Climate Politics
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Hagelian Dialectic
Kyoto opponent Hagel may ally with Blair for new climate agreement U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair’s efforts to cajole the U.S. into doing something about climate change — and shake off his rep as a Bush “poodle” — may have found an ally in Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.). Hagel met with Blair this week in […]
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Dude, Where’s the After Party?
U.N. negotiators begin talking about post-Kyoto actions Two months before the Kyoto Protocol even takes effect, representatives meeting in Buenos Aires for the annual U.N. conference on climate change are already discussing plans for reducing emissions post-Kyoto. So far, says Eliot Diringer of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, participants have agreed that any […]
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First, Do More Harm
Bush admin delays new air-quality rules, pushes “Clear Skies” The White House has told the U.S. EPA to hold off on issuing the Clean Air Interstate Rule, which would curtail emissions of nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide, in deference to a renewed push in Congress to pass the Bush administration’s long-stalled “Clear Skies” legislation. Delaying […]
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Leavitt to Leave It
Leavitt to move from EPA to HHS President Bush announced today that he intends to move U.S. EPA chief Mike Leavitt into a new position as secretary of health and human services, ending Leavitt’s tenure of just over a year at the agency. Leavitt, a rising star in the Republican Party and a fierce Bush […]
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Clinton, late convert to climate-change cause, now preaching up a storm
He wasn’t known as the eco-warrior president. Nor was he a visionary on energy independence. But Bill Clinton is now using his legendary charisma and silver tongue to help mobilize the shift away from fossil fuels. Bill gets heated up over climate. Photo: Clinton Presidential Foundation. “[T]he decisions we make or fail to make in […]
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Putting the “Pact” in “No Impact”
Tony Blair trying to entice U.S. into “Kyoto-lite” climate treaty With much of the industrialized world heaping scorn on the U.S. for spurning the recently ratified Kyoto Protocol, the Bush administration may soon get a chance to regain a smidgeon of international cred on the climate-change issue. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in an effort […]
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What in the Sam Hill?
Bush nominates little-known official to be energy secretary President Bush surprised D.C. insiders today by nominating a virtually unknown Treasury Department official, Sam Bodman, to serve as secretary of energy. “Sam who? I’ve never heard of this guy,” said one energy-industry lobbyist, echoing what most everyone else inside the Beltway seemed to be thinking. A […]
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Bush’s pick to head the USDA is a big ethanol booster
At a White House ceremony last week announcing the nomination of Nebraska Gov. Mike Johanns (R) to succeed Ann Veneman as agriculture secretary, President Bush called his pick “a strong proponent of alternative energy sources, such as ethanol and biodiesel,” later adding that “in a new term, we’ll continue policies that are pro-growth, pro-jobs, and […]
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Stevie Nix
Interior Deputy Secretary Griles resigns The No. 2 official at the Interior Department, Deputy Secretary J. Steven Griles, yesterday became the latest Bush administration appointee to announce he’s jumping ship come January. Under investigation during nearly half his tenure at Interior for ethics violations stemming from his uninterrupted $284,000 annual payments from his former employer, […]
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Buenos Hot Aires
U.S. professes bafflement at international ire over climate change “I’m not sure why we’re considered the ‘bad boys’,” said puzzled U.S. climate negotiator Harlan Watson at this week’s U.N. climate change convention in Buenos Aires. The conference — the last such meeting to take place before the Kyoto Protocol goes into effect in February — […]