John Podesta issues warning to GOP on climate regulations
Brian Hughes
The Washington Examiner
5/5/2014
White House senior adviser John Podesta had a clear message Monday for Republicans trying to undo President Obama’s environmental regulations: It won’t work.
Podesta, dispatched to the White House briefing room Monday to preview a forthcoming report from the administration on climate change, took aim at the Republicans trying to squash new Environmental Protection Agency rules on carbon emissions.
“All I would say is that those have zero percent chance of working. We’re committed to moving forward with those rules,” he said. “We’re committed to maintaining the authority and the president’s authority to ensure that the Clean Air Act is fully implemented.”
Leading Republicans are expected to offer amendments this week to an energy efficiency bill, trying to undo Obama’s regulatory push to limit greenhouse gases from power plants.
But Podesta said the administration was on pace to meet a June deadline to propose new limits on carbon emissions from existing power plants.
And the senior White House official criticized those who deny the effects of climate change.
“I’d say that probably look out your window,” he said to critics.
“If you want to try to side with the polluters and argue to the American public that climate change is not happening, today, tomorrow and certainly in the future, that’s going to be a losing argument,” he added.
Related: Houston, We Have No Idea What We’re Talking About.
…The satellite images viewed by President Barack Obama before a meeting with eight Western governors were stark, showing how snowpack in California’s mountains had shrunk by 86 percent in a single year.
“It was a ‘Houston, we have a problem’ moment,” recalled White House counselor John Podesta, one of two aides who briefed the president that February day. Obama mentioned the images several times as he warned the governors that political leaders had no choice but to cope with global warming’s impact.
This is beyond stupid. Seriously: is there anyone in the United States of America foolish enough to think that an 86% variation in snow pack in a single year is due to global warming, rather than natural variation?…
