Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
used to justify tighter standards, while others have criticized the
methods for understating the SCC. Congress may wish to consider the
process by which the SCC have been developed, the role of public and
Congressional input, and how the SCC may affect future actions.
3.
Some in Congress may seek to enact a more cohesive alternative to
EPA regulation of GHG emissions and the assortment of
administration measures in the Obama plan. Some policy-makers have
proposed that fees on GHG emissions (e.g., ―carbon taxes‖) would be
a preferable alternative, while others oppose this option. The
Keystone XL pipeline, to transport Canadian oil sands crude across
the U.S. border, requires a Presidential Permit from the President.
While many support approval of the pipeline, some environmental
proponents have called the project the ―line in the sand‖ on climate
change and urge the President to deny the permit. Pursuant to the
President's statement that ―[our] national interest will be served only
if this project does not significantly exacerbate the impacts of carbon
pollution,‖ Congress may wish to examine systematically the trade-
offs to national interest of the project.
End Notes
1
Executive Office of the President (EOP). The President's Climate Action Plan. June 2013.
Available
at
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/image/president27
sclimate
actionplan.pdf.
2
White House, Remarks by the President in the State of the Union Address. Washington DC.
February 12, 2013.
3
The House passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act (the ―Waxman-Markey‖ bill),
the 111th Congress' H.R. 2454, but no corresponding bill cleared the Senate. For further
information, see CRS Report R40643, Greenhouse Gas Legislation: Summary and Analysis
of H.R. 2454 as Passed by the House of Representatives, coordinated by Mark Holt and
Gene Whitney.
4
White House. President Obama's Plan to Fight Climate Change. http://www.whitehouse.gov/
share/climate-actionplan.
5
President Obama separately set a goal to double U.S. energy productivity (i.e., energy
consumption per unit of economic activity, such as Gross Domestic Product) by 2030
compared with 2010 levels.
6
Of the six gases covered by the Kyoto Protocol, excluding hydrofluorocarbons, nitrogen
hexafluoride and other newer GHG, and excluding removals of CO2 from the atmosphere
by ―sinks‖, such as uptake by expanding forests.
7
CRS calculations from data in Environmental Protection Agency. Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse
Gas
Emission
and
Sinks:
1990-2011.
Washington
DC,
April
2013.
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/ usinventoryreport.html.
