 |
         
|
While ABC's Jake Tapper covered Barack Obama's orders as an automobile story, NBC and CBS both took the environmental angle. The dispute that Obama addressed was one between the Bush Administration's Environmental Protection Agency and the state of California. California, along with 17 other states covering almost half the population, classified carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles as air pollution because of their greenhouse effect. "In its drive to crack down," CBS' Ben Tracy reported from Los Angeles, "California has waged a four-year battle with Washington and the auto industry. Now it just might win." For NBC's In Depth, Anne Thompson speculated that cutting emissions "is a message the auto industry is finally getting…Today the industry reversed course saying it wants to work with the administration to reduce the pollution fueling global warming."
ABC's Tapper reminded us that George Bush withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol on global warming back in 2001. Now Todd Stern, who was Bill Clinton's chief negotiator at Kyoto, has been appointed as Obama's climate control envoy. Reflecting on Obama's environmental initiatives, ABC's George Stephanopoulos made a distinction between green jobs--alternate energy sources and efficiency drives--and limiting greenhouse gases. "Controling industrial emissions through a cap-and-trade program is likely to be put on a slower track," he predicted.
You must be logged in to this website to leave a comment. Please click here to log in so you can participate in the discussion.
