On June 25, 2013, President Obama announced a national plan to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and other greenhouse gases (GHG), as well as to encourage adaptation to expected climate change. The President stated a willingness to work with Congress on a bipartisan, market-based scheme to reduce GHG emissions. However, the President had earlier stipulated that the set of actions he announced would not require congressional approval. This announcement followed up on his vow in the 2013 State of the Union Address: I urge this Congress to pursue a bipartisan, market-based solution to climate change, like the one John McCain and Joe Lieberman worked on together a few years ago. But if Congress won't act soon to protect future generations, I will. I will direct my Cabinet to come up with executive actions we can take, now and in the future, to reduce pollution, prepare our communities for the consequences of climate change, and speed the transition to more sustainable sources of energy. The President had been under increasing pressure from environmental allies to exercise greater leadership on the climate change issue, after the Congress did not enact "Waxman-Markey" ( H.R. 2454 in 2009) or other comprehensive bills to reduce GHG emissions. Also, some states and non-governmental organizations gave notice that they would file suit when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed but did not finalize greenhouse gas (GHG) emission standards for new power plants by April 2013. The President's plan is accompanied by a White House "infographic" covering extreme weather events, U.S. GHG emissions, and elements of the President's plan. Members of Congress continue to be divided in their views on whether climate change risks merit raising current costs to the economy in exchange for benefits that would mostly accrue to future generations, people in other countries, and stability of Earth systems. The prospect of continued congressional divisions in part has prompted the President's use of existing executive branch authorities. The President affirmed his commitment to his 2009 policy pledge to reduce U.S. GHG emissions by 17% below 2005 levels by 2020 if all other major economies agreed to limit their emissions as well. In 2012, the United States' gross GHG emissions were approximately 10% below their 2005 levels, or about 5% above 1990 levels. U.S. GHG emissions peaked in 2007. During the period 1990 to 2012, U.S. economic activity, measured as Gross Domestic Product (GDP), rose 73%, while population increased 26%. The U.S. Energy Information Administration projected U.S. energy-related CO 2 emissions, about 78% of all U.S. GHG emissions, to grow 3.5% from 2012 to 2020, under existing regulations and policies—not taking into account the new guidelines for CO 2 reductions from existing power plants. Under this reference scenario, transportation sector emissions fall by 2%, industry CO 2 emissions grow by 14%, and electricity sector emissions rise almost 4%. An independent study estimated in late 2012 that the United States is on a path to reduce all GHG emissions to 16% below 2005 levels in 2020, including effects of the New Source Performance Standards for CO 2 emissions from power plants that EPA proposed in 2012 (more below). The researchers cite assumptions about promulgated and proposed standards, trends in the relative prices of coal and natural gas, and state and local GHG mitigation programs as main drivers of the projected reductions. To fill the gap between the President's pledge and the current emissions trajectory, President Obama identified a series of actions to abate GHG emissions and to facilitate resilience to the effects of climate change. These are outlined below in three broad categories from the President's plan, which describes his three "pillars" as 1. cut carbon pollution in America; 2. prepare the United States for the impacts of climate change; 3. lead international efforts to combat global climate change and prepare for its impacts. This summary emphasizes the incremental additions in the plan announced June 25, 2013, beyond programs and other executive branch actions already under way. Few of the listed measures specify the timing of executive branch actions, or the quantitative GHG reductions that should be achieved. The centerpiece of the President's Climate Action Plan arguably is the Presidential Memorandum setting deadlines for EPA to issue rules to curtail carbon dioxide emissions from new and existing power plants. Specifically, the Presidential Memorandum first instructs EPA to issue, as planned, a new proposal under the Clean Air Act (CAA), by September 20, 2013, for GHG emissions from newly constructed electric generating units (EGU), and to issue the final rule "in a timely fashion" after comments. This rule was proposed in the Federal Register on January 8, 2014, opening a 60-day comment period. The proposal would set an emissions limit of 1,100 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) per megawatt-hour (MWh) of electricity generated by new coal-fired EGUs, and a standard of either 1,000 or 1,100 lbs/MWh (depending on size) for new natural gas-fired EGUs. To meet the standard, coal-fired plants are assumed to require carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) of about 40% of the CO 2 from their fuel. EPA assumed CCS technology in its Regulatory Impact Analysis of the proposal. Second, and more significantly, the Presidential Memorandum directs EPA also to issue standards, regulations, or guidelines for CO 2 emissions applicable to modified, reconstructed and existing power plants, building on states' efforts to reduce power plant emissions. