How Obama can get it done for a safe climate: Brownstein

Ronald Brownstein, perhaps the foremost political print journalist of recent years, in Quartz explains how and why the President will make a move to protect the climate. 

Note that the story begins with a fact the left and environmentalists generally will not like.

Though President Barack Obama lavished attention on climate change in both his inaugural address and State of the Union speech, he still has little chance of getting Congress to pass a law limiting carbon emissions. But he could achieve the same goal using regulation from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and he is now in a better position to withstand—and even welcome—the confrontation with the energy industry this would entail, thanks to both economic and political shifts.

The key economic change is the surge in domestic production of natural gas spurred by the growing use of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. That creates a cheaper alternative to coal-generated electricity and has eased fears that restrictions on carbon would send utility bills soaring. “The economic prerequisite for a major move against coal is low gas prices,” says Jerry Taylor, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute. “So economically the table is set.”

This leads, the writer argues, to a new political wedge issue. The rise of fracking and cheaper energy from natural gas freed by fracking undercuts the coal industry, as simultaneously we see the rise of a new political alliance, of young women, Latinos, and gay men which diminishes the um, Appalachian vote.

An EPA move against coal-fired power would follow that pattern. One senior Obama adviser said the White House now believes that forcing the GOP to debate the issue will benefit Democrats politically by creating hurdles for the GOP with younger voters. “Republicans will eventually realize their position on climate for young people is the equivalent of their position on immigration for Latinos,” said the adviser.

Yes…and in many cases these young voters are Latino, who are as invested in a safe climate as any other group of voters, as we recently discussed here.