Inauguration Watch - Waiting For A Punt (Or Not) On Climate Policy
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Obama often makes passing references to climate change but rarely addresses the issue in much depth. He mentioned it in his first inaugural speech, when he warned that “each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.” More recently, Obama used his Democratic National Convention acceptance speech in September to proclaim that “climate change is not a hoax” — and to promise that “in this election, you can do something about it.”
In his victory speech on election night two months later, Obama said he wants America’s children to grow up in a world “that isn’t threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet.” He’s also named climate change as one of his top three second-term priorities. Still, Obama's also made it clear that jobs and the economy will get his more urgent attention in the near term. “If the message is somehow that we’re going to ignore jobs and growth simply to address climate change, I don’t think anybody’s going to go for that. I won’t go for that,” he said during his first post-election press conference Nov. 14.
Worse, many activists fear Obama is about to approve Keystone, which they say would wreak havoc on the climate by sparking production from Canada's carbon-rich oil sands. That decision will be the real test of the president's commitment to addressing global warming, said Bill McKibben, founder of the group 350.org, which organized massive White House sit-ins against Keystone in 2011.
“Of course it’ll be good if he explains to people that climate change is the biggest problem we ever faced,” McKibben said. “But in 1988, George H.W. Bush said he would fight the ‘greenhouse gas effect’ with the ‘White House effect.’ This kind of declaration is not all that new in politics. What would be new is standing up to the fossil fuel industry on almost anything.”
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http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/greens-hope-for-climate-nod-at-inauguration-86363_Page2.html#ixzz2ILJSoINT