The Sierra Club today launched a push for President Obama to use the first 100 days of his second term to make speedy progress on Clean Air Act rules, reject the Keystone XL pipeline and introduce checks on unconventional oil and gas production.

The environmental group attributed Obama's re-election in part to voter concern over last year's many extreme weather events, including Superstorm Sandy. Although Executive Director Michael Brune said he believes Obama "gets it" when it comes to climate, he said the severity of the problem calls for more aggressive action than Obama exhibited in his first term.

"There still is a considerable gap between what the president has done so far on climate and what is actually needed to solve the problem," he said in a conference call with reporters.

Brune was joined on the call by leaders of Sierra Club programs aimed at drawing down the use of coal, oil and natural gas -- or at least reducing emissions from those technologies.

Participants urged Obama and his administration to quickly finalize a greenhouse gas rule for future power plants and propose one for existing plants; to reject the approval of the Keystone XL pipeline that Michael Marx, director of the Sierra Club's Beyond Oil campaign, said would perpetuate the use of some of "the most carbon-intensive oil in the world" from Canadian oil sands; and to promulgate new rules to rein in methane emissions from natural gas production and transmission.

Brune urged Obama to use this month's State of the Union speech to lay out his plan for combating climate change. Obama has promised to start a national "conversation" on the issue in his second term, and the White House Council on Environmental Quality is said to be exploring ideas for kick-starting that effort, including a White House summit.

But Brune said a summit could either be helpful or "political theater," depending on whether serious action followed it.

"What we do think is important is a clear discretion by the president of what is at stake," he said. Obama also should highlight the economic benefits of action on climate change, he said, including job creation from renewable energy and efficiency.