Obama announced [url=http://www.vox.com/2014/6/1/5770556/EPA-power-plant-rules-explainer]executive action[/url] that the EPA is set to take to put a limit on carbon emissions from power plants across the United States. The ultimate goal is to reduce emissions from the power industry by 30% from 2005 levels. Power plants make up about 40% of the CO2 emissions in the US, and overall emissions have already declined pretty significantly since 2005 because of the financial crisis (so a good deal of the effects of the policy will probably be in preventing a lasting growth-related increase), which means that the actual cut will be quite a bit less than 30% of total emissions in the US, but it's still a lot more than has ever been done on a federal level there to address climate change, as far as I'm aware. The interesting thing, though, is the way it's being done. The EPA will set individual emissions limits for each state, and the respective state governments will have the freedom to choose how they meet those limits - they get to choose the best way to go about it (or they can go with something other than an ETS). As an Australian who's witnessed the big political fallout from federal implementation of a carbon price over the last few years, this seems like pretty clever politics, to me: set the limits and let the states have the big political arguments over how to handle it instead of giving the right room to pretend they're in favour of 'more efficient' ways to tackle climate change when in reality they're in favour of as little action as possible. And that's really what this policy is: a workaround. Firstly, of congress, by using agency already vested via the executive branch of government, but also of the political argument by giving as little room as possible to a political opposition to do anything but deny the science (which they've also tried to sidestep by marketing it as a health initiative). There's the possibility that what the EPA is trying to do could get struck down in some way in the Supreme Court, which would be a serious shame, but for now it stands. I've got to say, I was sceptical when Obama insisted he would move along policy initiatives without congress that he'd be able to do anything of substance, but this bodes well for the rest of his term, even if, as is likely, little changes in the midterms. Thoughts?