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy plans to announce the proposed guidelines for existing EGU emissions on June 2, 2014. The Memorandum directs EPA to finalize the guidelines by June 1, 2015, and notes that states should submit to EPA their implementation plans, required under Section 111(d) of the CAA, and their implementing regulations by June 30, 2016. The Memorandum states that states and nongovernmental leaders should be directly engaged in the process; regulations and guidelines should be tailored to reduce costs; approaches should allow use of market-based instruments, performance standards, and other flexibilities; standards should be consistent with maintaining reliable and affordable power; and EPA should work with states and other agencies to promote electricity from cleaner and more efficient technologies, including appliance efficiencies. The President directed EPA to work with state and local governments, industry, non-governmental organizations, tribal officials, and others in designing the programs, and to use market-based elements where possible. These instructions might be consistent with new standards and guidelines that take innovative forms, such as proposals put forward by policy analysts. Some call for state-specific guidelines for existing power plants with flexibilities in state implementation plans to allow compliance in flexible ways, including use of generator and consumer efficiency, renewable mechanisms, rate averaging, and additional options. The President's announcement specifically indicated that the EPA standards should "provide flexibility to different states with different needs, and build on the leadership that many states, and cities, and companies have already shown." Stakeholders are offering many comments regarding the stringency of the guidelines, the flexibilities to states and regulated entities, and the base year against which reductions will be measured, with many views on costs, benefits, and impacts on various entities and populations in the United States. Electricity Generation from Renewable Energy . The President set a goal to double electricity generation from wind, solar, and geothermal energy from current levels by 2020. Electricity generation produced from wind, solar, and geothermal increased 80% from 2009 to 2011, from 90 million megawatt-hours to 161 million megawatt-hours. Including biomass fuels, the increase of non-hydro renewable electricity was 52% from 2009 to 2011, from 144 million megawatt-hours to 219 million megawatt-hours. The President proposes to accomplish the doubling goal by instructing the Department of Interior to issue permits for 10 gigawatts (GW) of renewable electric capacity on public lands by 2020; encouraging expansion of hydropower generation at existing dams, including the Red Rock Hydroelectric Plant on the Des Moines River in Iowa as a high priority permitting project; deploying 3 GW of renewable capacity on military installations by 2025; aiming to install 100 MW of renewable capacity for federally subsidized housing stock by 2020; and directing federal agencies, through a June 2013 Presidential Memorandum, to streamline siting, permitting, and review of electricity transmission projects across federal, state, and tribal government processes. Consider Climate Impacts in the National Interests of Keystone XL . The State Department faces a pending decision of whether to grant a Presidential Permit for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. Keystone XL would transport oil sands crude from Canada to a market hub in Nebraska for further delivery to Gulf Coast refineries. Some environmental groups called this decision the "line in the sand" for U.S. climate change policy and urged the President to deny the permit. On June 25, 2013, the President stated in his speech that "[our] national interest will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the impacts of carbon pollution. The net effects of the pipeline's impact on our climate will be absolutely critical to determining whether this project can go forward . " In April 2013 comments on the draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the permit application, EPA recommended that the State Department include in the final EIS monetized estimates of the social cost of the GHG emissions from a barrel of oil sands crude compared to average U.S. crude. It is not clear whether the State Department will include in the final EIS the additional emissions data recommended by EPA. If those data are included, it is not yet known how it may inform the State Department's assessment of the "net effects" of the pipeline project on the climate. Eliminate Tax Incentives Benefiting U.S. Fossil Fuels . The President proposed phasing out tax provisions that benefit fossil fuels in his FY2014 budget proposal.