Obama’s Enviro Report Card

THE WEST—Opinion on Obama’s Western environmental track record has been hamstrung by hyperbolic expectation vs. the realities of glacial-paced, often under-the-radar policymaking. According to Judith Lewis’s in-depth reporting on the subject, so far, the verdict remains awash in indecision.

From Grist, via the High Country News: “Between the extremes of pure environmentalism and the latest iteration of the Sagebrush Rebels, however, there is a story emerging from the Obama administration of systemic progress on environmental issues, some of it arcane and nuanced and much of it at ground level. He has not taken the hard turn toward change that many people hoped for, and the small steps taken may not be enough to halt the rising of the oceans before they erode the California coastline, or stave off precipitation shifts before they kill the West’s ski resorts and ratchet up our water-supply wars. But under the circumstances—a miserable economy, two quagmire wars, a brutal fight over health-care reform in a nearly paralyzed Congress—it may be all anyone could have done. And it may turn out to be the kind of progress that will be harder to reverse in future, inevitably more hostile years.”

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