Climate Politics

GAO to investigate whether Cooney’s editing was illegal

Chris Mooney has a good catch today: Senators Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Harry Reid (D-Nev.) have asked the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, to determine whether recently-resigned Bush administration official Philip Cooney violated federal statutes against obstruction of Congress and false statements.

Cooney, as you may recall, is the former oil industry lobbyist, turned chief of staff of the White House Council on Environmental Quality who edited research reports to play up uncertainties about global warming. Turned, uh, oil industry lobbyist. (To everything turn, turn, turn, eh?)

Lautenberg and Reid are also asking the Climate Change Science Program to retract the redacted reports, writes Chris. "I don't know what kind of results this will achieve, but it's a new tactic, as well as a strong demonstration that Congress is getting serious about the science abuse issue."

My Own Private Saudi Arabia

Energy execs beg Congress to let them dig up the West for oil shale “We can safely say of our future with regard to oil and gas, it has yet to see its brightest days,” said Rep. James Gibbons (R-Nev.) in a House subcommittee meeting yesterday. We know what you’re thinking: What the … ? […]

Craig’s %$#! List

Idaho senator tries to axe center that analyzes endangered salmon Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) has inserted a rider into the federal energy bill that would eliminate funding for the Fish Passage Center, which has tracked salmon in the Columbia and Snake River systems in the Pacific Northwest for over 20 years. Craig is peeved that […]

Schwarzenegger’s solar-roof plan could get sidelined by partisan squabbling

Fiddling on the roof. Photo: AstroPower/NREL. The Golden State could soon enact the most ambitious solar-energy initiative ever proposed in the U.S. — legislation intended to put photovoltaic panels on a million California rooftops. Unless, that is, the bill gets derailed by a behind-the-scenes political pissing match between Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has thrown […]

Terminal Billness

Senate quashes emissions caps and state authority over LNG terminals The Senate voted yesterday to reject a measure that would have given governors more power over the siting of terminals for tankers carrying liquefied natural gas. The Bush administration has pushed for total federal control over LNG terminal sites, while many state officials — including […]

A Glowing Reception

Bush travels to nuke plant to tout nuke subsidies, is well-received Yesterday, President Bush became the first commander in chief in 26 years to visit a nuclear power plant in the U.S. (The last time, you may recall, was when President Carter visited Three Mile Island after the accident there. Good times, good times …) […]

Stickin’ It to the Mandatory

Senate passes weak climate amendment Greens were struck with a severe case of mixed feelings yesterday, as the Senate passed an energy-bill amendment to address global warming (yay!) but passed over a different, tougher amendment (boo!). The latter, sponsored by Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), would have imposed mandatory controls on industrial greenhouse-gas emissions (though it […]

An interview with activists at the Prison Moratorium Project

Khaleaph Luis (left) and Prince S. Say “criminal justice” and very few people think of the environment. But in reality, there’s a complicated relationship between the work of environmentalists, who are trying to encourage a more responsible attitude toward our planet and everything on it, and those moving in and out of the prison-industrial complex, […]

Cool Aid

Groups say foreign aid to Africa should be joined with climate action U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair’s top two agenda items for the upcoming G8 meeting of industrialized countries — aid to Africa and climate change — are intimately linked, say a pair of new reports. Britain’s leading scientific body, the Royal Society, argues that […]

Can’t? Well …

Senate adds eco-friendly provisions to energy bill The Senate put a surprisingly green cast on the energy bill yesterday, approving an amendment that would require power companies to generate 10 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020, and another that would direct $14 billion in tax incentives to alternative fuels and energy efficiency. […]