PROMISES, PROMISES Can Obama Redeem His Environmental Failures? by Mark Hertsgaard

R E P 0 R T

PROMISES, PROMISES Can Obama redeem his environmental failures? By Mark Hertsgaard

John Pod~stii\li.£"b~gllh advising was a top concern for· Podesta~and, of staff had steered Bill Clinton's pres~ , Barack Obama in die, summer of it seemed, for Obama himself. In July, idency through the impeachment cri~ 2008, when the junior senator's im~ a group of experts informally repre~ sis, soon became Obama's · transition pr~bable rise from mixed;.race son of a senting the Democratic candidate manager, helping him identify andvet single mother to president ofthe traveled to Beijing for confidential prospective Cabinet members and United States .was acquiring a ,giddy talks with Chinese officials, hoping to other high~ranking officials. "I fought sense of inevitability. Climate change foster a new era of climate coopera~ very hard to create a separate office [in Mark Hertsgaard is the author of six books, tion after eight years of obstruction on the White House] for climate and en~ including, most recently, Hot: Living the part of the Bush Administration. ergy," Podesta told me. And the person Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth. Podesta, who as White House chief initially chosen to run that office-the

Bubbles of air trapped in snowstorms 5,000 to" 10,000 years ago emerge from an ice sheet melting as deposits of soot and small rock particles, or cryoconite, 28 HARPER'S MAGAZINE/ JULY 2014 increase heat absorption© James Balog/Aurora Photos

