Barack Obama may be forced to delay US climate action

Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent, UK Guardian Barack Obama may be forced to order a two-year delay in Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) action on climate change to try to avoid a complete government shutdown, an environmental conference has been warned.

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President Obama faces the prospect of a government shutdown by 4 March, with a funding gap leading to federal employees being sent home and government services temporarily closing down, unless he can reach a deal with Congress Republicans who are demanding a crippling $61bn (£38bn) in budget cuts. The house will begin debate on the spending bill on Tuesday following efforts at the weekend to avoid a government shutdown, with news reports suggesting Republicans might compromise on some of the cuts. The Republican plan would destroy Obama's capacity to pursue his green agenda, cutting the budget of the EPA by 30%, and stripping funds for projects he has championed such as clean energy research and high-speed rail.

Is Obama With Eye On '12 Mulling An EPA Rollback?

By Steve Milloy, Investor's Busines Daily It looks as though President Obama may have decided that getting re-elected in 2012 is more important than saving the planet from the much-dreaded global warming. But then how does he break it to the people who helped elect him and whose support he will need in 2012? Political prognostication is always a chancy business, but a few new developments have occurred that seem to point to the president moving to rein in the Environmental Protection Agency's nascent regulation of greenhouse-gas emissions.

Fearing economic impact, Dem presses Obama to ‘reevaluate’ climate rules

By Ben Geman, The Hill Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) is urging the White House to re-evaluate greenhouse gas permitting regulations to avoid damaging manufacturers and other industries that are vital to his state and the nationwide economy. Brown — who faces reelection in 2012 in the battleground Midwest state — wrote to President Obama Monday calling for a review of the “economic repercussions and potential unintended consequences” of regulations the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has begun to phase in this year. Brown has long expressed concern that emissions mandates could harm so-called trade-sensitive industries. But his new letter could be a political blow to advocates of EPA’s emissions rules, who are battling various efforts by Republicans and some centrist Democrats to delay the rules or even scuttle the agency’s power to regulate greenhouse gases outright.

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