Obama Hits the Ground Running: Businesses, Organizations, Activists Deliver Suggestions for Immediate Climate Change Action
In his first full day in office, President Barack Obama was delivered a letter from 97 businesses, organizations and activists outlining recommended first steps for tackling climate change.
The letter was announced in a press release today from the Sustainable Energy Network, an informal network founded in 2006 comprised of more than 600 organizations, businesses, and individuals advocating aggressive development of sustainable energy technologies to curb energy imports, slash greenhouse gas emissions, and phase out nuclear power.
The recommendation comes on the heals of warnings from climatologist Dr. Jim Hansen, including a personal appeal to the Obamas written by Hansen and his wife in December.
The letter stressed that “these recommendations are not intended to be comprehensive and there is much more that can – and must – be done,” the groups proposed the following first steps:
- Direct the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to initiate a rulemaking under the Clean Air Act declaring that carbon dioxide emissions are endangering public health.
- Reverse the Bush Administration’s denial of a waiver for California of the Clean Cars Standard under the Clean Air Act and allow it to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles.
- Direct the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to raise fuel economy standards for cars, light trucks and SUVs to at least 45 miles per gallon over the next decade and a half.
- Direct that greenhouse gas emissions be considered whenever the federal government examines the environmental impact of its actions under the existing National Environmental Policy Act.
- Create a national carbon registry, requiring mandatory reporting of greenhouse gases.
- Begin to make the federal government a carbon-neutral enterprise.
Read the full text of the letter and its signatories
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