.~, ,_!it$214 M a an ma u: z.z ewe former EPA administrator Carol began serving as White House coun~ voters under age thirty~five, regardless Browner-was, in Podesta's opinion, sel. Since then, the president seems to of party affiliation. There was the po~ "extraordinarily well qualified." have begun tackling the issue with re~ etry of Obama pledging, on the night But when I interviewed Podesta last newed vigor. In his 2014 State of the he clinched the Democratic Party's November, he did not pretend that Union address, he framed it as a mor~ nomination, that this would be re~ Obama's climate record as president al imperative, pledging to "do every~ membered ·as "the moment when the had been satisfactory. Seated at his thing we could" to leave our grand~ rise of the oceans began to slow." kitchen table in Washington, D.C., children "a safe, stable climate." And More pragmatically, there was his en~ Podesta was dressed in running clothes; in June, the EPA is scheduled to, an~ dorsement of tough, ambitious poli~ at age .sixty.,.five, he still competes in nounce what may be among Obama's des, including making polluters pay marathons. I began by asking, "How furthest-reaching initiatives: new reg~ for the right to emit carbon and cut­ will history judge President Obama on ulations on the greenhouse gases ting greenhouse.-gas emissions by climate change, if history is still being emitted by the nation's 1,500 power 80 percent by 2050. writnen fifty years from now?" plants, historically the largest source When Obama took the stage in Obama will be viewed as someone of U.S. carbon pollution. Chicago, flashing that incandescent "who tried to address the challenge," But Podesta ~eemed to realize, if smile and flanked by his wife and replied Podesta. He was willing to take only privately, that Obama had a long daughters, he did not disappoint his risks and expend political capital on way to go on climate change. In No~ young supporters. ''A planet in peril," the issue-a rare and commendable vember, the once and future presiden~ he announced, would be one of his thing. "But fifty years from now, is that tial aide told me that Obama would top three priorities. This was a first. going to seem like enough? I think the likely go down in history as someone By implicitly giving climate change answer to that is going to be no." "who couldn't break through contem~ equal. status with the economic melt­ Of course, the president faced bitter porary politics to the place· down and the wars in Afghanistan opposition from the Republicans. But we need to go."1 and Iraq, Obama was elevating it to a Podesta believed that some of Obama's level of importance no previous top aides shared the blame for his 0 bama's record on climate U.S. president had granted. lackluster record. "There were people change is important not only for the So why, aside from the demands of inside the White House in the first obvious reason that everyone on the financial crisis, did he change two years who were not there" on earth requires a livable planet, but course so completely? For many of his climate change, he said. Their attitude also because his approach to the eli~ supporters, it's something of a/ puzzle. was dismissive at best: "Yeah, fine, mate issue reflects a great deal about "It was as if the issue evaporated into fine, fine, but it's ninth on our list of his presidency as a whole. As much as thin air," said Lee Wasserman, the di~ eight really important problems." his handling of the economy, health . rector of the Rockefeller Family Fund. "You headed his transition team," I care, or foreign policy, it illuminates To be sure, Obama took sorri.e im~ pointed out. "Do you feel any tespon~ both his early promise and his subse~ portant steps to combat climate change sibility for helping select those people?" quent shortfalls; both the victories once he was elected. He included an "Which people?'' won and the defeats suffered, the unprecedented $80 billion for clean I mentioned that Rahm Emanuel, blunders committed and the mysteries energy in the American Recovery and the White House chief of staff during begging explanation. Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the stim~ Obama's first two years in office, was As I rushed to Grant Park to cover ~Ius bill that passed a month after he frequently accused of being climate Obama's victory speech in 2008, I took office. The legislation was primar~ non~enthusiast number one. Law~ saw group after group of people in ily viewed as a life preserver for a foun~ renee Summers, the president's chief their twenties streaming through the dering economy, but as the journalist economic adviser, was criticized in streets of Chicago, their faces flushed Michael Grunwald writes in The New similar terms. with elation, chanting, "Yes we did!" New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change Podesta stared at me in silence, It was the young, after all, who were in the Obama Era (2012), it was also then he asked if we might speak off largely responsible for his victory. "the biggest and most transformative the record. We did. When we re~ They made up the bulk of the volun~ energy bill in U.S. history." turned, he limited himself to noting teer army that did so much-from "We'll look back and say, 'That was that decisions about the economic raising record amounts of money on~ a turning point,'" Carol Browner told team and its policies were "made by line to registering more than 800,000 me. Renewable~energy executives and the president, and they were not new voters-to give the nation its analysts agree. ARR~s ample invest­ made :around the question of climate first African~American president. ment in green technologies lowered change. We were in the middle of a And they did so in no small part production costs and market barriers, fiscal crisis." becal).se of what the candidate said stimulating the extraordinary spike in What Podesta did not tell me in about climate change, which polls wind and especially solar power over the November-perhaps he didn't know showed was a major preoccupation of past five years. By 2013, the cost of roof~ yet-was that he would soon return top solar was falling so rapidly that Jon to Obama's inner circle to try to sal~ 1 President Obama, through a White House Wellinghoff, then the chair of the Fed~ vage his climate legacy: in January, he spokesman, declined to comment. eral Energy Regulatory Commission,

