Obama's Environmental Policies While In Office

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Obama’s Environmental Policies While In Office

The president of the United States of America Barrack Obama and his office has orchestrated environmental policies over the past two years of operation. These policies are aimed at regulating the environmental impact to the United States. The goal of Obama’s environmental policy is to safeguard the American environment for the future generations, at the same exhibiting minimal interference with the liberty of its citizens and commerce efficiency, and limiting inequity for those burdened with costs emanating from environmental conservation. Particularly because of the high costs related to Obama’s environmental regulations, political and business conservative interests have instituted backlash, thus slowing efforts of conserving the environment (Claussen, 18).
Because of the increasing global consensus on halting global warming, the Obama administration proposed efforts to limit the emission of green house gases and relevant energy policies. Obama’s administration further pledged to address the crisis on climate change through an economic stimulus focusing on environmental investment through “green collar jobs” (Powledge, 25). The budget of this project focuses on the crisis with an expansion plan that funds environmental research and programs. This includes a fourteen percent increase in the environmental protection budget. These moves are considered more environmentally conscious compared to those in the Bush administration. However, questions cannot help but be raised concerning their effectiveness when addressing these crises.

While Obama’s project stimulus has a provision of 79 billion dollars for funding energy projects propelled by clean means, green transportation and initiatives on energy efficiency, it goes on to set aside 280 billion dollars from tax cuts. This stimulus bill also allocates less than a third (10 billion dollars) as much money to roads as it does to mass transit. Even as relevant cuts have been kept underway, the public transportation sector has also been highlighted despite attaining record numbers in numerous cities (Powledge, 54). The bill’s minimal transit funding measure has a less likely probability of leading to routes facilitating any expansion. Peter Bell, the Council Chair of Minneapolis Metropolitan asserts that it would not make any sense to construct a structure that would warrant large maintenance issues and unnecessary debts. Nor would it build the economy if it meant laying off a bus driver for purposes of hiring a construction worker.

Obama’s stimulus program on environmental investments also has a 3.4 billion dollar provision for research and development on fossil energy. The president’s administration asserts that this will be spent on researching technology related to clean coal energy (Claussen, 45). The funds generated for this research is a representation of the coal industry’s victory; something that has been greatly lobbying Obama’s administration to allocate some shares from the project stimulus. While the 33 billion dollars allocated towards development of renewable energy sources in the stimulus project is a commendable idea, the dominance of the coal and oil corporations as well as market forces offer virtual assurance that sources of renewable energy will be dully unitized.

The crisis in the economy has only played a role of exacerbating the problem, with developers specializing with renewable energy experiencing an increased difficulty to acquire adequate capital. This can be attributed to the reluctance of corporations to submit funds, with only four of the original eighteen banks still willing to fund solar array and projects for wind turbine installation. This illustrates how the bail out strategy is more focused on realizing profits rather than meeting societal requirements. Ultimately, the Obama administration is seemingly not undertaking enough measures to address the environmental crisis (Rohrman, 45). What the administration needs to address lies behind the economic and environmental crisis in a program involving massive public works inn energy efficiency, renewable energy as well as mass transit. This kind of program would warrant a larger than the current environmental provision scale in the on going stimulus project. This can be a good way to ensure that the administration is taking positive steps towards achieving a sustainable economy.

In this case, there would be no contradiction between saving or creating jobs and conserving the environment. A program on public works related to this ideology would result in the creation of vast employment opportunities in the genuine “clean concerned” areas of the economy. It would also result in building wind and solar infrastructure as a replacement of fossil fuels, developing technologies on renewable energy, and having a broad expansion of mass transit are all but the current achievements of the Obama administration. These strategies in my opinion are far more rational compared to the 13 trillion, bailout loan from the bank (Rohrman, 76).

Such a strategy would require a massive investment from the public environment, ultimately calling for a powerful assault on corporate interests; and this is an idea the Obama administration is not likely to ally. Within the current economy in the United States, a rational solution to answer the environmental crisis is seemingly not possible to acquire. In a capitalist’s view, there is greater need for corporation profitability against all odds, compared to human needs towards public services, jobs, and a healthy environment. The development of a sustainable economy capable of meeting human needs requires an economy’s transformation among socialist lines. The Obama administration admits that only when the economy becomes accountable democratically to the whole public, then their strategy on rational planning will succeed in conserving the environment (Claussen, 102). The administration further asserts when priorities are shifted profitability of corporations to the needs of the future generation, only then will the world take a huge step towards becoming sustainable.

Works cited.

Claussen, E, J Drexhage, A Edwards, M Galano, P Gass, M Miller, V Patton, Q Shea, R Sprott, and Ozone T. C. The. “Environmental Policies Under an Obama Administration: Is Change in the Air?” Em : Air & Waste Management Association’s Magazine for Environmental Managers. (2009): 8-17. Print.

Powledge, Fred. “Environmental Science After Bush.” Bioscience. 59.3 (2009): 200-204. Print.

Rohrman, D.F. “Obama’s Environmental Policy-Year One.” Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. 7. 10 (2009). Print.