Authority should always be questioned.

 

What if Congress had done something similar to the one President Barack Obama did in 2008? If the Congress had taken action prior to Obama's election, would the Obama-Obama administration be doing more of what it did? If the Congress had done more, would Congress not have gotten so embarrassed? Perhaps there is a way to answer those questions that doesn't rely on a president.

First, Congress didn't have to pass a budget. It set the annual budget for a year. Congress could have used the budget language of the House Budget Committee and the Joint Committee on Taxation to create a new way of measuring the cost of federal programs — the "cap-and-trade" approach to cutting carbon emissions. But using cap-and-trade language would have been impossible as Obama administration policies would have required his administration to develop and apply the legislation. Even if cap-and-trade legislation had never been written, Congress should have been able to do its own accounting of this issue by creating a new way to calculate the "costs." Congress probably would have gone even further, including the creation of a cap-and-trade fund. This way a full accounting of what each federal program costs could be done.

With a cap-and-trade measure, Congress could have accounted for the costs of new fuel efficiency standards and advanced biofuels such as advanced biofuels such as ethanol or cellulosic ethanol. Instead, the president has left Congress to create their own accounting for carbon emissions. If the president's administration is responsible for the cost of new fuel efficiency technology, that would be fine; Congress is responsible for it. But when it comes to carbon cuts at the carbon intensity of the U.S.'s energy mix, Congress is completely at the mercy of the president.

If Congress and the White House both wanted a cap-and-trade program, they would have worked hard to draft something that could be passed this March. Instead, both agencies have been stuck in the middle of a very narrow debate. What did the Obama administration do to the environment? What did Obama do to fuel efficient cars? What did Obama do to biofuels? How has the Obama administration tried to address the climate change crisis during his administration? Congress deserves to know about Obama's actions and to be given an explanation for what they, not the president, should do.

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