Newswise — The environmental community is voicing concern after President Obama suggested Congress might move an energy bill forward without a carbon-trading system in place.
According to Rafael Reuveny, a professor at the Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Bloomington, the entire negotiation in Congress is "politics as usual" and meant to stall or defeat vital climate change legislation.
"We are trying to win this fight for our lives through consensus. Such compromise will never materialize -- not in this country and not internationally," said Reuveny, co-author of Complex Transformations: Democracy and Economic Openness in an Interconnected System (Cambridge University Press, 2009). "No matter how often President Obama pleads for it, bipartisanship has become a joke. So, while the two sides continue this ridiculous game, Rome -- read: the planet -- is burning."
Reuveny said it's imperative that President Obama bypass this unproductive haggling. "He must issue an Executive Order to the Environmental Protection Agency to immediately implement a system that will cut greenhouse emissions of the American economy by meeting the goals set by the Waxman-Markey bill passed by the House in 2009," he said. "He should also order the EPA to design an all-inclusive command and control system of greenhouse emission quotas and monitoring to be backed by severe and immediate penalties on units that would emit more than their allotted amount.
"During his State of the Union address, President Obama made a bold move calling out Supreme Court judges, declaring their decision could enable U.S. and foreign corporations to determine our elections," Reuveny said. "Surely, the president realizes that his opportunity to affect this crisis is coming to an end as energy-consuming corporations gain even more political power. An executive order is the only solution."
Reuveny's research focuses on political conflict and how it interacts with international trade, democracy, migration, and the environment. He is the co-author of "Climatic Natural Disasters, Political Risk, and International Trade" (Global Environmental Change, forthcoming) and the author of "Exploring the Link between Climate Change and Migration" (Human Ecology, 2008) and "Climate Change Induced Migration and Violent Conflict" (Political Geography, 2007).
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