President Obama has again realized he cant convince the American people about the merits of his big government agenda and will do what he does best: run roughshod over our Constitution and now try to impose his job-killing environmental agenda by executive order.
Rather than kill jobs in an energy sector that employs many hard-working middle class Americans, President Obama should support responsible pro-growth energy policies that will actually create thousands of new jobs. Finally approving the Keystone XL Pipeline would be a good start. But we need an energy agenda that embraces American innovation in areas like new exploration techniques and mandate-free energy efficiency technologies. The energy boom in North Dakota today is a classic example of how American innovation, combined with our vast energy resources and American work ethic, can create jobs and boost the communities that embrace American ingenuity instead of stifling it.
Bottom line: America needs a responsible job-creating energy agenda, not a job-destroying environmental agenda.
To be clear, Republicans and Democrats share the goal of protecting our environment, but President Obamas insistence on doing it through more regulations and more mandates that fail to account for their destructive power on jobs is not the right approach.
In addition, it is very concerning that President Obama intends to make his job-killing environmental agenda such a high priority of his international agenda. His international priorities should be focused squarely on preventing a nuclear Iran, disarming North Korea, stopping the human tragedy in Syria, and advancing job-creating free-trade agreements with Europe and as part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
If he is as successful in convincing major carbon emitters like China and Russia to adopt his environmental agenda as he has been in convincing these same countries to stop Assads massacre of innocent Syrians, it will be a colossal waste of time on a misguided effort. And as we are seeing now in the case of Edward Snowden, President Obama is so dangerously weak that he cant even get our supposed allies to live up to their extradition treaties with us.
A pivot to climate change will not mask his failures on so many international issues of consequence to Americas interests. Worse, a move like this may only distract an already failed president on the international stage.
In the end, President Obama has repeatedly abused his executive order authority because imposing his big government agenda is more important to him than respecting our Constitution and encouraging private-sector job creation. This time, President Obama is discarding the Constitution and free-enterprise system in the name of a job-killing environmental agenda. We must do everything we can to stand in his way.
Marco Rubio, a Republican, was elected to the U.S. Senate to represent Florida in 2010.
