Obama: I've set aside more acres than any president ever

President Obama's weekly remarks

Hi, everybody. Our country is home to some of the most beautiful God-given landscapes in the world. We’re blessed with natural treasures — from the Grand Tetons to the Grand Canyon; from lush forests and vast deserts to lakes and rivers teeming with wildlife. And it’s our responsibility to protect these treasures for future generations, just as previous generations protected them for us.

Since taking office, I’ve set aside more than 260 million acres of public lands and waters — more than any President in history. Last month, we announced that 11 states had come together with ranchers, and industry groups to protect a threatened species — the sage grouse — without jeopardizing local economies.

Two weeks ago, we announced that we’re creating one new marine sanctuary on the Potomac River in Maryland, and another along Lake Michigan in Wisconsin — part of unprecedented efforts to restore the Chesapeake Bay and the Great Lakes. We also joined a coalition of countries cracking down on illegal fishing that threatens jobs and food security around the globe. And I’m going to keep protecting the places that make America special, and the livelihoods of those who depend on them.

We’ll also keep doing what we can to prevent the worst effects of climate change before it’s too late. Over the past six years, we’ve led by example, generating more clean energy and lowering our carbon emissions. Our businesses have stepped up in a big way, including just this past week. Some of our biggest companies made new commitments to act on climate — not just because it’s good for the planet, but because it’s good for their bottom line.

This is how America is leading on the environment. And because America is leading by example, 150 countries, representing over 85% of global emissions, have now laid out plans to reduce their levels of the harmful carbon pollution that warms our planet. And it gives us great momentum going into Paris this December, where the world needs to come together and build on these individual commitments with an ambitious, long-term agreement to protect this Earth for our kids.

Now Congress has to do its job. This month, even as Republicans in Congress barely managed to keep our government open, they shut down something called the Land and Water Conservation Fund. For more than half a century, this fund has protected more than 5 million acres of land — from playgrounds to parks to priceless landscapes — all without costing taxpayers a dime. Nearly every single county in America has benefited from this program. It has bipartisan support in both the House and the Senate. Republicans in Congress should reauthorize and fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund without delay.

After all, as Pope Francis reminds us so eloquently, this planet is a gift from God — and our common home. We should leave it to our kids in better shape than we found it. Thanks, and have a great weekend.

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Obama Looks to Cabinet for More Executive Actions

President Barack Obama convened his cabinet on Tuesday to devise a new round of executive actions, disregarding Republican plans to file a lawsuit over their use. "We can't wait for Congress to get going on issues that are vital to the middle class," Mr. Obama said while flanked by his top advisers from the Defense Department, Interior Department and other cabinet agencies. "We've already seen some of the power of our executive actions." Mr. Obama highlighted steps to raise the minimum wage for federal contractors and to curtail carbon dioxide emissions. The president said more needs to be done to help the middle class. "We're going to have to be creative about how we can make real progress," he said. House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) last week said he was planning to file a lawsuit against Mr. Obama over his use of executive actions. The unusual legal action would be aimed at reining in steps Mr. Obama has taken that Republicans consider an overreach of his power. "The Constitution makes it clear that the president's job is to faithfully execute the laws. In my view, the president has not faithfully executed the law," Mr. Boehner told reporters Wednesday. He didn't specify which actions he objected to. The White House appears unfazed by the threat. Instead, Mr. Obama this week has blamed House Republicans for blocking progress on issues such as immigration and infrastructure spending and said he would move ahead on his own...more

White House, Liberal Billionaire Launch Global Warming Scare Campaign

The White House and its environmentalist allies have begun another major push to warn the public of the dangers of global warming. A major report released by a group co-chaired by San Francisco billionaire Tom Steyer highlighting the potential economic damages of global warming and a series of events planned by the White House will potentially help Democrats build support for President Obama’s climate agenda. On Tuesday, the group Risky Business put out a report attempting to quantify the economic damages from the impacts of global warming, including sea level rises, heat waves and lower crop yields. The day the report came out, Politico reported that the White House unveiled “a series of events this week to shine a spotlight on the economic consequences of climate change” which included a discussion with Steyer, whose group conducted the study. The White House’s planned events mark the “one-year anniversary of President Barack Obama’s high-profile climate change speech,” reports Politico. Not only is the White House planning on holding events, they will also be meeting with Steyer on Wednesday to discuss the economic impacts of global warming. Reuters reports that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and White House officials will meet with Steyer, former Bush Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and others involved in the Risky Business report. This meeting with Steyer comes after a meeting on Tuesday with White House officials and insurance industry representatives. The meeting included Obama advisers John Podesta and Valerie Jarrett who sat down with insurers and reinsurers to “discuss the economic consequences of increasingly frequent and severe extreme weather and the insurance industry’s role in helping American communities prepare for extreme weather and other impacts of climate change,” a White House official told Reuters. But that’s not all for the White House. President Obama will give a speech Wednesday night at a dinner hosted by the environmental group the League of Conservation Voters — the group that has spent millions backing pro-climate policy candidates...more

