What to Expect and What to Hope for in Obama’s Final State of the Union

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Grounds For Caution on Natural Gas

As he has in previous State of the Union addresses, President Obama may refer to the nation’s expanding production and use of natural gas as a benefit to our economy and environment. It’s true that substituting natural gas for coal in electricity production can help reduce carbon pollution in the near-term, though just as with oil, there are fugitive methane emissions from gas production and use, which if large enough, could overwhelm these carbon benefits. But ultimately, we need to virtually eliminate carbon pollution from all sources—including natural gas—if we are to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

An overreliance on natural gas over the long-term won’t allow us to achieve the emissions reductions needed to address global warming and could crowd out essential investments in renewable energy sources and improving energy efficiency. Also, as UCS’s toolkit on fracking makes clear, too many communities are being pressed to make decisions on new oil and gas production projects without access to comprehensive and reliable scientific information about the potential impacts of hydraulic fracturing on their local air and water quality, community health, safety, economy, environment and overall quality of life. President Obama should pledge that the federal government will take a stronger role in protecting these communities and work with states to strengthen regulation and oversight of these industries.

Protecting the Government’s Ability to Protect Us

Just last week, the House passed H.R. 1155, the Searching for and Cutting Regulations that are Unnecessarily Burdensome (or “SCRUB”) Act, which as the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards points out, “would establish a new bureaucracy empowered to dismantle long-established public health and safety standards and would make it significantly more difficult for Congress and federal agencies to implement essential future protections.” Fortunately, the White House has already issued a veto threat for this ill-conceived legislation, should it ever reach the president’s desk. But this isn’t the first bad idea on “reforming” the federal regulatory process to be put forward by the current Congress and it almost certainly won’t be the last. President Obama should make it crystal clear tomorrow night that he will continue to stand up to these efforts of special interests and their allies in Congress to undermine the ability of the federal government to protect the public’s health and safety.

There is also more that President Obama can do on his own on this front. For example, in 2013, he issued an Executive Order to improve chemical facility safety and security, but as my colleague Gretchen Goldman points out, the rules that provide better information for communities and protections against the risks of chemical accidents—the EPA’s so-called Risk Management Plan—are woefully out of date. The president should ensure these rules are updated before he leaves office.

Needed: A National Food Policy

While the president may once again refer to First Lady Michelle Obama’s campaign against childhood obesity, it’s unlikely he will address the disconnect between health and nutrition policies, on the one hand and our national agricultural policy on the other. As UCS Food and Environment Program Director Ricardo Salvador and three colleagues put it in a November, 2014 Washington Post op-ed:

“How we produce and consume food has a bigger impact on Americans’ well-being than any other human activity. The food industry is the largest sector of our economy; food touches everything from our health to the environment, climate change, economic inequality and the federal budget. Yet we have no food policy—no plan or agreed-upon principles—for managing American agriculture or the food system as a whole.”

While an executive order to establish a national policy for food, health and well-being is likely a bridge too far in the president’s final year, the lack of a national food policy needs to be an issue in this year’s presidential campaign.

In the meantime, President Obama should make clear that he will defend healthy and sustainable food and farm policies in 2016, which will likely see the passage of at least one major food bill, the Child Nutrition Reauthorization (CNR) Act. CNR sets nutrition standards and funding levels for school lunch and breakfast programs and authorizes the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Program, which provides food assistance to low-income families. It also authorizes the Farm to School program, which has been instrumental in connecting local and regional farmers with schools, providing a win for farmers and schools alike. President Obama can use his veto power to ensure that a CNR bill delivers healthy, affordable food for those who need it most. Additionally, he can ensure that any other food and agriculture legislation or federal rules are developed using sound science in order to protect our water, air and soil and our families’ health.

Reducing the Threat from Nuclear Weapons

Less than three months after taking office, President Obama gave a stirring speech in Prague on reducing the threat from nuclear weapons. Sensibly, he sought to “put an end to Cold War thinking” and to “reduce the role that nuclear weapons play in U.S. security policy.” He set forth a bold goal by declaring “I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” Almost seven years later, there has been far less progress toward those goals than many—presumably including the president—had hoped. Some of that is due to Russian intransigence and misbehavior, but despite those challenges, President Obama still has time and the authority to take steps that would reduce the nuclear threat.

He could begin tomorrow night, by declaring that the U.S. will remove its land-based nuclear-armed missiles from hair trigger alert, a dangerous posture held over from the Cold War that dramatically increases the chances of accidental or inadvertent nuclear war. He could also cancel the proposed new nuclear-armed cruise missile, a dangerous new capability that lowers the threshold for nuclear use. In June 2013, based on a comprehensive Pentagon study of military requirements, President Obama declared that the U.S. could safely reduce deployed U.S. nuclear forces by one-third, but he has not done so. He could seize that opportunity in the State of the Union. Finally, he could declare that the sole purpose of U.S. nuclear weapons is to deter a nuclear attack on the U.S. and its allies, a significant move that would fulfill his intention to reduce the role that nuclear weapons play in U.S. security policy.

By reducing the nuclear threat, each of these steps would lead to a significant improvement in U.S. and global security.

Making Full Use of the Bully Pulpit

President Obama can take a measure of satisfaction from the difference he and his administration have made on issues such as these that are of such vital importance to the future of all Americans. But there is clearly more work to be done and the president has made clear he will use every remaining minute of his time in office to make more progress wherever he can.

Part of his focus over the next year—and beyond—should be on continuing to raise public awareness of the benefits of responsible government action on climate change, clean energy, public health and safety protections, arms control and other critical issues. This will not only build support for the actions he takes as president, but will help create positive pressure for continued constructive action after he leaves the Oval Office next January.

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