The Wall Street Journal has an opinion piece, "Calling Obama's Bluff on Climate Change," by Steven Hayward, who is identified as a visiting professor at Pepperdine. What the WSJ fails to mention, however, are his numerous ties to fossil-fuel-funded groups—Hayward was formerly the director and treasurer for Donors Capital Fund, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and a board member of CFACT.
The piece, while relatively short, is packed full of the WSJ's usual climate misinformation. Hayward's intention is to explain how "the GOP Congress can get ahead of Mr. Obama" before the upcoming Paris climate change agreement. He suggests Congress can pass some bills to tie Obama's hands, but acknowledges this advice is of limited utility, because "Mr. Obama would surely veto the bills."
Hayward is basing most of his objections on the false belief that the agreement shaping up for Paris is identical to the Kyoto Protocol. (Spoiler: the Paris agreement is designed to overcome the challenges of Kyoto, so it's as though Hayward wrote his article about Kyoto and just changed the name without bothering to read up on the new agreement.) For more detail, Neil Bhatiya explains all the pieces that Hayward gets completely wrong.
Hayward concludes by asking why Obama hasn't tried to work more closely with Congress on global warming. While we can't speak for the President, perhaps his reluctance has something to do with the fact that the fossil fuel industry spent over $326 million on lobbying and contributions to the 113th Congress.
-----
Top Climate and Clean Energy Stories:
New energy storage plant could 'revolutionise' renewable sector. Flywheel plant being built in Ireland with potentially unlimited storage capability could solve the problem of clean energy supply shortfalls when there is insufficient sun or wind
WI Board of Commissioners of Public Lands bans staff from climate change work. “We’ve reached the point now where we’re going to try to gag employees from talking about issues. In this case, climate change."
Giving the Facts a Fighting Chance. The Koch brothers and their allies have pledged to spend nearly $1 billion dollars on the 2016 election helping politicians who are willing to ignore the science and bury their heads in the sand.
Finland: Majority of parliamentary candidates rate climate change above competitiveness. Over 58 percent of parliamentary candidates running in Finland's general election say that mitigating climate change should take priority over improving Finland’s competitiveness.