REPORT 29 was telling reporters that it was "going A second cnt1c1sm of the cally unavoidable. After all, the bill to overtake everything." Waxman-Markey bill was that it un, established a nationwide limit on There were also the tougher fuel, dermined the Clean Air Act-and emissions, so it did not much matter efficiency rules that Obama mandat­ here we encounter one of the tower, if this or that individual facility kept ed when his administration rescued ing ironies of Obama's climate policy. polluting-,-such a facility's owners the failing U.S. auto industry. Gina On paper, he has all the authority he would be required to pay for a cor, McCarthy, who succeeded Lisa Jaclv needs to slash U.S. greenhouse,gas responding amount of emissions re, son as EPA chief in 2013, told me • emissions. Indeed, he has not just the ducdons elsewhere. In any case, with, that the new standards will produce authority but the obligation to do so, out such restrictions on the Clean "one of the biggest reductions in car, according to the Clean Air Act. The Air Act, energy companies and their bon pollution that this country has verb the act repeatedly employs is allies in Congress would simply sink seen." She put the number at about "shall"-as in "must." the bill.Z 6 billion metric tons-an amount Signed into law by President Rich, "There were only a few instances equal to the emissions of the entire ard Nixon in December 1970, just in which Clean Air Act authority United States in 2010. months after 20 million Americans was curtailed," Waxman told me. Last but not least, the White filled the streets on the inaugural "Don't restrict anything, was my posi, House gave its blessing to legislation Earth Day demanding government tion. But you have to .. make. compro, cosponsored by Representatives Hen, action, the amended Clean Air Act is mises to pass any piece. of legislation." ry Waxman of California and Ed, arguably the most powerful and far, Waxman emphasized that, under his ward Markey of Massachusetts that reaching environmental statute ever proposal, every coal,fired power plant aimed t0 reduce greenhouse,gas enacted in this country. It says that built in 2020 ·or thereafter would be emissions. through a "cap and trade" Americans have an absolute right to required to includy "carbon,capture, system. Obama, however, largely kept clean air-so absolute that economic and,sequestratioil.". technology­ his distance from the bill, declining considerations, such as the cost of a filters that would.,collect the plant's to give a major speech or otherwise given pollution,abatement technolo, greenhouse..,ga.s .·.emissions· for storage use the bully pulpit to educate the gy, shall play no role in the govern, underground, w~e~e they could not America!). people about the. issue. ment's decision,making. Moreover, warm the atmosv.here; And his willingness to water down the act explicitly states that regula, As the searchf?f ;votes proceeded, the bill was an early indication that ·tions ·should be "technology forcing"~ fossil,fuel intereS:~s demanded and the president would be backpedaling that is, they should push industry to got ·giveaw::J,y~it~atwent well beyond from his transcendent cam, go beyond its normal practices and . the Cl~anf\,ir-,f\_ctrestrictions. Oba, paign promises. devise new solutions that deliver the ,,m~!s.ear.1ter.·re4~iremeJ:lt··that pollut, stipulated public,health benefits; ~rs h~\·?()ffip·elled to pay. to emit car, H. enry Waxman introduced the That's how Americans got catalytic: bon: .was: largely .. reversed, instead American Clean Energy and Security converters on their cars in the 1970$1 grari~ing them free allowances to Act on the House floor on May 15, for example. 'c:¢i1.titm'e business as uSlJ.aL In addi, 2009. The bill's endorsement of cap To attract_ enoughvot~stq·.pass tion, "cost,containment 'measures" and trade was championed by the W~xman--cMarkey oi).· CapitoF Hlill, were inserted that would suspend U.S. Climate Action Partnership h()wever,_ the Obama·}\dministration the hill's mandates if fossil ... fuel pric, (USCAP), a coalition of large corpo, dal'lgled the·prospect()f

30 HARPER'S MAGAZINE/ JULY 2014

s .$. '; % • J JM ; £, t .J None of this deterred· industry spending a mere twenty,four hours in opp