Liberal Prof.: Obama Has Brought Us To ‘Constitutional Tipping Point’

During testimony before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday, liberal constitutional professor Jonathan Turley said that the growth of executive power is “accelerating” and that the growth of such power has brought us to a “constitutional tipping point”. “I believe we are now at a constitutional tipping point in our system,” Turley, who teaches law at George Washington University, said. “It’s a dangerous point for our system to be in, and I believe that your response has to begin before this president leaves office. No one in our system goes it alone.” Turley noted that while he agrees with the President on most of his policies, it still “does not alter the fact that I believe the means he is doing is wrong” and that the continued acceleration of executive power can be “a dangerous change in our system.” Turley flatly rejected the Obama administration’s reason for using more executive powers, which the President claims is a gridlocked Congress. “It is simply untrue that we’re living in very different or unprecedented times. The framers lived in these times,” Turley pointed out, noting that back then Congress used the Alien and Sedition Act to arrest opponents and Thomas Jefferson referred to his opponents as the “reign of witches.” “This is not a different political time, and it shouldn’t be used as an excuse for extra-constitutional action,” Turley warned.

Source

Go here for the Turley and others testimony.

Obama: US must rethink water as climate changes

Drawing a link between climate change and California's drought, President Barack Obama says the U.S. has to stop thinking of water as a "zero-sum" game and must do a better job of figuring out how to make sure everyone's water needs are satisfied. On a tour of central California on Friday, Obama warned that weather-related disasters will only get worse. "We can't think of this simply as a zero-sum game. It can't just be a matter of there's going to be less and less water so I'm going to grab more and more of a shrinking share of water," Obama said after touring part of a farm that is suffering under the state's worst drought in more than 100 years. "Instead what we have to do is all come together and figure out how we all are going to make sure that agricultural needs, urban needs, industrial needs, environmental and conservation concerns are all addressed," he said. Even if the U.S. takes immediate action to curb pollution, the planet will keep getting warmer for a long time to come because of greenhouse gases that already have built up, he said. "We're going to have to stop looking at these disasters as something to wait for," Obama said, announcing more than $160 million in federal financial aid. The sum includes $100 million in the farm bill he signed into law last week for programs that cover the loss of livestock. The package includes smaller aid amounts for the most extreme drought areas and to help food banks serving families affected by the water shortage. Obama also called on federal facilities in California to begin conserving water immediately. "These actions will help, but they're just the first step," he said. "We have to be clear. A changing climate means that weather-related disasters like droughts, wildfires, storms, floods, are potentially going to be costlier and they're going to be harsher." The budget Obama will send Congress next month includes $1 billion for a "climate resilience fund" to invest in research and pay for new technologies to help communities deal with climate change. The proposal is likely to face stiff opposition from lawmakers wary of new spending and divided on global warming...more

For some reason the POTUS didn't mention the Green Drought caused by the ESA and the delta smelt. 

UPDATE: Golf, Not Drought, Brings Obama to California

Why not even Congress can sue the administration over unconstitutional executive actions

