Obama Acts on Climate Promise

WASHINGTON (June 25, 2013) - President Obama ordered the first-ever federal limits on carbon pollution from power plants today, as part of a broad-based climate change initiative.

Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, made the following statement:

“The president nailed it: this can’t wait. We will cut this carbon pollution today so our children don’t inherit climate chaos tomorrow. We owe that to future generations, and we owe it to ourselves.”

In the United States, power plants produce 40 percent of the dangerous carbon pollution that is driving climate change. There are no federal limits, though, on how much carbon these plants may release.

Obama directed his administration to begin developing standards to reduce this dangerous pollution.

“That’s the single most important thing we can do, as a nation, to confront this widening scourge,” said Beinecke.

“Climate change is the central environmental crisis of our time. It is taking a grievous and growing toll on our country, threatening our people and imperiling our future. The president promised to do something about it. Today he turned that promise into action.”

Learn more about how the nation can benefit from sensible limits on carbon pollution from power plants, or read the new blogs on the president’s national climate initiative by Frances Beinecke, and Dan Lashof, director of the NRDC’s Climate and Clean Air program.

Frances Beinecke's blog: http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/fbeinecke/obamas_climate_action_plan_wil.html

Dan Lashof's blog: http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/dlashof/this_is_what_climate_leadershi.html