Regional Round-up: Support for President Obama's Plan to Cut Carbon Pollution and Combat Climate Change

On Tuesday, President Obama announced his comprehensive plan to reduce carbon pollution and lead global efforts against climate change. With our country facing increasingly volatile weather, rising sea levels and dangerous levels of pollution, the President presented clear steps that the administration will take to address these problems.

However, as President Obama stated, climate change represents not only a challenge to America but also an opportunity for us to create sustainable employment and economic growth in the future in a vast array of fields, from building wind turbines in Iowa to designing the next generation of electric cars in California.

With so much at stake in this debate, from the strength of our economy to the type of world we leave our children, newspapers across the country reported on the President’s common-sense plan. Here’s a sample of the coverage:

CA – San Francisco Business Times (Riddell): SolarCity a big winner from Obama climate change speech Shares of SolarCity rocketed today after President Barack Obama's no-holds-barred climate change speech in which he laid out a broad series of steps to reduce pollution and save energy including upping the federal government's purchase of renewable energy to meet 20 percent of its total demand and encouraging widespread energy efficiency efforts. But the big boost to SolarCity, the San Mateo-based solar installer and project financing company, probably came from the Wal-Mart shout-out the President gave. He said more than 500 businesses, including Nike and General Motors, issued a declaration calling action on climate change "one of the greatest opportunities of the 21st century."

NY – Syracuse Post-Standard (Weiner): President Obama to propose climate action plan President Barack Obama today will unveil a sweeping climate action plan that includes the first-ever carbon dioxide limits on new and existing power plants. Obama will outline his plan in a speech this afternoon at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., where aides say he will propose mandatory reductions on power plant emissions, the nation's single largest source of carbon-dioxide emissions.

MN – The Minneapolis Star-Tribune (McAuliffe): Minnesota likely out in front of carbon emissions, climate change mandates Hamilton and several others with interests in environmental issues and climate impacts on local communities praised Obama’s announcement of the effort to address climate change, mostly for its emphasis on curbing carbon pollution. Putting limits on carbon dioxide emissions, as has been done for decades on other pollutants, is long overdue, they said.

NJ – The Asbury Park Press (Moore): Obama climate plan proposes more post-Sandy protection The aftermath of superstorm Sandy shows what the United States can expect with a changing climate, and how the nation must prepare coastal communities while continuing to reduce carbon emissions and transition to cleaner energy, President Obama said Tuesday in an address outlining his administration’s climate action plan. Speaking outdoors at Georgetown University in Washington, Obama mopped his brow in the 92-degree heat, and defended his plan against critics from the right and left. He harkened back to the Clean Air Act of 1970, a measure passed with bipartisan support and signed by Republican President Richard Nixon.

NJ – The Press of Atlantic City (Watson): Some New Jersey energy goals are ahead of President Obama's President Obama’s sweeping federal policy announcements Tuesday for how the country will address climate change has cast attention on how New Jersey is handling the issues. Among the efforts Obama announced is setting limits for the first time on how much carbon power plants can release, upgrading the nation’s electric grid, doubling the amount of energy produced by alternative-energy sources by 2020 and requiring all projects built with federal money to meet standards to withstand sea-level rise and extreme weather. Some of these concepts already are in place in New Jersey, and the state intends to use its efforts to rebuild after Hurricane Sandy as a “working model” for how to fortify the coast and prepare towns for sea-level rise and severe storms, said Larry Ragonese, state Department of Environmental Protection spokesman.

FL – The Palm Beach Post (Stapleton): President urges action on climate change protection, cleaner energy production President Barack Obama declared the debate over climate change and its causes obsolete Tuesday and announced a wide-ranging plan to tackle pollution and prepare communities for global warming. During an hour-long speech at Georgetown University, Obama warned Americans of the deep and disastrous effects of climate change, urging them to take action before it’s too late. Obama announced he was directing the Environmental Protection Agency to launch first-ever federal regulations on heat-trapping gases emitted by new and existing power plants — “to put an end to the limitless dumping of carbon pollution.”

UT – The Deseret News (O’Donoghue): Obama says time to act is now on climate change President Barack Obama unveiled an ambitious plan to address climate change, building on his initiatives to embrace more dependence on renewable energy, increase fuel economy for vehicles and to cut carbon pollution from power plants. In a Tuesday speech under sweltering heat at Georgetown University, Obama declared the debate on climate change over and stressed the time for action is now. "The question is not whether we need to act," he said. "The question now is whether we will have the courage to act before it is too late."

MA – Boston Globe (Daley): Obama offers plan to fight climate dangers President Obama on Tuesday unveiled a comprehensive blueprint to combat rising seas and more frequent severe weather caused by climate change, including a long-awaited promise to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant at existing power plants. The 21-page plan would expand production of solar and wind energy and includes billions of dollars in loan guarantees to develop cleaner fossil-fuel and other energy technologies. It also funds new efforts to armor communities against flooding, wildfires, and drought, and puts more emphasis on working with countries such as India and China to jointly lower emissions of gases that warm the atmosphere.

IA – Des Moines Register (Noble): Obama climate plan could remake energy landscape in Iowa President Barack Obama’s plan for addressing climate change could remake the landscape for power generation in Iowa and reignite the state’s alternative energy industry, experts said, although to what extent remains uncertain. The “climate action plan” unveiled by the president during a speech Tuesday at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., encompasses numerous new and expanded policies, all of which Obama said could be enacted by his administration without congressional action.

CA – San Jose Mercury News (Rogers): Obama announces sweeping new global warming plan In the largest environmental initiative of his presidency, President Obama will announce this morning the nation's first mandatory restrictions on greenhouse gases from new and existing power plants.

NJ – The Newark Star-Ledger (Augenstein): Obama to unveil climate-change proposals this afternoon President Barack Obama is expected to unveil his plan to address climate change this afternoon. The president will lay out a sweeping guideline for reducing carbon emissions and other greenhouse-gas pollution this afternoon, according to a video released by the White House. “This Tuesday at Georgetown University, I’ll lay out my vision for where I believe we need to go,” the president said, citing his second-term inaugural address in January.

UT – The Desert Sun (Kaufmann): Obama’s climate change speech and solar opportunities — a bird’s-eye view What seems to be the best impetus for getting homeowners and businesses to consider solar, beyond personal politics, is its economic advantages. In the Coachella Valley, most installers will tell you, the potential for getting out from under the region’s high electric bills is solar’s strongest selling point. President Barack Obama made just that point in his speech Tuesday, outlining his plan to fight global warming. Answering the naysayers who routinely attack renewable energy and other efforts to cut carbon emissions as overly expensive job killers, the president noted that more than 500 businesses had recently signed a Climate Declaration, calling action on climate change “one of the great economic opportunities of the 21st century.”