REPORT 31 that he had personally ordered the eight years." He noted that his ad~ of the Obama years.) Finally, the EPA to: withdraw a proposed regula~ ministration had helped open up mil~ president thrilled climate activists by tion on ground~ level ozone. According lions of acres for gas and oil explora~ vowing to approve the Keystone to the agency, this regulation would tion: "We've quadrupled the number pipeline only if it did not "signifi~ have annually prevented as many as of rigs to a record high [and] added candy exacerbate the problem of 12,000 premature deaths, 5,300 heart enough new oil and gas pipeline to carbon pollution." attacks:, and 58,000 asthma attacks encircle the earth and then some." If the president does eventually ap~ (particularly among children). Climate advocates were outraged. prove the pipeline, "he gets an F," Obama attributed his decision to "Instead of listening to the scientists, said Van Jones, a green~jobs adviser concern for America's struggling he has embraced this balancing act under Obama untif an attack by economy. "I have continued to un~ that tries to please everybody," said Glenn Beck led him to resign in derscore the importance of reducing Betsy Taylor, a philanthropic adviser 2009. If Obama departs the Oval Of regulatory burdens and regulatory and president of Breakthrough Strat- fice having held the pipeline at bay, uncertainty, particularly as our econ~ .egies, a consulting company. "So one "he maybe moves up. to a B minus." omy continues to recover," he said. day [the White House's message is] (In April, the State Department an~ Some observers suggested the move better energy efficiency. The next day nounced that it would delay any deci~ had more to do with wanting to car~ it's, 'Let's drill in the Arctic, now that sion on Keystone until a lawsuit re~ ry coal~dependent Midwestern states it's melted.'" garding the pipeline's route through in 2012. In any case, the announce~ Since winning his second term, Nebraska is resolved.) ment was. a humiliating reversal for Obama has promised, publicly and "I'm not ready to write him off yet," Lisa Jackson, who had promised to repeatedly, to resume the climate said Elijah Zarlin, who as an Obama overhaul the existing ozone stan~ fight. Hurricane Sandy helped. The campaign worker in 2008 drafted the dard, put in place by Obama's prede~ 2012 election took place a week after fund~raising emails .that brought in cessor. Jackson resigned the follow~ the storm hit much of the Northeast an unprecedented· flood of small~scale ing year; and Mid~Atlantic. Its assault on New contributions. "I helped elect the "Here was a decision by the Bush York City in particular, the head~ man, and deep down I still hold out Administration that was illegal, quarters of the U.S. news media, the hope he'll do it. But if he contin~ based on bad science," said the for~ made climate change real to many ues .on the current trajectory-the mer EPA administrator Lisa Heinzer~ journalists who had previously disre~ 'all of the above' energy strategy_;_ ling. It was also, in its reliance on garded it. Bloomberg Businessweek re~ then lthink history will judge [his ptojectted economic effects, "bad sponded with a· cover story: "It's climate policy] as one of the biggest public~health policy;" A 2001 Su~ Global Warming, Stupid~" And in his squandered opportunities preme Court ruling had actually first. postelection. news conference, of our time." forbidden the 'EPA to take the costs Obama vowed> to lead "a national of amhient~air~quality regulations conversation''· about climate change. N o fair evaluation of Obama's into consideration; public health He kicked off that conversation record can ignore that he has en~ was supposed to be the sole cdteri~ with his 2013 State of the Union a,d~ countered some of the most ideologi~ on. "So if there was one standard dress, in which he made clear that cally hostile, historically entrenched, that [the White Housel shouldnot he would no longer wait on science~ and deep~pocketed opposition ever have messed with, it was· that one," denying Republicans. "If Congress faced by an American president. In said Heinzerling. The effect of the won't act soon," the president said, "I the case of climate change, however, · president himself overturning the will." Five months later, in a much~ he has faced an additional and very regulation after EPA staff had spent touted speech at Georgetown Uni~ specific obstacle. To take action on a two and a half years preparing it, versity, Obama unveiled his Climate scale commensurate with the problem she added, ·was reportedly crushing Action Plan. He repeated his unam~ would put him on a collision course for the agency's mission and its bitious pledge from Copenhagen to with the richest business enterprise of workers' morale. reduce emissions by 17 percent-from the modern era: the oil industry. Obama's willingness to placate the 2005 levels, drawing applause from Big Oil's perennial sway in Wash~ energy industry also figured in one of an audience that was clearly un~ ington helps explain the climate hole the sign;ature moments of his 2012 re~ aware of his goalpost-shifting tech~ that the newly elected president election bid. On March 22, he trav~ niques. He praised the EPA for an~ found himself in. Under Republicans ~led to Cushing, Oklahoma, a major "nouncing regulations that, as a and Democrats alike, Washington oil~ transport hub that was the .termi~ practical matter, made the construe~ had bowed for so long to the political nus for the second leg. of the proposed tion of new coal~fired power plants muscle and financial inducements of Keystone XL, the pipeline designed to highly unlikely. (He did not mention the fossil~fuel industry that the Unit­ carry tar~sands crude ftom Alberta to that grassroots activists, along with ed States had become by far the the Gulf of Mexico. Standing· before the falling price of natural gas, had world's largest source of cumulative a huge stack of pipes, Obama bragged already achieved· this goal, blocking greenhouse~gas emissions. (Around that ':A.merica is producing more oil 164 proposed coal plants by 2012- the time Obama entered office, Chi~ today than at any time in the last arguably the greatest climate victory na overtook the United States as the

