama’s fiscal year 2016 budget — a nearly $4 trillion affair — includes $239 million aimed at the Environmental Protection Agency’s contentious Clean Power Plan, which among other things seeks to reduce emissions from power plants that burn fossil fuels, including coal.

Adding to that, Obama is seeking another $4 billion to create a set of incentives for states to go above and beyond that federal program in a broad effort to begin dramatically reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

But such funding will face stiff opposition in Congress, which must approve the budget. The new Republican leadership has been openly disdainful of the administration’s climate-centric rulemaking through the EPA, vowing to starve the agency of funding as a tactical measure.  Along those lines, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, responded to the president’s proposed budget by announcing on Monday that he’d be joining a subcommittee that directly controls funding for the EPA.

“You can guarantee that I will continue to fight back against this administration’s anti-coal jobs regulations on behalf of the Kentuckians I represent in the U.S. Senate,” McConnell said in a prepared statement.

The Clean Power Plan itself, introduced last June, sets up emissions reduction targets for each state, within what the administration calls a “flexible framework” for meeting those goals. For example, states can stitch together a variety of initiatives — increased renewable energy production, nuclear power, fuel-switching from coal to natural gas at existing power plants, efficiency improvements — to meet their prescribed goal, which is ostensibly tailored to each state’s particular circumstances. The overarching objective is to reduce national emissions from the electricity sector, which accounts for about a third of all greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., by about 30 percent from 2005 levels within the next 15 years.

Source: Environmental Protection Agency

In August, 12 states — most of them heavily reliant on coal-fired power — filed suit against the EPA’s plan. A variety of other legal actions have been filed since the proposed plan was introduced, including one by Ohio-based coal company Murray Energy, which challenges EPA’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from existing coal-fired power plants under the Clean Air Act.

These cases will be wending their way through federal court for many months, and outcomes are far from certain. But the U.S. Supreme court has repeatedly affirmed and upheld EPA’s authority to regulate carbon pollution, beginning with an historic decision in 2007, and more recently in July.

Obama’s planned $4 billion state incentive fund would “support states exceeding the minimum requirements established in the Clean Power Plan for timing of state plans and the pace and extent of carbon pollution reductions from the power sector,” according to the budget proposal. Specifically, the money would help to underwrite efforts to minimize pollution disparities among low-income communities, support small business efforts to increase energy efficiency and other initiatives.

“Whether it is investing in clean energy technology, or in necessary tools, technical assistance, and on-the-ground efforts,” the president’s budget declared, “the federal government has a key role to play as a strong and ready partner with communities and the state, local, and tribal leaders who are taking action on climate today.”

Tom Zeller Jr. has written on energy and environment for The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Geographic, HuffPost and Bloomberg View. You can follow him on Twitter @tomzellerjr.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomzeller/2015/02/02/obamas-budget-doubles-down-on-climate-fixes-republicans-vow-to-undo-them/?ss=energy