The Obama administration’s senior climate change negotiator is downplaying concerns that opposition to the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed power plant rules will harm the United States’ ability to hash out a global climate change deal at the end of the year.
U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern told reporters Monday that although questions by foreign dignitaries on the EPA rules have come up in talks, those concerns were not represented at a meeting of major economies that ended Monday.
Stern made the comments at the conclusion of a closed two-day meeting in Washington to discuss emission reductions in the run-up to United Nations climate talks at the end of the year in Paris. Most scientists blame greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels for global warming.
“I definitely have been asked that” by a variety of countries that “want to make sure the [U.S.] can deliver” on its commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but the “issue didn’t come up over the last two days,” Stern said, suggesting that any concerns that foreign partners may have had over the rule’s implementation may be waning.
His comments come just days after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard oral arguments in a lawsuit opposing the rules as regulatory overreach. More than a dozen states argue that the EPA’s rules overstep the agency’s Clean Air Act authority by putting states on the hook for emission reductions, rather than individual power plants. However, the federal judges appeared skeptical they could act before the rules are finalized. The rules aren’t expected to be final until this summer.
Stern said the EPA climate rule is “based on existing legal authority derived from Clean Air Act.”
The primary message to other countries has been that the EPA is on “solid legal ground” and the administration has a “fair and justified degree of confidence that we can deliver” on emission reductions, Stern said.
In recent months, environmentalists have raised concerns that the opposition to the regulations could indicate a lack of support to other countries and undermine the president’s ability to secure a global deal among major emitters.
Overall, the April 19-20 meeting in Washington showed that there is a “clear focus…on getting a deal in Paris,” Stern said.
