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Now, what better time and place to announce a climate change initiative than in Washington during the soupy summer month of August.
Politico is speculating that perhaps part of the reason the upcoming big-deal EPA rule for carbon emissions has been delayed is so that President Obama could announce it in August.
Makes sense. From what we like to call here in Washington, an “optics” point of view.
Then again, I used to cover certain environmental regulations, and they were always, always delayed. Sometimes for years. Because this is the government, as you know. Meantime, businesses made business plans as best they could.
But why would I want to ruin the fun here?
From the piece:
An announcement in August – or even late July or early September - means the chances are pretty good Obama will be going before the TV cameras to champion his new greenhouse-gas restrictions on a 90-degree day, where the sweat dripping off his forehead will provide a potent and symbolic rebuke to global-warming skeptics.
The president is no stranger to climate theater: An image of Obama wiping his brow with a white hankie filled the news accounts from his June 2013 remarks on climate change. That outdoor speech at Georgetown came on a day when the thermostat in Washington maxed out at 94, and Obama opened with this line: “My first announcement today is that you should all take off your jackets.”
And last Tuesday, when Obama made the call for stronger climate change measures, he did it at the National Hurricane Center in Miami, on the heels of devastating springtime floods in Texas and Oklahoma. Citing “the best climate scientists in the world,” Obama warned of more extreme weather events.
Here he is, bathed in perspiration during his June 2013 remarks. Perhaps it’s less the heat and more that he recognizes how insincere he sounds saying, “we’ve gotta move beyond partisan politics” and then snickering, “We don’t have time for a meeting of the flat earth society.”