With the stars aligned, controls on US greenhouse gas emisisons are coming

"Instead of denial, we will have resolve," Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat-California, chairwoman of the Senate Environment Committee told a press briefing today. "Instead of procrastination, we will have action. Instead of listening to the voices of the stagnant status quo, our committee hears President-elect Obama's historic challenge to address global warming."

The election of Obama, Boxer told reporters, represents a "sea change" from the outgoing Bush administration, which opposed mandatory controls on US greenhouse gas emissions and cap-and-trade legislation. "We're being challenged to do this legislation as opposed to don't do this legislation," Boxer said.

In a video address to a governors' global climate summit in Los Angeles earlier this week, Obama commended the governors for showing "true leadership in the fight to combat global warming." Too often, Obama said, "Washington has failed to show the same kind of leadership. That will change when I take office. My presidency will mark a new chapter in America on climate change."

It will start, Obama said, "with a federal cap-and-trade system. We will establish strong annual targets that set us on a course to reduce emissions to their 1990 levels by 2020 and reduce them an additional 80% by 2050."

Boxer said that she intends to introduce legislation when the new Congress convenes in January to establish a grant program to reduce emissions under the Clean Air Act, with up to $15 billion a year available to fund innovations in clean energy technology, including advanced biofuels.

A second bill "will direct the Environmental Protection Agency to set up a cap and trade system for greenhouse gases that meets the goals" laid out by Obama, Boxer said. She declined to provide details, stating only that the bill would be "greatly streamlined and be much simpler" than the climate bill she sponsored in this Congress.

Boxer also said she will urge the EPA to grant California a waiver denied by the Bush administration to regulate tailpipe emissions of carbon dioxide. If California is granted a waiver, close to 20 additional states plan to follow suit.

As further indication that the decks are being cleared, the House Democrats ousted Representative John Dingell, Democrat-Michigan, as chairman of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, replacing him with long-time committee member, Representative Henry Waxman, Democrat-California.

While Dingell, an ally of the automobile industry, has proposed climate change legislation, he clearly was not prepared to go nearly as far as Waxman. Waxman's selection means that two liberal California Democrats are heading the key congressional committees handling climate legislation, suggesting the possibility that these two powerful, likeminded politcians could overreach and overplay their hand. But it's a very strong hand, indeed.

The international community is also pointing to the UN climate change meeting next December in Copenhagen for reaching a deal on a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol. The groundwork for that agreement is expected to be prepared at next month's climate meeting in Poznan, Poland.

The new administration expects to play a very active role, Obama said in a message to the delegates to the upcoming Poznan meeting: "Once I take office you can be sure that the United States will once again engage vigorously in these negotiations, and help lead the world toward a new era in global cooperation on climate change."

The US, under the Clinton Administration, spearheaded the UN-sponsored negotiations that resulted inb the Kyoto Protocol. The Bush administration, which rejected the Protocol, was a decidely less enthusiastic participant.