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Binding Emissions Targets

By pharrell

I'm not surprised that the Bush Administration rejected committing the U.S. to binding reductions in greenhouse gases. I wonder, though, whether Bush's refusal to do so means that we'll ultimately see reductions greater than we would if Bush was willing to set a target during his presidency.

Political issues tend to build up for quite some time before the government addresses them, and once the government takes some action on a particular issue, it can be very hard to re-open the issue. So, for example, even if Democrats wanted more stringent targets than any Bush agreed to, the fact that he agreed to them, they're in place, and the political heat is of the issue, would probably actually it harder for the Democrat to push through his targets than it would be if he was working off a blank slate. This is why a number of industries are pushing Bush to enact safety and environmental regulations before he leaves office; they hope that having some regulations in place will spare them from the more stringent regulations that a Democratic administration would enact if it was working from scratch.

Full post as published by Harrell Blog on December 09, 2007 (boomark / email).