by Elizabeth Price Foley

Law Professor, Florida International University

    What happens if a president refuses to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed” as required by Article II of the Constitution? The Framers assumed that neither Congress nor the courts would tolerate such usurpation. In Federalist No. 48, James Madison said power was “so divided and balanced among several bodies … that no one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.” Madison’s confidence assumes a wayward president could be reversed by the courts, reigned in by Congress or — as a last resort — impeached. But what if none of these checks and balances works?      Americans may soon find out.
    First, courts have limited ability to check a president’s failure to execute. The primary obstacle is “standing,” a doctrine that requires a plaintiff to have a concrete, personal injury in order to sue. Citizens can’t file generic lawsuits to enforce the Constitution; they must prove that the government has harmed them in a personal, palpable way.
    When a president delays or exempts people from a law — so-called benevolent suspensions — who has standing to sue him? Generally, no one. Benevolent suspensions of law don’t, by definition, create a sufficiently concrete injury for standing. That’s why, when President Obama delayed various provisions of Obamacare — the employer mandate, the annual out-of-pocket caps, the prohibition on the sale of “substandard” policies — his actions cannot be challenged in court.
    Similarly, when the president decided not to deport certain young people, not to prosecute most marijuana users, and rewrote the work requirement of welfare reform, courts cannot rule on these acts’ constitutionality because no individual has suffered the personal harm required for standing. Sure, the Constitution and its separation of powers are tremendously harmed. But the Supreme Court has made clear such generalized societal harms won’t suffice.
    Congress probably can’t sue the president, either. The Supreme Court has severely restricted so-called “congressional standing,” creating a presumption against allowing members of Congress to sue the president merely because he fails to faithfully execute its laws.
    If courts can’t be counted on to check the president, couldn’t Congress just enact another law reversing him, or even impeach him? In today’s hyper-partisan climate, the answer appears to be no.
Even if the House passed a bill undoing presidential action — for example, a bill that declared, “We don’t want individuals brought into this country illegally to be exempt from deportation, and we really, really mean it this time” — the Democrat-controlled Senate wouldn’t likely allow a vote on the measure. House Republicans passed a spending measure this fall to keep the government operating. But because the bill included a one-year delay in Obamacare — something the president threatened to veto — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid refused to even bring the bill to the floor.
    Indeed, why should Congress even bother to legislate in the current environment? If it somehow miraculously passed something the president opposed, it would be promptly vetoed, and getting two-thirds of both Houses of Congress to overrule his veto — particularly in the Senate — is as likely as a snowstorm in Miami.
    Even when a congressional majority agrees with the president and passes a law the president signs, there’s little confidence he will faithfully execute the law as written. Why pass comprehensive immigration reform, for example, if it includes tight border security or deportation measures with which the president disagrees and may ignore? As Congressman Paul Ryan put it, ”Here’s the issue that all Republicans agree on: We don’t trust the president to enforce the law.” The president’s failure to faithfully execute has made Congress grind to a halt and with it, democracy itself.
    If the president’s actions are so bad, why not just impeach him? Presidential impeachment has occurred only three times. Reconstruction President Andrew Johnson narrowly escaped conviction after the House impeached him for firing the Secretary of War in contravention of the Tenure of Office Act. Richard Nixon resigned after being impeached for obstructing an investigation into the Watergate break-in, and using the IRS and other executive agencies to target political opponents. Bill Clinton was impeached for abusing the judicial process and executive power to cover up his extramarital relationships. The Democrat-controlled Senate acquitted him.
    The one thing all three attempts at presidential impeachment share is this: An assertion that the president was failing to faithfully execute the laws. Each situation involved — to a greater or lesser degree — a president intent on ignoring or manipulating the law for his own political or personal advantage.
Has President Obama committed similarly serious acts? Some Americans believe his unilateral changes to various laws and use of the IRS to target tea party and conservative groups are just as serious as Clinton’s, Nixon’s, or Johnson’s transgressions. But even assuming this is true and the House passed articles of impeachment, would two-thirds of Harry Reid’s Senate convict the first African-American president? The question seems to answer itself.
    Sadly, in the Washington of 2014, partisanship trumps constitutional principles. While President Obama’s pattern of failing to execute laws is serious, the ability of courts and Congress to stop him is shockingly limited. The Framers relied on the other branches of government to jealously guard Congress’s prerogative to make laws and the president’s duty to faithfully execute those laws. Unfortunately, the Framers may have been wrong.

Originally posted at the Daily Caller.

Obama Might Actually Be the Environmental President

by Jonathan Chait

State of the Union addresses are wearying rituals, in which stitched-together lists of never-gonna-happen goals are woven into idealistic catchphrases, analyzed as rhetoric by an unqualified panel of poetry-critic-for-a-night political reporters, quickly followed by a hapless opposition-party response, and then, in almost every case, forgotten. This year, plunked into the midst of the tedium was a gigantic revelation, almost surely the most momentous news of President Obama’s second term. “I will direct my Cabinet,” he announced, “to come up with executive actions we can take now and in the future to reduce pollution, prepare our communities for the consequences of climate change, and speed the transition to more sustainable sources of energy.”

