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Why the Second Circuit ‘nuisance’ case brings good news, and bad (part II)

Cross-posted from Warming Law. In an earlier post, we explored the background, context, and historical significance of the Second Circuit decision handed down late Monday in Connecticut v. AEP, in which the court ruled that a group of states and environmental groups could sue several major electric utilities for contributing to a “public nuisance” in […]

Seizing the opportunity: reflections from the U.N. Climate Summit

Climate week began with world leaders participating in a full day of discussions on global warming. Over 100 world leaders were in attendance-the largest gathering of world leaders on global warming and the first in many respects. The leaders of a number of the key countries provided remarks. Yesterday’s events were intended to give a […]

Pop Quiz

Which of the following organizations — U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Natural Resources Defense Council or the American Coal Council — posted the following paragraph? “… policies to support CO2 capture and sequestration at power plants and industrial facilities could also help recover almost 37 billion barrels of stranded domestic oil by 2050. This increase in annual oil […]

Stockton Williams on urban retrofits, Obama, and the sexiness of caulking guns

This is part of a series of interviews with people working to make U.S. communities smarter, greener spaces. Got a suggestion for an interviewee? Send it our way or leave it in the comments section below. Earlier this year, officials from sixteen U.S. cities gathered in Cambridge, Mass., to compare notes on a surprisingly hot […]

Boxer, Kerry will introduce Senate climate bill next week

Cross-posted from Change.org. Sens. Boxer and Kerry at a climate rally in June.Photo: David Pierpont, NWF via FlickrLast night at Pittsburgh’s Andy Warhol Museum, Teresa Heinz read a message from her husband, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), that set the gala crowd to cheering:  He and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) will introduce a climate bill in […]

Corporations call off the old green battle, but Chamber of Commerce soldiers on [UPDATED]

Update: This story keeps growing. Since last week… The country’s largest utility, Exelon, said it was quitting the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in protest of the group’s climate-bill opposition. New Mexico utility PNM Resources did the same. Nike, the most public-facing Chamber defector to date, said it would leave the Chamber board of directors while […]

Sen. Jeff Bingaman answers Grist’s questions on the climate bill [VIDEO]

Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) is chairman of the Energy & Natural Resources Committee and a key player on energy issues. In June, his committee voted to approve S. 1462, the American Clean Energy Leadership Act, an energy bill that may or may not be combined with a climate bill from Sen. Barbara Boxer’s Environment & […]

For Khosla, clean tech is all about scale

Getting an audience with Silicon Valley’s guru of green investing isn’t always easy. Vinod KhoslaJames Duncan Davidson/O’Reilly Media, Inc. (via Wikimedia Commons)If Vinod Khosla is not speaking at one of the innumerable, and apparently recession-proof, green business conferences that seem to happen every other week, he’s giving lectures at Google headquarters, writing white papers, or, […]

PNM Resources quits US Chamber board

In yet another blow to the prestige and credibility of the US Chamber of Commerce, PNM Resources announced that it had given up its seat on the US Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors, and issued a statement criticizing the Chamber’s stance on global warming. Kate Galbraith at the New York Times reported on the […]

Why the Second Circuit “nuisance” case brings good news, and bad (part 1)

Cross-posted from Warming Law. Coverage and analysis is slowly trickling in of the landmark ruling [pdf] handed down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit late yesterday, in which a 2-judge panel held that a group of states and environmental groups could sue several electric utility companies for creating a “public nuisance” […]