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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMiami Will Likely Be Underwater Before Congress Acts on Climate Change
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Miami will likely be underwater before the Senate can muster enough votes to meaningfully confront climate change. And probably Tampa and Charleston, tootwo other cities that last week's National Climate Assessment placed at maximum risk from rising sea levels.
Even as studies proliferate on the dangers of a changing climate, the issue's underlying politics virtually ensure that Congress will remain paralyzed over it indefinitely. That means the U.S. response for the foreseeable future is likely to come through executive-branch actions, such as the regulations on carbon emissions from power plants that the Environmental Protection Agency is due to propose next month. And that means climate change will likely spike as a point of conflict in the 2016 presidential race.
President Obama, from his first days in office, made it clear to intimates that he believed a legislative solution to climate change would provide a more stable, broadly accepted response than executive action. But his experience has highlighted the structural forces that make a legislative agreement so unlikely, especially in the Senate.
Reaching agreement on any issue has become increasingly difficult in a Congress deluged by partisan polarization and money from interest groups. But climate change faces two other headwinds that make the path to legislative action even more daunting.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/political-connections/miami-will-likely-be-underwater-before-congress-acts-on-climate-change-20140515
KaryninMiami
(3,073 posts)It's true by the way- when the rains come and especially during a full moon, here on Miami Beach, things can get pretty crazy. We're talking areas- MANY AREAS where the water is hip deep when the bay comes up on the west side (where I reside) and when the streets flood on the east side.
But Rubio says this is all part of natural climate change- so happy to have such a visionary along with Rick Scott, leading the state.