Here was a genuine bombshell. It sounded a little vague, and the president did not explain precisely what he intended to do or how he would pull it off. But a handful of environmental wonks had a fairly strong grasp of the project he had committed himself to, and they understood that it was very, very real and very, very doable. If they were to have summarized the news, the headline would have been OBAMA TO SAVE PLANET.

Few outside the green community grasped the meaning of the revelation, and it sank beneath the surface with barely a ripple as bored reporters quickly turned to other matters. Several elements of the Obama agenda—immigration reform, gun control, the budget wars—have since churned busily away in plain view, while his climate pledge has generated no visible action. (Which, as we’ll see, may be just how the administration wants it.)...

The second way to measure Obama’s climate-change record is: What has he done? He has done quite a bit, probably far more than you think, and not all of it advertised as climate legislation, or advertised as much of anything at all. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was many things—primarily, a desperate bid to shove money into enough Americans’ pockets to prevent another Great Depression—but one of them was a major piece of environmental reform. The law contained upwards of $90 billion in subsidies for green energy, which had a catalyzing effect on burgeoning industries. American wind-power generation has doubled, and solar power has increased more than six times over. As Time magazine’s Michael Grunwald detailed in his book The New New Deal, the new law suddenly transformed the Department of Energy, previously a sclerotic backwater charged mainly with overseeing the nuclear-weapons cache, into a massive new engine of cutting-edge environmental science.

The stimulus had the misfortune of absorbing the brunt of the public’s dismay with the economic crisis, and Republicans successfully turned Solyndra, an anomalous case of a green-energy subsidy that went bust, into a symbol that rendered the whole law so unpopular Democrats quickly grew afraid to tout it. Even a close observer like Lemann has forgotten that it was indeed “major environmental legislation.” And yet, the wave of innovation—new fuels, plus turbines, energy meters, and other futuristic devices—will reverberate for years. Envia Systems, a stimulus-financed clean-energy firm in Silicon Valley, has developed technology for electric-car batteries three times as efficient as the technology in the Volt, capable of shaving $5,000 off the sticker price of an electric car when it comes to market in 2015. Just a few weeks ago, the Times reported on a new stimulus-financed research project to increase the energy content (and thus reduce the emissions) of natural gas.

The administration has also carried out an ambitious program of regulation, having imposed or announced higher standards for gas mileage in cars, fuel cleanliness, energy efficiency in appliances, and emissions from new power plants. In aggregate, they amount to a major assault on climate change. Some environmentalists judge them to be insufficient—a fair critique—but many more Obama supporters aren’t even aware that they exist. This is likely because none of these regulations produced any political theater. There was no legislation, no ponderous Sunday-morning talk-show chin-scratching, no dramatic wrangling of votes on the House floor. Just the issuing of a new regulation, a smallish one-day story. Last August, for instance, the administration announced it was ratcheting up vehicle fuel-efficiency standards, from 29.7 miles per gallon to 54.5 miles per gallon. The news barely got a day of coverage, coming as it did during the first day of the Republican National Convention. About six weeks ago, the administration announced new standards for cleaner gasoline. “There is not another air-pollution-control strategy that we know of that will produce as substantial, cost-effective, and expeditious emissions reductions,” cooed the executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies. Remember that?...

 Then, a few weeks after last year’s election, the Natural Resources Defense Council published a plan for the EPA to regulate existing power plants in a way that was neither ineffectual nor draconian. The proposal would set state-by-state limits on emissions. It sounds simple, but this was a conceptual breakthrough. Much like a cap-and-trade bill, it would allow market signals to indicate the most efficient ways for states to hit their targets—instead of shutting coal plants down, some utilities might pay consumers to weatherize their homes, while others might switch some of their generators over to cleaner fuels. The flexibility of the scheme would, in turn, reduce the costs passed on to consumers. Here is a way for Obama to use his powers—his own powers, unencumbered by the morass of a dysfunctional Congress—in such a way that is neither as ineffectual as a firecracker nor as devastating as a nuke: The NRDC calculates its plan would reduce our reliance on coal by about a quarter and national carbon emissions by 10 percent.

 This is the last best chance to deal with global warming in the Obama era. The prospect, for environmentalists, is exhilarating but also harrowing. The struggle will be lengthy, waged largely behind closed doors, and its outcome won’t be known until the Obama presidency is nearly over...

