None too soon, the experts have begun weighing in on what President-Elect Obama should do regarding climate and energy policy. Even better, Obama’s transition team has put together a list of around 200 Bush policies to be kicked to the curb ASAP. They include gems like reversing the limit on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, and ditching a rule that stops U.S. aid-receiving family planning groups from informing women about the availability of abortion.
The biggest slashes, so far anyway, have been saved for Bush’s environmental policies. As the Washington Post reports, Obama has announced his intention to “quickly reverse the Bush administration’s decision last December to deny California the authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles.” There’s also the undoing of the executive order that opens public lands to oil drilling, as well as social/economic moves like closing Guantanamo and tossing a life preserver to GM (though whether that’s a good idea remains to be seen).
Related:
RB: Obama & McCain Answer DISCOVER’s Questions on the Environment
RB: What Must the Next President Do to Save Science? DISCOVER’s Science Policy Project 2008
November 10th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Could we get a link to that list that isn’t to the Washington Post? I don’t have an account with them, so I can’t access it.
November 10th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
I would like to make just one point. If President Obama uses the executive powers to reverse executive powers then he is (re-)asserting the authority of Congress-less Executive Powers. What’s to stop some future President from using the same tactics and reversing all of Obama’s Executive Power decisions? When we pull congress out of the decision making process, we have only one unit of representation… and that one unit was only elected by (ie, accurately represents) around 52% of the populace, or 2/3 of the electoral if you will. It would be “distasteful” to use all the Executive Powers and then use an Executive Power (or such) to limit Executive Powers (of future Presidents). If he instead acted through a Democratic majority congress and did what he could through them first… (well, then as a last resort he could use Executive Powers) he would have more of an authoritative ability to once and for all end frivolous uses of Executive Powers). It seems to me that it was use of Executive Power that got us into this mess… we felt unrepresented when Pres Bush was using them, even though he won by a majority of the vote… roughly the same popularity vote as Obama. By re-asserting the validity of legislation without representation won’t we only INCREASE the powers of Presidents (and further decreasing our right for broader representation)?
November 10th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Jon-
I don’t think they’ve gone public with that list other than a few of the more high-profile items mentioned here and elsewhere. Here’s a reprint of that Washington Post story appearing somewhere else::
http://www.enterprisenewspapers.com/article/20081109/NEWS02/711099855/0/ETPZONELT
November 10th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
I would like to make another point. We have the opportunity to quickly change our end-point (ie, destination)… but using colloquialisms… do the end-points justify the means? Hopefully these quaint sayings accurately embody (if not too tritely) the situation [note, all of them not applying equally]:
Do the ends justify the means?
Does might make right?
Does two wrongs make a right?
Shall we fight fire with fire? Does that usually work? Analogously,
Shall we stop violence with violence? Does that usually work? Does it ever work?
“It was x that got us into this mess, and x will get us out of it” — Does that work?
I would think that there are exceptions too all these rules, and that each of us comes to different conclusions about the priority/validity of each of them… that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a majority of opinion/fact(?) though. But while there are exceptions to rules… should we always be changing our minds (and thus not giving credence to a generality?). Would it not serves us favor the generality, and look cautiously when the exception appears best? Furthermore, if such is our choice (to not give a bias, or credence, to the majority/generality/guiding-force), then how does it serve us to act like we are people of firm/unwavering principles? Isn’t that rather hypocritical? Or as another adage states, “Should we eat our cake, and yet have it too?”