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The Senate climate bill gives EPA authority over both old and new coal plants

Yesterday I explained how the American Power Act would both curb and expand EPA’s authority to clamp down on greenhouse gases (to net positive effect, or so I argued). I ended with this teaser: Now, there is one extremely good reason to want to preserve Clean Air Act stationary source tools for greenhouse gases: America […]

Why BP is a textbook psychopath

It’s good to know that a full six-plus weeks after the BP rig explosion killed 11 workers and initiated the slow painful murder of the Gulf Coast economy and ecology, our ever-watchful federal government has decided to launch an investigation into whether BP actually did something criminal. Thanks for jumping on this, Uncle Sam. Of […]

Who are the 22% of Americans who view BP favorably?

Citing a Rasmussen poll Greg Sargent took note of yesterday, which indicated that 22 percent of Americans currently have a favorable view of BP, Barbara Morrill at Daily Kos asks who these 22 percent of Americans are. Using the crosstabs from the poll (premium account required), I put together this chart to answer Morrill’s question: […]

Domestic offsets in the American Power Act: preserving the integrity?

This post was co-written with Sasha Lyutse. NRDC staff have posted assessments of a number of key elements of the Kerry-Lieberman American Power Act discussion draft. Here, we’ll take a closer look at the domestic offsets program. I’ll give a brief overview of the program, as outlined in Part D of the bill (Sec. 731-741), […]

Sustainable seafood takes center stage at Seattle dinner theater

Servers and stowaways at Bounty!Photo: Amani Ellen LoutfyAt Seattle’s Café Nordo, the wait staff quotes Jack London, the soup is served from fish tanks, and there’s enough alcohol to ease the pain of the BP oil spill momentarily. Nordo’s odd coupling of an oceanic musical production, “Bounty! An Epic Adventure in Seafood,” with a five-course […]

Obama on the climate bill: “We will get it done”

Tell it, Obama.Photo: Pete Souze / White HouseA must-read article in The Hill details a classic rift among Senate Democrats: On one side are Democrats who want to use public anger at oil companies to pressure Republicans to support the American Power Act; on the other are “centrists” who want to be nice to Republicans […]

Monbiot on “Beyond Petroleum,” circa 2006

“For a company that claims to have moved ‘beyond petroleum,’ BP has managed to spill an awful lot of it on to the tundra in Alaska. Last week, after the news was leaked to journalists, it admitted to investors that it is facing criminal charges for allowing 270,000 gallons of crude oil to seep across […]

How we can end our addiction to oil

It’s time we moved on to something else, or this is going to kill us. Not only are world oil supplies running out, but what oil is still left is proving very dirty to obtain. We need to kick our oil addiction now if we expect to preserve any hopes of economic prosperity, or unspoiled […]

Six ways BP’s oil spill is seeping into politics

Forget about Wall Street — there’s a new villain in town.  Big Oil is, at the moment, the dark lord of corporate greed and evil, and, not surprisingly, it’s starting to take center stage both in political campaigns and Washington politicking.     Here are six examples of oil creep: 1. Take his job and shove […]

Obama’s free ride for oil industry appointees must stop

To shape the government’s long-term response to the Gulf oil calamity, President Obama recently formed an independent, bipartisan commission to investigate the origins of the leak and BP’s efforts to control it. Yet one of the commission’s two co-directors, former EPA chief William K. Reilly, sits on the board of directors of the oil giant […]