32 HARPER'S MAGAZINE/ JULY 2014 rr::rnr

largest source of net annual emissions, fuel reserves underground. "You can't but it is cumulative emissions that simultaneously say we have to cut car~ drive global warming.) The U.S. re~ bon pollution and then maximize the fusal to limit its emissions gave China amount of carbon coming out of the and other emerging economies. the ground," said Brune. "You don't go on perfect excuse to shun limits as welL a diet by shopping for more Twinkies ,, Global emissions skyrocketed, and at Safeway.'' ' Obama · was confronted with. a eli~ The Obama aides I interviewed !r mate system that was deteriorating al~ seemed unable to square the' presi~ 'Y most as rapidly as the financial system dent's energy policies with the zoe n was. (By May Z014, scientists would target. John Holdren, the president's f~ report that part of the West Antarcti~ science adviser, declined to answer y, ca ice sheet was "irreversibly" melting, the question. Carol Browner initially " which could cause sea· levels to rise assured me that future historians an. additional four feet over the next would say Obama "made a real down ZOO years.) To stop or even slow the payment on reducing greenhouse~gas , disaster, Obama would have to lead a emissions." But asked if Obama's ac~ 1. virtual U~turn in global policy. tions ·in total, including his massive But he would also have to overcome expansion of fossil~fuel production, our " a central contradiction in his own were consistent with hitting· the weather instruments and ·weather cHmate policy. On the one hand, he target, Browner paused at length. stations, contact Maximum or has endorsed the industry~friendly "Wow, I don't know," she replied in a visit our website. "balanced approach." On the .other, doubting tone. "I don't know about 508.995.2200 he: has officially committed the Unit~ two degrees." www.maximum-inc.com ed States to limit global warming to Podesta, in our November inter~ two degrees Celsius above the level view, went further. Obama grasps that prevailed before the Industrial the importance of zoe "in an intel~ f\ l14 0~ AI lf\ 11® Revolution-or, as the former NASA lectual way," he told me. The presi~ scientist James Hansen has written, dent is a "very smart guy and he WEATHER INSTRUMENTS the level· at "which our civilization studies these kinds of problems in developed and to which life on earth great depth. His instinct, though, is is adapted." Although media reports to try to·. stretch but not be hysteri~ sometimes describe zoe as the thresh~ cal." Even if fully implemented, Pod~ arper's Magazine is ac.cept­ old between safe and unsafe, the lat­ esta said, Obama's climate policy . ing application.s from col­ est science disputes this distinction. would not hit the target: "Maybe it H lege students and gradu­ Bdtain's Royal Society has recently gets you on a trajectory to three de~ ates for its editorial and art internship concluded that such an increase grees, but it doesn't get programs. • Editorial interns serve full-time for would cross the threshold between a ''T you two degrees." "dangerous" and an "extremely dan~ three to five months and gain gerous" amount of global warming. l' l'hat advocates lamented most practical experience in critical read­ The World Bank warned in Z01Z that when I spoke to them about Obama's ing and analysis, research, fact­ the planet is on track for four degrees climate record, besides his "all of the checking, and the general work­ of temperature rise by 2100, a see~ above" energy strategy, were his long ings of a national magazine. Each nario it described as cataclysmic. periods of silence on the issue, which intern works with an editor on one "The president says that fighting enabled climate~science deniers to section of the magazine and climate change is a moral obligation confuse public opinion and block ur~ takes part in the creation of the as well as a matter of natiomi.l security gently needed government action. Harper's Index. and economic competitiveness," said "He's been like a weak radio sig~ • Art interns serve part-time for three Michael Brune, the executive director nal," said James Gustave Speth, who to five months and view current ex­ of the Sierra Club, the nation's largest chaired the presidential Council on hibitions at museums and galleries, environmental organization. "But he Environmental Quality in the 1970s, take part in the selection of art for has an energy policy in direct conflict which published the first U.S. gov~ the Readings section, and gain skills witlh. all those goals." ernment studies identifying global in electronic page layout and art Mainstream research institutions, warming· as a serious concern. "You and photo research. including the International Energy hear it for brief intervals and think All interns are encouraged to gener­ Agency and the United Nations In~ maybe it'll be an interesting show," ate ideas, read widely, and approach tergovernmental Panel on Climate he added back in January, "and then problems creatively. Both ·positions Change, have declared that the 2°C it fades away." are unpaid. target will require leaving at least two Senator Sheldon Whitehouse ex~ For further information and an applica­ thirds of the earth's remaining fossil~ pressed similar frustration. As the tion, call (212) 42o-5720. Please specifY which program you are applyingfor.

