{"id":4217,"date":"2015-09-25T19:29:02","date_gmt":"2015-09-25T19:29:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=4217"},"modified":"2015-09-25T19:29:12","modified_gmt":"2015-09-25T19:29:12","slug":"report-presidents-have-power-to-limit-climate-pollution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=4217","title":{"rendered":"Report: Presidents Have Power to Limit Climate Pollution"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><strong>by Eric Galatas<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>AUSTIN, Texas<\/strong> &#8211; A new report from the Center for Biological Diversity highlights how President Barack Obama, or any other sitting president, has legal authority to prevent 450 billion tons of climate pollution.<\/p>\n<p>Michael Saul, a senior attorney with the Center, says that\u2019s how much carbon the president could keep from being extracted on publicly owned lands without waiting for Congress.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a hugely powerful and immediately available tool to mitigate the potentially catastrophic effects of climate change,\u201d says Saul.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_4218\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4218\" class=\"size-full wp-image-4218\" src=\"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/gr-48108-1-1.jpg\" alt=\"A new report highlights how U.S. presidents have legal authority to keep 450-billion tons of climate pollution in the ground. Photo: acilo\/iStockphoto.\" width=\"600\" height=\"398\" srcset=\"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/gr-48108-1-1.jpg 600w, https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/gr-48108-1-1-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/gr-48108-1-1-405x269.jpg 405w, https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/gr-48108-1-1-60x40.jpg 60w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-4218\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A new report highlights how U.S. presidents have legal authority to keep 450-billion tons of climate pollution in the ground. Photo: acilo\/iStockphoto.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The report makes the case that any president could stop issuing new leases and prohibit energy development on public lands under powers already established in a series of federal land management acts.<\/p>\n<p>Saul admits the notion of telling the energy sector to stop drilling may seem far-fetched in today\u2019s political climate. Several coal-producing states have joined a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency\u2019s far more conservative Clean Power Plan, claiming regulations would hurt the economy and lead to job loss.<\/p>\n<p>Saul says the Clean Power Plan alone won\u2019t keep global temperatures from rising to potentially irreversible levels. The Center\u2019s study found the amount of carbon yet to be extracted from federally controlled public lands, if burned, would result in 13 times more climate pollution than was released across the entire planet in 2013.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat\u2019s conservative here is actually taking real steps not simply to increase the efficiency of this system but to say, \u2018These fuels need to stay in the ground,\u2019\u201d says Saul.<\/p>\n<p>The study points to scientific research showing that, in order to preserve a habitable climate, a vast majority of fossil-fuel reserves should not be burned. Saul says since good legal arguments already are in place, all that\u2019s needed now is a president willing to step up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Eric Galatas AUSTIN, Texas &#8211; A new report from the Center for Biological Diversity highlights how President Barack Obama, or any other sitting president, has legal authority to prevent 450 billion tons of climate pollution. Michael Saul, a senior attorney with the Center, says that\u2019s how much carbon the president could keep from being [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4217"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4219,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4217\/revisions\/4219"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}