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Friday music blogging: Wild Light

Wild Light is a indie pop band out of New Hampshire. One of the band's two key members, Timothy Kyle, was briefly a part of Arcade Fire, is a good friend of AF lead singer Win Butler, and opened for the band on a couple of tours. That partially explains the mega-buzz around the band in music circles, but much of it also traces to their exuberant, ambitious sound -- a welcome antidote to the kind of grim artiness of so much independent music. These guys are not afraid of a hook!

Their debut album, Adult Nights, is a joyful listen from top to bottom, but for obvious reasons, this song captures my current mood. Thankfully, I'm back in Seattle.

Mixing climate and energy legislation in the same bill is not a good idea

Apparently Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) has sold both Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and the White House on the strategy of having a mega-bill that combines climate and energy legislation. This post explains why I believe that is both a tactical and strategic mistake.

E&E News PM ($ub. req'd) reports:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) confirmed today that he will package energy and global warming measures together into one large bill for consideration later this year, a decision that should put to rest questions about whether Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill have different strategies for one of President Obama's top agenda items.

Reid gave only a one-word answer -- "yes" -- when asked whether he planned to wrap a cap-and-trade bill together with separate bills establishing a nationwide renewable electricity standard (RES) and promotion of a modernized grid that can improve energy efficiency, reliability and renewable energy management.

There are three reasons this is a bad idea -- two that are obvious to all, one that is apparently not. First, the climate bill is huge and complicated and uber-controversial and will be exceedingly difficult to get to Obama's desk this year according to everybody I talk to (see here). So that means we are delaying important clean energy and smart-green grid bills that could otherwise probably get passed by the end of the summer (and quickly start help Obama meet his crucial promise of doubling renewable power in his first term):

But not everyone is on the same page.

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) said earlier today that he wants to mark up the energy and "smart grid" legislation next month and he still has doubts whether a cap-and-trade bill can move within the same timeframe. "I hate to see all of that sort of held hostage until we can get agreement on a cap-and-trade bill," he told reporters today.

Second, and more importantly, the climate bill is one of the most important pieces of legislation that any Congress will ever consider. You don't want to add stuff to it that will lose votes or give people an excuse to vote against it. The RES in particular may prove unpopular with people who might otherwise be inclined to vote for the climate bill -- since the whole point of a cap and trade is that you don't force everybody to do exactly the same thing, whereas the point of the RES is that every state is being mandated to adopt the same percentage of renewable power.

Inhofe’s resident media agitator leaving to start a new climate-skeptic website

The barons of Big Oil and Big Coal will undoubtedly chink glasses with their paid mouthpieces this weekend over news that fellow cynic Marc Morano is leaving his taxpayer-funded propaganda job to establish a climate change “news” website. Morano, if you don’t already know, has been the Roscoe P. Coltrane to one of the Senate’s […]

50 green and civic groups roll out tough climate principles

Fifty environmental and public-interest groups threw their weight behind a set of tough principles for climate legislation on Thursday. The principles are broad, but they set the stage for tension among the country’s major green groups on climate policy. Endorsers of the National Call to Action on Global Warming [PDF] include a wide range of […]

The human cost of industrial tomatoes

Do you know who picks your tomatoes? As Tom Philpott discovers during a trip to Florida tomato country, farmworkers suffer low wages, squalid living conditions, and even slavery.

Does daylight savings cut energy use? Don’t lose sleep over the question

Daylight savings goes into effect this weekend, and with it comes the semiannual arguments over whether the program actually saves time and energy. Those of us who can change our clocks correctly can spend our extra hour parsing new claims that extending daylight savings saves energy and money. What’s that? We lose an hour? Then […]

The specs and the dish on the 2010 third generation Prius

UPDATE: This story was changed to reflect updated EPA mileage estimates. Photo courtesy of Toyota. Toyota’s newest hybrid is almost here. Last week, the car company invited a group of journalists and bloggers to the third generation Prius preview in Napa, Calif. The deal was we could road test the 2010 model to our heart’s […]

A finger to Slate, but a grudging thumbs-up to George Will

This week in climate fingers and thumbs, we’d like to flip the bird to Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) for holding up the confirmation of key Obama science nominees in order to get his way on Cuba policy. Menendez has no complaints about the qualifications of John Holdren and Jane Lubchenco, and just last summer he […]

New Illinois governor recycles Blago’s stationery

I’ve been waiting for a green angle on the Rod Blagojevich scandal, and here it is. New Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn is a recycling fan! (Via the League of Conservation Voters blog, via Progress Illinois.)

NRDC climate guy to advise the global warming select committee

Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) on Friday announced that he’s added Natural Resources Defense Council’s Michael Goo to the roster at the House Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming. Goo, NRDC’s climate legislative director, is serving as special counsel to the committee focusing on climate legislation. Prior to joining NRDC, Goo worked for two […]