REPORT 33 most outswoken member of Congress fore his first summer in the White Basin," noted Pat Sweeney of the on the topic, .the Rhode Island Dem, House was over, he had lost control of Western Organization of Resource ocrat has delivered a climate,change, the narrative of his presidency. To the Councils, a ·regional environmental related speech on the floor of the extent that Obama's clean,energy pol, group. If all that coal ends up getting Senate almost every single week the icy was communicated at all, says Van mined and burned, the resulting car, chamber has been in session since· Jones, it was "communicated by the bon emissions •alone would be suffi, April 20l2. I asked Whitehouse right wing in the form of cherry pick­ dent to cancel out all the other eli, whether there had been any presiden, ing and demagoguery about Solyndra. mate progress Obama has made. tial reaction to his speeches, which My understanding is that ninety to The Powder River Basin is only numbered fifty,two by the time of our ninety,six percent of the president's one part of a larger exploitation of interview. "Yeah," he sa'id. "We got a bets in clean,energy investment paid public resources that began under tweet out of the administration when off. But all everybody hears Bush, argues Anna Aurilio, the dire~ I did the fiftieth one." ''I about is Solyndra." tor of the D.C. office of Environment The senator had tried to persuade America. "We saw a real push with the White House that this was a ·· expect .that the view of history the 2005 energy bill to open up much winning issue. "It becomes an even will be that President Obama was the of this country to oil, fracking, ·coal," more winning issue if treated with president who did the most to combat Aurilio told me. "Passage of that bill real attention. The polling data the climate,change problem," Repre, led to a fire sale on leasing our public [shows] that fifty,three percent of sentative Waxman told me. That lands. Unfortunately,· the Obama Ad, self,designated Republicans under statement is undeniably true, but it ministration hasn't done much to the age of thirty,five see climate, sets a ·very low bar. And climate tamp that down." change denial as ignorant, out of change is not the only policy area in Fracking · offers a particularly vivid touch, or crazy. The current stance which Obama has fallen so woefully example of the continuities between of the Republican Party in the denial short. His record on environmental the Bush and Obama Administra, camp is not one that can survive un, issues in general is similarly mixed, tions·. Under Bush's 2005 bill, Aurilio der scrutiny." and for many of the same reasons. pointed out, fracking was carefully ex, Tom Steyer, a billionaire Obama On the positive side, the president empted from the Clean Air Act, the donor andl climate activist, has tested has pledged to halt America's financ, Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking this theory by .bankrolling oppo, ing of new coal plants overseas. Water Act, and the Resource Conser, nents of climate deniers in recent Without billions· of dollars in U.S.' vation a:nd. Recovery Act. "So frack-­ Senate and gubernatorial elections backed loans, most of the plants ing isn't really regulated by the EPA." in Virginia and Massachusetts. His overheating the atmosphere and Relieved of these statutory fetters, candidates-Edward Markey in Mas, punishing people's lungs in China, frackirig has increased exponentially sachusettts · and Terry McAuliffe in India, and other developing countries in the Obama years,· notably in areas Virginia-both won. "Denying basic would never have been built in the of Montana, North Dakota, and science is a disqualifier for high office first place. Obama's reversal of de.:. Pennsylvania that overlie shale,rich at this paint," Steyer told me. "It may cades of American policy was soon · geological formations. The resulting not make people oppose you, but it emulated by the World Bank and the· jump in natural,gas production has may make them not turn out to vote European Bank for Reconstruction slashed energy prices and boosted for you~ You're too ridiculous." and Development, demonstrating econom:ic activity nationwide. But And even when Obama .and his that White House leadership can still nearby residents have complained advisers attempted to convey some influence international practices on about contaminated water, and re, kind of vision on climate change, climate change. searchers have concluded that such they fai~ed. Indeed, inept messag, These and other achievements concerns have merit. ing has been one of the most per, have been overshadowed, however, by· Scientists have also challenged the vasive, and most baffling, features Obama's industry,friendly initiatives, climate argument made on behalf of of his presidency. many of which mimic or extend the natural gas. For years, it was por, "I dodt think they ever paid atten, anti,environmentalism of George trayed as a "bridge fuel" to rely on tion to how they were going to ex, W. .Bush. Perhaps ·the most damaging while making the transition to a plain this," said Timothy Wirth, a for, policy is the least publicized: the fully green energy system. After all, mer U.S. senator from Colorado. enormous increas.e in coal mining on the methane that is released when Wirth, who now.•heads· the United publicly owned lands that Obama's natural gas is burned results· in only Nations Foundation, is still perplex~d Interior Department has encouraged, half as much greenhouse,gas pollu, by this failure. Obama; he said, was particularly in the Powder River Basin tion as an equivalent amount of coaL "one of the most articulate campaign, of Wyoming and Montana. But studies by scientists such as An, ers ever, but one of the least able [as "Starting in 2010, the Bureau of thony lngraffea, a Cornell University president] to explain what he was do, Land Management began proposing professor who spent the first thirty ing to the broad public." new coal leases, which would have au, years of his career advising oil and gas Obama's rhetorical retreat left the thorized more than 6. 7 billion tons of companies, have diminished this ar, field open to his adversaries, and be, new coal mining in the· Powder River gument. They document the many

