President Obama Calls on Congress to Reform the Clean Air Act in NPR Exit Interview

Fascinating reporter question. And even more fascinating answer from outgoing President Obama.

Reporter: [H]as the presidency become too powerful in your view?

President Obama: “I distinguish between domestic policy and foreign policy. […] “On the domestic side, the truth is that, you know, there hasn’t been a radical change between what I did and what George Bush did and what Bill Clinton did and what the first George Bush did. It’s, you know, the issue of big agencies, like the Environmental Protection Agency or the Department of Labor, having to take laws that have been passed, like the Clean Air Act, which is hugely complicated and very technical, and fill in the gaps and figure out our “What does this mean and how do we apply this to new circumstances?” That’s not new. Having federal bureaucracies and federal regulations, that’s not new. I think that what’s happened that I do worry about is that Congress has become so dysfunctional, that more and more of a burden is placed on the agencies to fill in the gaps, and the gaps get bigger and bigger because they’re not constantly refreshed and tweaked.”—President Obama, NPR Interview, December 15, 2016

[Click on the picture to see the video clip … or see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEjeKrZxDFQ&t=36m8s and http://www.npr.org/2016/12/19/504998487/transcript-and-video-nprs-exit-interview-with-president-obama.]

The world is changing. We must change with it. Time to transform the Clean Air Act. We can make it happen.

For more information on the Clean Air Act transformation effort, see http://www.cleanairreform.org.

@misc{anderson_2026_president_obama_calls_on_congress_to_reform_the_clean_air_act_in_npr_exit_interview,
  author = {Jed Anderson},
  title  = {President Obama Calls on Congress to Reform the Clean Air Act in NPR Exit Interview},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://jedanderson.org/posts/president-obama-calls-on-congress-to-reform-the-clean-air-act-in-npr-exit-interview},
  note   = {Accessed: 2026-05-13}
}

Anderson, J. (2026). President Obama Calls on Congress to Reform the Clean Air Act in NPR Exit Interview. Retrieved from https://jedanderson.org/posts/president-obama-calls-on-congress-to-reform-the-clean-air-act-in-npr-exit-interview

Anderson, Jed. "President Obama Calls on Congress to Reform the Clean Air Act in NPR Exit Interview." Jed Anderson, May 12, 2026, https://jedanderson.org/posts/president-obama-calls-on-congress-to-reform-the-clean-air-act-in-npr-exit-interview.