President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan hopes to reduce the green house gas emissions of power plants across the country by one-third over the next 15 years. This plan would have quite the impact on coal burning power plants, which happen to be the largest source of man-made carbon dioxide emissions.

But Gov. Scott Walker is getting in the way of these substantial gains in the battle against global warming.

Recently, Walker issued an executive order that would prevent state agencies from making plans that would comply with Obama’s Clean Power Plan unless it is lifted. Wisconsin has also joined the gang of coal dependent states suing the Obama administration because his actions seem to exceed his authority. The actual implementation of this plan would, according to Walker and friends, be detrimental to their economies, partially because this plan will apparently cost taxpayers $13 billion.

Now, I’m all for saving some cash, but it really wouldn’t be the worst thing to at least try to reduce emissions a bit. You know, to help out the environment, which we appear to be on the way to destroying.

But I get it, these regulations will certainly impact the job security of the significant number of Wisconsinites employed in coal burning power plants, and job loss is definitely the last thing the Walker administration needs.

The fact of the matter is there are energy source alternatives to coal burning power plants that aren’t blasting boatloads of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.

Obama’s plan calls for more solar and wind-powered energy sources, while some argue for a revival of nuclear power plants, which would need the establishment of a federal storage facility for radioactive waste before any new operations can be started. Either way, there are ways to integrate these greener energy sources into Wisconsin’s power suppliers rather than rely so heavily on coal.

On the other hand, a state governor explicitly rejecting a federal plan to create reliance on a greener source of energy is not really going to get anyone anywhere.

So maybe Walker is correct in saying Obama is overstepping his bounds and maybe these regulations would just result in unnecessary financial burdens on Wisconsin taxpayers.

But a nationwide reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is far from a faulty aspiration.

In all honesty, I don’t know what the best solution is to balance greener energy and the preservation of Wisconsin jobs. But if Obama can force states to cut emissions at risk of losing jobs, and Walker can pretty much tell him “no” in response, then there has to be some way to incorporate clean energy sources into this coal-dependent state.

Phil Michaelson ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in biomedical engineering.