Well he’s over the hump: in the wake of his final midterm elections, President Obama is faced with his final two years and a Republican majority. It’ll either be very interesting, very uneventful, or possibly both. But Obama’s still got plenty on his to-do list from when he first came to the office; namely health care, immigration, and environment reform.
Environment:
This week saw Obama striking a new climate deal with the Chinese government, with a goal of striking U.S. emissions 26-28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. Working with China (their first time capping carbon emissions) is a powerful statement seeing as how the two countries account for 45 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.
But is it enough? Potentially. By itself, it won’t be enough but it could represent a first big step on the President’s fight against climate change, a subtle indication that the U.S. and China’s new agreement will create a more vast market for clean energy. Then again, Obama’s final 26 months as President are a blip on the glacial timeline of climate change, and this step alone may be met with more trouble. As the folks at Squire Patton Boggs write on their frESH blog:
Look for the President to continue to pursue his climate change agenda through regulatory action by the US EPA, including rule-making initiatives to reduce CO2 emissions from both new and existing power plants. Congressional Republicans will push proposals to slow down or prevent US EPA from implementing that agenda. Looming in the distance is The United Nations Climate Change Conference, which will convene in France in November 2015 to create a binding international treaty addressing climate change. Now that Republicans control the Senate, which must approve any treaty by a two-thirds vote, it will be difficult for the Obama Administration to win support for any climate change agreement, particularly one that would impose limits on US greenhouse gas emissions.
Health Care:
What was supposed to be the grand capstone of his term has turned into a messy example of the state of politics in the capital. The Affordable Care Act has already been met by its share of trouble, and will soon face more judgement from the Supreme Court. After a seemingly endless war on Obama’s healthcare reform, what will the final two terms bring?
Possibly not a whole lot. Though no one’s disputing that 2015 will likely be a rough year in terms of compliance and bipartisanship, Fox Rothschild’s Keith McMurdy thinks that employers and policy providers shouldn’t expect any immediate relief or changes to the ACA. As he writes for Employee Benefits Legal Blog:
The problem with trying to anticipate potential changes to the ACA based on a revised Congressional make-up is that so much of the “law” relies on regulations. Rules and interpretation of the law is not something controlled by Congress directly. So while Congress may eventually change the law, the regulations we are dealing with now anticipate the current effective dates, most of which start on January 1, 2015. Nothing is going to change between now and then. Throughout 2015, there might be some changes to the law, but as we have seen with the struggle to write regulations, those don’t happen immediately. It will take time to implement changes that back away from the change we are presently implementing because of the implementation of the Act in the first place…Employers and sponsors would be well served by continuing their present course of ACA compliance efforts instead of hoping for repeal. What changes we may see will not likely be as monumental [as] the implementation of the ACA itself.
Not everyone agrees, however. Writing for The New York Times, Derek Willis states that though the “Democrats Against Obamacare” caucus in the House has diminished since the midterm elections, there’s still steam there. After discussing potential Democratic targets, he suggests that a flat out repeal is unlikely but there’s plenty of room for politicians to consider altering the ACA:
When they assume control of both chambers of Congress next year, Republicans are likely to hold a vote on full repeal of the law, as they did in 2011, 2012 and 2013. But more likely to get the Democrats’ cooperation are bills that would alter or eliminate parts of the law. Some of the possibilities include changing the definition of full-time employees from those who work 30 hours a week to 40 hours; repealing a federal tax on medical devices; and eliminating an independent board on Medicare spending.
Immigration:
When he was reelected, President Obama said that he would “break the fever,” promising that the time was at least right for immigration reform. But two years has seen little headway in the realm of immigration. But in his address post-midterm elections, Obama made his position on desire for immigration reform brazenly clear, claiming a plan for reform before the end of the year:
This is an issue I actually wanted to get done in my first term. And we didn’t see legislative action. And in my second term, I made it my top legislative priority. We got really good work done by a bipartisan group of senators, but it froze up in the House. And, you know, I think that the best way, if folks are serious about getting immigration reform done, is going ahead and passing a bill and getting it to my desk.
And then the executive actions that I take go away. They’re superseded by the law that is passed. And I will engage any member of Congress who’s interested in this in how we can shape legislation that will be a significant improvement over the existing system. But what we can’t do is just keep on waiting. There is a cost to waiting.
The President remained skeptical about what exact changes he would bring, but there’s plenty of room for guessing. Per Sean Hanagan at Immigration Blog, there’s a broad package of changes to the policy that could be announced by the President as early as the end of November.
Changes could include a legalization program for farm workers along the lines of the “AgJOBS” bill, which was considered in Congress but shelved because of concerns over “amnesty” being offered to the more than three million unauthorized agricultural workers estimated to be in the United States. A less controversial group of potential beneficiaries may be unauthorized aliens who are married to U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents. The third group under discussion is parents of the “Dreamer” children, who currently benefit from DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) relief implemented by President Obama in 2012. Speculation surrounding this last group is fueled by an October DHS draft solicitation seeking a vendor to produce millions of government identification cards.
The move has incensed Republicans, of course, as the executive actions are designed to skirt around Congress’s failure to act. As Brian D. Smith writes for Global Policy Watch:
Senator McConnell, the incoming majority leader, said that executive actions on immigration would poison the well – frustrating efforts to find common ground, right at the start of the new Congress. “It’s like waving a red flag in front of a bull,” McConnell said at a post-election press conference.
Senator McConnell’s bull metaphor may be more apt than he perhaps intended: Not only does the red flag anger the bull, but it prompts the bull to move forward. The same may be true for immigration legislation. If the President follows through on unilateral executive actions on immigration, the new Republican Congress will likely feel that it needs to respond.
Despite the stormy forecast, there is a chance that Congress and Obama can find a way to work together, if they choose to work on issues that aren’t inherently divisive. Immigration reform is something politicians throughout the capital have been itching to get to for years, so there’s a real chance that the two sides could aim to fix and improve immigration without getting into the nitty-gritty-ness of a complete overhaul. One way or another, it’s safe to say that these two branches are about to see some fireworks.