34 HARPER'S MAGAZINE/ JULY 2014 u 1!1 u II I 111 gp a '"' t nt'rr rrnw n r

leaks in the infrastructure that brings "Traditionally, the goal of the EPA achieve a breakthrough on climate natural gas into America's homes and has been to get the nation's rivers and change. He hasn't gotten it done in businesses. When these pervasive streams in 'a fishable and swimmable part because he hasn't known how, leaks are taken into account, natural condition,'" Schaeffer explained. "In making poor hiring and strategic gas's climate advantage dwindles, per~ the draft, the EPA says that in 2006, choices and allowing the perceived haps to the vanishing point. scientific assessments done by the requirements of winning reelection Yet President Obama has consis~ states found that forty~two percent of take precedence over rallying the tently championed natural gas as a America's rivers and streams were in American people around a vision of vital component of his energy strategy. poor condition." The draft then~ sets what is right. In his 2014 State of the Union address, a goal· for 2018: Don't let things get But Obama is nothing if not persis~ he ca-lled it "a bridge fuel" to a clean any worse. "Really? That's it? I mean, tent. And as. he enters the final phase energy future. The president was care~ what happened to fishable of his presidency, he seems deter~ ful, though, not to utter the F word, and swimmable?" . mined to take another shot at climate despite the fact that a vast expansion change. Why else. would he bring of fracking is the only way to produce 0 bama's shortcomings on eli~ Podesta back to the White House to as much gas as his vision requires. mate change illustrate one of the basic focus the executive branch on the The EP~s Gina McCarthy told me truths of American politics: No presi~ problem, including the pursuit of a thatt the Obama Administration dent can bring about fundamental major deal with China? would soon unveil a new strategy for change-change that challenges the To accomplish all that needs limiting methane leakage, which it prerogatives of wealth and power­ doing---:-to preserve a livable did in March. "There are very clear unless he or she is aided and pushed planet-will require the kind of technologies available that can ad~ by vigorous, organized, and sustained leadership that Obama promised dress that," she said. "We think it's popular pressure and protest. back in 2008. "The transforma~ another opportunity for us to work This is especially true of the eli~ tional presidents in U.S. history all with those industry sectors and drive mate issue, for Obama has presided stepped up to defeat the en~ methane emissions down." over a nation that qualifies (but is trenched interests of their time and Blll.t it is the president's perpetual rarely described) as a petrostC).te. "The usher in a new national era," said eagerness to "work with those industry United States is as much of an OPEC Wasserman of the Rockefeller Fam~ sectors" on. environmental matters nation as most OPEC nations are," ily Fund.. "All of them-whether it that reminds Eric Schaeffer, former Everett Ehrlich, an undersecretary of was FDR mobilizing the public