Would Obama Do It?

After listening to Congressman Peter DeFazio(D-OR) speak today on all the reasons the Waxman-Markey cap and trade plan (ACES) is deeply flawed and that advocates for greenhouse gas reductions should be working to kill it, not pass it, I find myself almost convinced.
 
I’m only almost convinced because I fear the two alternatives to cap and trade – a carbon tax or Clean Water Act-style regulation – may be political nonstarters.
 
Congressman DeFazio (and many others) claims that carbon trading will be subject to all the same financial corruption responsible for our current economic crisis and that offsets provisions remove any incentive for real behavior change. He has co-sponsored Jim McDermott’s bill that would impose a Clean Water Act-style regulator system on global warming pollution, and hinted that a carbon tax would be better than cap and trade.
 
At the end of the Congressman’s speech today, I asked him this: “Waxman-Markey, even in its present severely weakened form, is going to have a tough time passing the full house. What are the chances of Congressman McDermott’s bill, Congressman Larson’s carbon tax, or even Congressman Inglis’ revenue-neutral carbon tax bill of passing the house, and how important is it to the success of an international climate treaty that the US pass something soon?”

 
Naturally he avoided the first part of the question, because none of those bills has any chance of passing. What he did say is that the United States Supreme Court has ruled that EPA has authority to regulate greenhouse gases, and that alone is enough to allow the US to enter climate treaty negotiations with its head up high.
 
That statement relies on the assumption that the Obama administration, if Waxman-Markey passes and EPA keeps its authority to regulate point sources of greenhouse gases, would use the heavy hand of government regulation to force polluters to reduce emissions.
 
Last time I checked, Obama still wants a second term, and despite a Democratic Congress, America still isn’t too fond of government solving problems regulation (to be fair, this tide is turning, thanks to the financial crisis). The same industries that have bought the weakening of Waxman-Markey, and who contribute no small amount to congressional and presidential elections alike, will be there to fuel the flames of hatred for government and use them to burn up Obama’s hope of a second term if and when his EPA decides to mandate reductions

So my question is this: if Waxman-Markey fails, as many on both sides of the aisle and even in the environmental community are working to make happen right now, and Obama was left with the option of continuing with business as usual (global suicide) or imposing stringent regulation on industry (political suicide), would he do it?
 
I hope he would, and if needed, I’ll find some time to work on the 2012 election.