President Barack Obama wields executive clout on green policy

For eight years, environmentalists cried foul as President George W. Bush used his executive power to weaken clean-air and clean-water regulations, open public lands to increased oil and gas drilling and block action to fight climate change. Now, President Barack Obama is exercising that same authority to reverse course, and business groups are the ones yelling. Obama has moved to improve the fuel efficiency of cars, halt new uranium mines near the Grand Canyon, strengthen anti-smog rules, protect endangered species and regulate global-warming emissions from power plants, factories and cars. Environmentalists say that unchecked climate change is a much greater threat to the U.S. economy than regulation because of the potentially devastating coastal flooding, Midwest droughts and other disasters it could cause. And the Obama administration touts its efforts to boost renewable energy
and wean America off foreign oil as a way to create more U.S. jobs. While denouncing what he called Obama's move toward "a regulation nation," conservative energy analyst Myron Ebell acknowledged that the administration is taking some business concerns into account. One thing both sides agree on is that Obama and Bush used presidential power on environmental issues in part because they saw Congress as unwilling or unable to act...more