Robert Reich: Empty Hands on the Climate, and What Obama Needs to Do

...there’s no way between now and then Obama can get a strong climate bill through Congress.
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Why has so little been accomplished? Because coal, shale, oil, big manufacturers, and utilities — the big old polluters (BOPs) — have beaten back anything better.
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Yes, the Environmental Protection Agency is moving forward on its own efforts to reduce greenhouse gases, and the White House is quietly using the threat of the EPA doing more as a prod to get the BOPs on board with legislation that the White House says will be easier on them than what the EPA comes up with. But that’s no real threat. The BOPs know they can keep the EPA tied up in litigation for years.

So here’s my suggestion. The White House should tell Congress it’s raising the bar on climate change but is simultaneously putting the current legislation on hold — until it can focus the public’s attention on it. That is, until after a worthy piece of healthcare legislation is on the President’s desk.