to director of the EP~s Office of Regula~ commerce in the Clinton Adminis~ fight fascism, or Teddy Roosevelt tory Enforcement, o(Obama's prede~ tration, told me. taking on the crushing economic cessor. Schaeffer resigned in 2'002, Ehrlich, who chaired Clinton's in~ power of the trusts, or Lincoln charging that the Bush White House teragency deliberations on the eco~ fighting a civil war to end slavery­ "seems determined to weaken the rules nomics of climate change, was ex~ defeated the interests by grabbing we aue trying to enforce." A key culprit plaining why an administration that the moral high ground and captur~ was ·the Office of Management .and boasted Al Gore as vice president had ing the public's imagination." Budget, which often overruled envi~ been much more timid about reduc~ Bu,t each of these transformation~ ronmental regulations because of their ing greenhouse~gas emissions than al presidents also had to be. prodded supp([)sedly negative economic impli~ had the industrial economies of· Eu~ by an engaged citizenry. Elijah Zar~ cations. Schaeffer, who now heads· the rope and Japan. "The U.S. is more lin, the former campaign worker, nonprofit Environmental Integrity like an energy producer, while the noted that more than 95,000 people Project, told me that Obama's OMB is Europeans and Japan are energy~ have signed up to occupy construe~ as bad as Bush's. Its officials still see consumer nations," he said. "Our tion sites and block bulldozers to "their primary job as killing regula~ natural~resource industries are very keep the Keystone XL from being tions on the environment." Obama's powerful and their executives saw built. The outpouring of popular re~ withdrawal of the ground~level~ozone dealing with climate change as puni~ sistance to Keystone is the only rea~ regulation-a withdrawal one OMB tive to their interests. We heard about son the State Department didn't ap~ official, Cass Sunstein, advocated­ it repeatedly from them." prove the pipeline years ago, said was only the most overt example, Saying no to Big Oil is never sim~ Zarlin, who argued that this en~ Schaeffer said. ple. The record suggests that Obama gaged citizenry remains ready and Besieged by pressure from industry is at least intermittently willing to do eager to play its part. and its favored lawmakers on Capitol so: calling for the repeal of the in~ "These are his people," said Zarlin. Hill, and lacking strong backing from dustry's $4.5 billion in annual tax "They are still ready to do big things the White House, the EPA under breaks, as. Obama has (unsuccessful~ if they're asked to do big things. He Obama has seldom seemed commit­ ly) urged year in and year out since needs to find his fire, and people will ted, Schaeffer told me. He noted that becoming president, is like waving a get behind him. But he's certainly the agency has been circulating for red flag at the likes of Chevron and not there yet. And if· he keeps up public comment a draft strategic vi~ Shell. The record further suggests what he's been. doing, he's not going sion for its future. that Obama has genuinely wanted to to get there." •

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