When the Obama administration unveils its much-anticipated proposal to curb power plant emissions, this cornerstone of the president's climate change policy - the most significant environmental regulation of his term - will not be declared in a sun-bathed Rose Garden news conference or from behind the lectern in a major speech.
It will not be announced by the president at all, but instead by his head of the Environmental Protection Agency, while President Barack Obama adds his comments in on an off-camera conference call with health advocates.
The low-key rollout from the man who once boldly predicted his election would be remembered as the moment when "our planet began to heal" and likened the climate change challenge to the U.S. space program shows just how far the president has shifted his strategy.
After charging into office in 2009 with a goal of passing comprehensive legislation and making massive investments in alternative energy, Obama saw his reform bill tank and the government's investments in the Solyndra solar company turn into a political embarrassment. Since then, Obama and his team have retooled and climbed back slowly - too slowly, some say - with Plan B: incremental, politically cautious and legally aggressive environmental regulation, culminating in the EPA rule expected to be announced Monday.
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