Is Bush Setting the Stage for a Climate Change Bill?

As disappointing as this week’s State of the Union address might have been to many climate change advocates, in today’s Washington Post, Peter Baker and Steven Mufson have a revealing page one account backgrounding the evolution of Bush’s thinking on the issue.

According to the article, in the last year, Treasury Secretary and former Goldman Sach’s chairman Hank Paulson along with FedEx Chair Frederick W. Smith have been pushing Bush for policy action on greenhouse gas emissions and energy independence. It was at a Dec. 13 meeting with Paulson, Smith, and Goldman Sachs vice-chairman Robert Hormats that the State of the Union proposal was hatched.

The article closes with speculation from former Bush EPA director Christine Todd Whitman that the administration might be setting the groundwork for a *non-veto* of a emissions cap bill, should one actually make it through Congress. (An event that is looking less and less likely given the bickering among key Dems on the topic.)