PCAP - Presidential Climate Action Project

Direct the Council on Environmental Quality to expedite the development of nationalsustainability indicators, including indicators to objectively measure the nation’sprogress on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.E-2Direct the White House Council on Environmental Quality to develop performance indicators tomeasure the nation’s progress on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Indicators should includemacro-measures – for example, average annual temperatures, rainfall patterns, isothermmigration, major wildfires, extreme weather events, increases or decreases in disease vectors,coastal water levels, loss of native plant and animal species, insurance liabilities and otherfactors that scientists have concluded are, or will be, affected by global warming – as well asmicro-measures important to individual consumers and families, including energy prices and percapita greenhouse gas emissions. The CEQ should publish these indicators in an annual State ofthe Climate report released in conjunction with the President’s State of the Union address.PCAP Report 2:8.Background. The “performance indicators” referenced in the above-quoted section of thePCAP report are sustainability indicators. They are indicators that will play a key role in guidingthe United States toward sustainable development. 443 The Council on Environmental Quality(CEQ) is leading a process to develop a framework for, and coordinate work on, indicators ofsustainability for the United States.Statutes. The duties and function of the CEQ are described at 42 U.S.C. § 4344. The mostrelevant are:* * * * *(2) to gather timely and authoritative information concerning theconditions and trends in the quality of the environment both current andprospective, to analyze and interpret such information for the purpose ofdetermining whether such conditions and trends are interfering, or arelikely to interfere, with the achievement of the policy set forth insubchapter I of this chapter, and to compile and submit to the Presidentstudies relating to such conditions and trends;* * * * *(5) to conduct investigations, studies, surveys, research, and analysesrelating to ecological systems and environmental quality;443 See PCAP Report, 1:25-26.CEES 113 | P age