Earnest: ‘Too Long’ D.C. Was Delaying ‘Serious Action’ to Fight Causes of Climate Change

EARNEST: "What the president announced over the weekend is that we’re going to take the most important, substantial step that our country's every taken to reduce the causes of climate change. And what we're going to do, we're going scale back the carbon pollution that our power generators are currently allowed to spew into the atmosphere. This – Joe, I think about it last night, in some ways I think this is the culmination of what the president talked about in 2007 and 2008. For too long, we've seen Washington, D.C., putting off and delaying action, serious action, to fight the causes of climate change. And we've seen special interests mobilize to try to fight any effort to do that. And I have no doubt that special interests in Washington, D.C., are going to squeal -- as are the politicians who are in their pocket. But the fact of the matter is, these rules are going to do something to finally confront the causes of climate change, it's actually going to have significant benefits for public health, particularly children with asthma, and it's going to accelerate the progress that we've made already in transitioning to a clean energy economy. … If we actually make progress in investing in this clean energy, what we're actually going to do, we're actually going to lower costs for consumers. …There's no doubt that this is going to be a difficult transition. But it's a transition that is clearly in the best interests of our economy, it's clearly in the best interest of the health of children all across the country and it's in the best interests of the planet."