READ ENTIRE COLUMN

Here is a way for Obama to use his powers—his own powers, unencumbered by the morass of a dysfunctional Congress...

To think that one man has this kind of power should bring shame to each member of Congress, especially the Republicans.  When the R's controlled both the legislative and executive branches of government, they did nothing to revoke or limit the President's authority.  They scream when a Democrat sits in the White House and are quiet as a mouse pissin' on cotton when a R holds the seat, and the executive branch happily accumulates more power each year.

 

Keystone pipeline decision to languish until mid-June-US source

The Obama administration's decision on the Keystone XL oil pipeline will not be made until at least June, a U.S. official said, which would delay the project for months and frustrate backers of Canada's oil sands. "We're talking the beginning of summer at the earliest," said the source, who did not want to be identified due to the sensitive nature of the TransCanada Corp project, which has been pending for more than four and a half years. "It's not weeks until the final decision. It's months." A series of steps still have to be taken by the State Department, where the decision will be made because the 830,000 barrels per day crude oil pipeline crosses the national border. The pipeline will link Alberta's oil sands and North Dakota's Bakken shale fields to refineries and ports in Texas...more

Border numbers rise ahead of talks on immigration

Seeking to boost the bipartisan momentum in Congress for tackling immigration reform, President Obama said Tuesday that he now sees “a genuine desire to get this done soon” — but warned that the debate will get more heated in the weeks ahead. Mr. Obama traveled to Las Vegas to deliver a major speech on immigration just a day after a bipartisan group of eight senators announced a framework for a bill calling for most illegal immigrants to obtain legal status “on Day One,” with green cards and a full path to citizenship to follow once more action has been taken to secure the border. “The good news is that — for the first time in many years — Republicans and Democrats seem ready to tackle this problem together,” Mr. Obama said, blessing the broad outlines of the senators’ deal and saying the borders are secure enough to begin granting illegal immigrants citizenship. But the latest numbers suggest that illegal crossings from the Mexican border once again may be on the rise after falling for six years. The U.S. Border Patrol made 356,873 arrests on the border in fiscal year 2012, up 9 percent from 2011. The Border Patrol figures that apprehensions are a good proxy for illegal crossings, so when the numbers go up, it means that the flow of illegal immigrants is rising as well...more

Obama campaign mgr. to Mayor Bloomberg’s office to talk guns

Jim Messina, President Barack Obama’s campaign manager, who will chair the relaunched, tax-exempt version called Organizing for Action, visited New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s office at City Hall last week to coordinate the fight for gun control legislation, POLITICO has learned. Aides to Bloomberg, one of the faces of gun control nationally, had already been working with Vice President Joe Biden’s task force on a gun control bill before it was recently unveiled. But Messina spearheads Obama’s political arm, which has been established outside the boundaries of the Democratic National Committee and has listed gun control as one of its coming priorities, and Bloomberg has already made clear he’s willing to spend from his personal fortune as a counterbalance to the National Rifle Association. The meeting took place late last week in the mayor’s “bullpen,” Bloomberg’s trademark walls-free office at City Hall...more

Radical activists are desperately trying to derail Canadian oil sands

Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman has approved his state’s portion of the Keystone XL pipeline, explaining that its revised route avoids areas that critics had earlier claimed were environmentally sensitive. The Alberta-to-Texas pipeline would create more than 5,500 Nebraska jobs during its construction period and support 1,000 permanent jobs through 2030. During the project’s lifetime, KXL would generate $950 million in labor income, $130 million in property, sales and other state and local taxes, and $679 million for the state’s gross domestic product, by bringing Canadian oil sands petroleum to Texas refineries. President Obama’s second term agenda, continued viability of Medicare and Social Security programs, and America’s economy and environment need the pipeline and oil even more than Nebraska does. The pipeline and Alberta petroleum could mean $45 billion per year by 2035 in increased goods and services, up to 465,000 more jobs in the 2,000 American companies that already support oil sands operations or utilize the hydrocarbons in motor fuel and petrochemical manufacturing – and billions in annual state and federal tax revenues. While all fifty states would realize employment and economic gains, California, Illinois, Wisconsin, Texas, Ohio, New York, Montana and Michigan would benefit most (in that order) from this job and economic activity, the Canadian Energy Research Institute calculates. Canada has an estimated 169 billion barrels of oil sands fuel that can be recovered economically with today’s technology – 20% by mining and 80% via in situ drilling and steam injection. Much of this oil is destined for the United States via the KXL pipeline, to replace similar heavy crude that we now import from Mexico and Venezuela, and oil from other nations that have much lower environmental standards and far worse human rights records than Canada, including Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Russia, Iraq and Algeria...more

