Yesterday, the Energy and Commerce Committee had a hearing on the Obama Administration’s climate change policies and activities. Despite inviting administrators from several departments, only administrator Gina McCarthy from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Secretary Moniz of the Department of Energy (DoE) showed up.

I won’t get into the details of the technicalities of the hearing, but one thing echoed in both testimonies: something needs to be done about climate change in this decade. The window of opportunity to act is quickly closing and unless serious actions are taken to curb carbon emissions, it may be difficult to reverse the impacts and positive feedbacks of climate change.

Several lawmakers pointed out that the U.S. is experiencing an “energy renaissance” with regards to expanded natural gas drilling as a result of fracking. However, becoming energy independent does not absolve the responsibility to take action on warming and continue pursuing strategies to incentivize the development of clean energy technologies like wind, solar, and nuclear power.

New rules being pursued by the EPA and DoE reaffirm their commitment to taking serious action to curb the effects of warming this decade. One issue that was a topic of discussion was the new EPA rules which would require that new coal-fired plants be equipped with carbon capture and storage (CSS) technologies.

Many Republicans charged that such actions and technologies are too expensive and could inhibit the growth the energy sector is currently experiencing. However, both Moniz and McCarthy allayed those fears by suggesting that the technologies to curb emissions are not that expensive and would be cost saving measures in the long run, not to mention the new jobs that would be created as a result.

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