Ed Morrissey
HotAir.com
2/2/2011
How disappointed will Republicans be to hear Barack Obama’s veto threat on bills moving through Congress to rein in the EPA? Not very. It isn’t the first time the White House has issued the threat, but with one of the bills coming from his own side of the aisle, it’s starting to sound more like a plea to keep from being put in that position:
The Obama administration Wednesday repeated its threat to veto legislation that would curb its ability to regulate greenhouse gases.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson said that the White House continues to oppose any efforts from Capitol Hill to hamstring her agency on climate change.
“What has been said from the White House is that the president’s advisors would advise him to veto any legislation that passed that would take away EPA’s greenhouse gas authority,” Jackson told reporters on Capitol Hill. “Nothing has changed.”
EPA’s climate policies came under attack this week when Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) – backed by a host of co-sponsors – rolled out bills Monday to hamstring EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
A separate bill will come Wednesday afternoon from House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and the Senate’s top climate skeptic, Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.).
Republicans know that Obama will veto the bill. His strategy in the next two years will be to consolidate his legislative gains from 2009-10 and to expand his agenda through executive-branch regulatory adventurism. Despite his supposed rhetorical move to the center — which mainly failed to appear in his State of the Union speech — the EPA remains his one tool to crack down on domestic energy production.
In fact, Republicans are counting on a veto. They want that strategy to get out into the light, rather than occur through the normally dull process of regulatory expansion. The veto would only be the third of Obama’s term in office and would shine a bright spotlight on his regulatory expansion. Having a Democrat write one of these bills gives the effort an even higher profile, as well as make Obama look even more radical…
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