Congressional Climate Deniers Caucus Heads for Copenhagen

With the announcement that a delegation from the Congressional Republican Flat Earth Caucus will show up to embarrass President Obama in Copenhagen next week, I hope the White House finally decides to man up on climate change.

What "manning up" means in the present context is that the Obama administration must get serious about using its regulatory authority to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions well below the levels being considered on Capitol Hill.

So far, Obama has been scrupulous in not “getting out ahead” of Congress on climate change. He has announced he will appear in Copenhagen on Dec. 18 to commit the United States to the goal passed by the U.S. House — a reduction in emissions of only about 4 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 (17 percent below 2005 levels). That is embarrassingly low compared to the European Union’s goal of 20 percent below 1990 levels and to the opinion of leading climate scientists that industrialized nations should be shooting for 40 or 45 percent below our 1990 emissions.

With EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson’s formal finding on Monday that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare, the administration now has the legal tool to establish a goal more in line with climate science and to make sure that goal is met.

The question is whether Obama plans to use regulation as a small crowbar to pry a bill from Congress or as a game-changer in the economy.

Politically, it’s time for Obama to accept that Clintonesque centrism isn’t working as a leadership strategy. So far, the White House has been acting like a Capitol Annex rather than a branch of government duty-bound to check and balance not only the excesses of Congress, but also its failures.

Obama’s desire not to “get out in front of Congress,” which began with his trek down Pennsylvania Avenue shortly after his election to sit down with Republican members in a symbolic reach across the aisle, has won no more than a handful of GOP votes on enormously important issues of the day, ranging from the stimulus package to the health-care bill and climate change.

It doesn’t take a K Street lobbyist to see the only problem Republicans are interested in solving is their minority status on the Hill. Their strategy is to make sure that Obama and the Democratic majority fail as often as possible, even on an issue like climate change that risk the future of Republican children as well as Democratic children.

So now, an unwanted delegation of Republican climate deniers will make the trip to Copenhagen to further undermine America’s reputation in the world community and to demonstrate that President Obama is not in control. In doing so, they will show a lack of respect not only for the president but also for their own institution.

They will likely spark a very nasty response in the highly emotional climate conference, which already is threatened with a breakdown due to the goodwill gap between industrial nations and developing countries, including several already suffering the effects of climate change.

That undoubtedly is exactly what the Republican saboteurs hope: A breakdown at COP-15 that sends years of diplomatic efforts into a tailspin. They lost the election last year; they lost the vote on the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) bill in the House; but they plan not to lose their war against rational and responsible climate action.

So here is our untenable situation: So long as the world waits for Obama to lead, and so long as Obama waits for Congress to lead, the international response to global climate change can be stopped by one vote in the United States Senate — one elected ego who has sold his soul to the coal industry or who wants to be a hero to the radical right, with all the campaign contributions that status promises.

Obama has the power to prevent this travesty, if only he chooses to use it. Here’s how: