The administration’s pursuit of increased domestic oil and gas production jeopardizes progress made toward lowering carbon pollution linked to climate change, according to a letter signed by leaders of 18 U.S. environmental organizations including the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council. The new pressure from both sides — one demanding that President Obama reconcile his commitment to fight climate change with his other energy policies, the other pushing him to scale back environmental regulation — could have an impact on critical permitting decisions on issues ranging from the Keystone XL pipeline to natural gas exports and federal coal leases. “We believe that continued reliance on an ‘all of the above’ energy strategy would be fundamentally at odds with your goal of cutting carbon pollution and would undermine our nation’s capacity to respond to the threat of climate disruption,” the environmentalists wrote in a letter obtained by The Washington Post. “With record-high atmospheric carbon concentrations and the rising threat of extreme heat, drought, wildfires and super storms, America’s energy policies must reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, not simply reduce our dependence on foreign oil.” 
 
 The groups suggested that Obama should apply a strict climate test “to all decisions regarding new fossil fuel development,” including hydraulic fracturing and coal mining on public lands, as well as drilling in the Arctic Ocean.
– President Obama may be stuck between a melting icecap and a hard place. Environmental groups have grown weary of the administration's "all of the above" energy strategy—which has seen it hold tight to domestic natural gas, oil, and coal production even as it works to limit coal-fired power plant pollution—and the fossil-fuel industry is just as peeved. "You can't have it both ways," an environmentalist tells the Washington Post. In a letter sent to Obama yesterday, some 18 groups have announced their displeasure, showing the administration could "risk losing support from a critical part of its political base during an already difficult election year," the Post notes. "An 'all of the above' strategy is a compromise that future generations can't afford," the letter reads, per Bloomberg. It suggests what the Post calls a "strict climate test" be applied "to all decisions regarding new fossil fuel development," from ocean drilling to the Keystone XL pipeline. Yesterday was a sort of double whammy for Obama, with the American Petroleum Institute announcing a new ad push that will champion domestic oil and gas production, and with Mitch McConnell tasking the Government Accountability Office with figuring out whether the Senate can reverse these emissions limits. This, as a UN report finds our carbon emissions rose slightly last year (though they still fall below 2005 levels) and notes that governments worldwide are spending more money subsidizing fossil fuels than moving toward cleaner energy, the New York Times reports.