Keystone XL pipeline: Nebraska’s approval puts Obama in a bind

On Tuesday, Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman (R), who previously hesitated at approving the project, sent Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton a letter saying he is now satisfied with the pipeline’s new routing. The potential environmental risks, he says, are lessened. TransCanada is set to carry $200 million in third-party liability insurance to cover any cleanup costs, Governor Heineman says in the letter. He also writes that the proposed reroute “avoids many areas of fragile soils in Northern Nebraska” and “avoids a shallow groundwater area ... where the aquifer is thin, wells are shallow, and bedrock is close to the surface.” The pipeline construction would generate $418 million in economic benefits to the state and about $13 million in property-tax revenues in its first year of operation, Heineman adds. The backing of Nebraska’s governor is seen as putting Obama in a tougher bind over a decision expected to receive heavy criticism either way. Environmental opponents view the pipeline as dangerous because it would carry oil extracted from Canada’s region of oil sands, which produce up to 30 percent more greenhouse gases than conventional crude oil. There are also worries about potential spills in the nation’s most sensitive agricultural terrain...more

Environmentalists versus workers: Keystone pipeline decision will shape Obama’s legacy

Whether President Obama approves the Keystone XL pipeline or not hinges on one key question: Which is more important to him, creating jobs and promoting energy independence or fighting climate change? Two reports released Thursday highlight both issues, making even clearer the choice the White House faces. Mr. Obama has delayed for more than a year a final decision on the massive pipeline, which would transport Canadian oil sands through the U.S. to Gulf Coast refineries. The project’s latest route also must be approved by Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman, a Republican whose state stands to benefit if the pipeline is built. A study commissioned by the Consumer Energy Alliance details those benefits: more than 5,500 Nebraska jobs created during the 2013-14 construction period, with nearly 1,000 permanent jobs continuing through 2030; more than $950 million in labor income generated for the life of the project; more than $130 million in property, sales and other taxes for Nebraska coffers; and an estimated $679 million boost to Nebraska’s gross domestic product. Congressional Republicans, oil and gas industry groups and other project proponents also have urged the administration to green-light the pipeline. They say it is one of the surest ways to create jobs and continue the U.S. on its path to freedom from Middle Eastern oil. But Mr. Obama, armed with fresh political capital after his convincing re-election victory, also is facing intense pressure from environmental and conservation groups to reject the pipeline, a move that likely would kill the project once and for all. Because the pipeline crosses an international border, it requires approval from the State Department and the White House. Another study put forward Thursday by Oil Change International, an environmental group opposed to fossil fuels, points to the carbon emissions that would be generated by Keystone. Opponents argue that by approving the project and green-lighting those carbon emissions, Mr. Obama would be raising a white flag in the war against climate change, an issue he has promised to confront in a second term and one he addressed in his election-night victory speech...more

List: Obama’s 23 Executive Actions on Gun Violence

The President is announcing that he and the Administration will:
1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.
2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system.
3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system.
4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.
5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.
6. Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.
7. Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign.
8. Review safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission).
9. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations.
10. Release a DOJ report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and make it widely available to law enforcement.
11. Nominate an ATF director.
12. Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations.
13. Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime.
14. Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence.
15. Direct the Attorney General to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenge the private sector to develop innovative technologies.
16. Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes.
17. Release a letter to health-care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law-enforcement authorities.
18. Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.
19. Develop model emergency-response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education.
20. Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental-health services that Medicaid plans must cover.
21. Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges.
22. Commit to finalizing mental-health-parity regulations.
23. Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health.
Source: White House
WSJ

 

