The next president would be better off working with Congress on climate change than by moving ahead solely using regulation, according to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.
“Whoever the president is, return to the dialogue with Congress, because we have to move at some point, in my view, to a statutory, economywide approach to climate,” Moniz said in an interview published Monday.
He said the president’s climate program is strong, but it would be better to have a much more elegant and economywide plan in place, which will require legislation.
The president’s Clean Power Plan and other regulations are part of the president’s plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions using regulations. Moniz said its a “strong program, but in the end you’d like to have, frankly, a nice, simple, elegant, economywide approach. And that will require legislation,” he said in the interview with The Hill newspaper.
The Clean Power Plan directs states to cut their emissions a third by 2030. Many scientists say the emissions are to blame for the Earth’s temperature rising, resulting in catastrophic weather, drought and rising sea levels. The plan is the centerpiece of the president’s climate agenda, and is currently being challenged in court.
The Supreme Court halted the plan’s implementation in February, while a mega-lawsuit including 30 states and dozens of industry groups fight the regulation in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Oral arguments are slated for early June.
Moniz didn’t address the court action in the interview. He merely pointed out that legislation would be the best way to move ahead in tackling the problem of global warming, which is also the president’s preferred approach to dealing with the problem.
“President Obama, in his Climate Action Plan presentation in 2013, was very clear. He said, ‘Look, we’d like to work with Congress on this. But if Congress doesn’t want to work on this, we can’t wait, so we’ll go forward with our existing authorities and do it kind of sector by sector: Clean Power Plan for power plants, efficiency rules for appliances, [fuel efficiency] standards for light vehicles and heavy trucks, etc.,'” said Moniz.