Surprise: Obama Pushes the Same Gun Controls He Has Always Supported

by Jacob Sullum

As expected, the three major policy changes that President Obama recommended today, ostensibly in response to the Sandy Hook massacre, were a renewed (and broader) federal ban on "assault weapons," a 10-round limit on magazine capacity, and background checks for all transfers of firearms, except those between relatives. Obama supported these policies before the Sandy Hook massacre, he supported them immediately afterward, and now, after a three-week fact-finding charade overseen by his vice president, he still supports them. The unanswered question, as I said this morning, is why anyone else should.
Reflecting the president's magical thinking about gun control, The New York Times claims that renewing the limit on magazine size that expired in 2004 (a subject I discuss in my column today) "would eliminate the 30-round magazines that were used in Newtown as well as other mass shootings at Virginia Tech, a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., and a congresswoman’s public event in Tucson, Ariz." No, it wouldn't, unless the government somehow manages to confiscate all of the "large-capacity" magazines already in circulation. Under the earlier law, something like 30 million pre-ban magazines holding more than 10 rounds were still available, and that number surely is much larger by now. The government will also have to stop would-be mass murderers from making their own magazines, which is not that hard to do (especially if magazine replacement parts remain legal) and is only getting easier, thanks to 3D printers.
Likewise, barring mass confiscation, a new "assault weapon" ban won't eliminate whatever guns fall into that arbitrarily defined category. Even if it did, it would not matter, since killers would have plenty of equally lethal alternatives. Background checks could not, even theoretically, stop most mass shootings, which typically are perpetrated by people who do not have disqualifying criminal or psychiatric records. Those who do can always avoid background checks by obtaining guns through others means (as Adam Lanza did, by using his mother's legally purchased firearms). Speaking of which, how will the government make sure that every nonfamily transfer of firearms involves a background check unless it keeps track of who has what guns at any given moment? A national registry of guns (and magazines?) would be necessary to enforce such a requirement. Which, come to think of it, would make mass confiscation much easier if gun controllers ever decide to get serious.
You can read Obama's policy proposals here.

Originally posted at Hit & Run

Gun control: Obama to be joined by children when he unveils agenda

Barack Obama is to step up pressure on Congress to act on gun violence by surrounding himself with schoolchildren from across the country when he unveils proposals on Wednesday aimed at preventing a repeat of the Newtown massacre. Although Obama can take implement some measures almost immediately through executive action, these are limited in scope. The wide-ranging proposals he is looking for require legislation, but he faces opposition from Congress, particularly among Republicans, backed by the National Rifle Association. By bringing schoolchildren to the White House press conference, Obama can tap into some of the emotion aroused by the Connecticut massacre in December that left 20 children and seven adults dead. At a White House press conference Tuesday, the president's spokesman Jay Carney said: "I can tell you that tomorrow the president and vice-president will hold an event here at the White House to unveil a package of concrete proposals to reduce gun violence and prevent future tragedies like the one in Newtown, Connecticut. "They will be joined by children from around the country who wrote the president letters in the wake of that tragedy expressing their concerns about gun violence and school safety along with their parents."...more

Report: Obama officials issued $216 billion in regulations last year

The Obama administration issued $236 billion worth of new regulations last year, according to a report from a conservative think tank. The analysis from the American Action Forum, led by former Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, found that the administration added $216 billion in rules and more than $20 billion in regulatory proposals in 2012. Complying with those rules will require an additional 87 million hours of paperwork, the report said. The group put the total price tag from regulations during Obama’s first term at more than $518 billion. American Action Forum credited the administration for erasing $2.5 billion in regulatory costs last year, but said that paled in comparison to $34 billion in regulatory compliance costs reported by top companies since 2009...more

Obama ‘seriously considering’ hosting climate change summit

Barack Obama may intervene directly on climate change by hosting a summit at the White House early in his second term, environmental groups say. They say the White House has given encouraging signals to a proposal for Obama to use the broad-based and bipartisan summit to launch a national climate action strategy. “What we talked about with the White House is using it as catalyst not just for the development of a national strategy but for mobilising people all over the country at every level,” said Bob Doppelt, executive director of the Resource Innovation Group, the Oregon-based thinktank that has been pushing for the high-level meeting. He said it would not be a one-off event. “What I think has excited the White House is that it does put the president in a leadership role, but it is not aimed at what Congress can do, or what he can do per se, so much as it is aimed at apprising the American public about how they can act.” Campaign groups and major donors have been pushing Obama to outline a strategy on climate change, in the wake of his re-election and superstorm Sandy. Jeremy Symons, senior vice-president for conservation and education at the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), said Obama needed to give a clear indication early on of what he intended to do on climate change – ideally before the State of the Union address when presidents typically outline their agenda...more

Enviros are making a big push on global warming.  Can't help but notice this is all happening right when NOAA has released a study that says 2012 was the hottest year on record.  Surely this is not coordinated.