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Clinton lobbied for tire burning near Granite State

With the New Hampshire primaries approaching, I thought I'd share this article about how Hillary Clinton's political style has directly affected New Hampshire voters in a way that might shed light on the kind of president she would be. The article was co-written with Friends of the Earth Action president Brent Blackwelder.

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New Hampshire has for decades struggled to keep its air clean. But during 2005 and 2006, Hillary Clinton's ambitions collided with New Hampshire's air quality, putting thousands of Granite Staters, and particularly children, directly in the line of a deadly cloud of toxic pollution.

At the time, of course, Clinton was hotly engaged in a campaign to increase her margin of victory in her bid for reelection in her New York Senate race. Her triumph was never in question: she faced only token Republican opposition in a heavily Democratic state. But she was desperate to prove that she could win with a big margin in more conservative areas of upstate New York so she could prove to Democrats that she would be viable in similar conservative areas around the country during her presidential bid.

That understandable political aspiration came head to head with New Hampshire children's health in 2005, when the International Paper logging company unveiled a proposal to burn tires at its Ticonderoga paper mill in upstate New York on the border with Vermont. Burning tires to power its operations would save IP money on its electricity bills, but it came with a heavy price.

NYC invests in local-food infrastructure

While the farm bill wallows about in Congress, awaiting reconciliation between House and Senate versions, some state and local governments are making their own smart food policies, investing public resources in the worthwhile goal of rebuilding local food systems. A piece in last week’s New York Times food section reminded me of that happy fact. […]

South Korea to outlaw single-hulled oil tankers in 2011

South Korea has announced that it will outlaw single-hulled oil tankers in its waters by January 2011, four years earlier than its original goal, due to the country’s largest oil spill in December. The December spill dumped about 2.7 million gallons of oil some five miles off the country’s coast when a barge struck a […]

Super Bowl to plant trees and make other greenish efforts

Photo: iStockphoto The National Football League has announced that it will plant trees and take other measures to offset some of the environmental impacts of the most hyped sporting event of the year. This year’s Super Bowl will be held in Phoenix, Ariz., on Feb. 3. As part of the greening effort, the organizers have […]

More on climate policy in the Dem debate

Responding to some of the comments on Dot Earth: Obama is right that a cap-and-trade program with 100 percent auctioned permits would be the functional equivalent of a carbon tax. Yes that does, in Richardson’s rather daft phrase, "take money out of the economy," in the sense that any tax does. Happily, the other half […]

Clinton hangs 2005 energy bill around Obama’s neck

Quite interesting that Clinton went after Obama specifically on energy tonight: You know, the energy bill that passed in 2005 was larded with all kinds of special interest breaks, giveaways to the oil companies. Senator Obama voted for it. I did not because I knew that it was going to be an absolute nightmare. Now […]

Obama is in no way ‘George Bush Lite’

I am a big fan of the climate website, DeSmogBlog. So I was shocked when, the day after his unprecedented victory in Iowa, DeSmogBlog gave Barack Obama "the inaugural 2007 SmogMaker Award for blowing smoke on global warming."

Gimme a break. How could anyone win that award any year -- let alone in its inaugural year -- when George W. Bush is still president? [Not to mention a year in which Lomborg and Inhofe continue their influential disinformation compaigns!]

After all, the "Prize honors those who sow confusion and delay on Climate Change." Seriously. Bush is easily the confuser and delayer of the year ... and the decade ... and he surely will be on the short list for the entire century. Yet DeSmog says Obama is "looking like George Bush lite." How can they make that claim? By misreading -- or failing to read -- Obama's terrific climate plan. DeSmogBlog claims:

But he is campaigning on a greenhouse gas reduction "target" that the U.S. won't have to meet for 42 years ...

While the world's leading scientific bodies tell us we need to act immediately to avoid catastrophic climate disruption, Obama has set his own target date at 2050, long past any opportunity for voters to hold him accountable.

Uh, no. In fact, his plan (PDF) explicitly states:

Obama will start reducing emissions immediately in his administration by establishing strong annual reduction targets, and he'll also implement a mandate of reducing emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

Based on the links in their post, DeSmogBlog's research on Obama's climate apparently consists of reading a one-paragraph story on BusinessWire with Obama's statement on Bali -- which they link to not once, but twice! They claim he is an unrepentant coal supporter, based on a June 2007 Washington Post article about his support for his state's coal industry. And yet in his climate plan he bluntly commits:

Noise, signal, and the presidential election

Say David is right and the 2008 presidential election comes down to Obama vs. McCain. That means we’re looking at historic, though frankly probably inadequate, climate-change legislation. On foreign policy, McCain has been an abysmal apologist for the Iraq debacle. That doesn’t bode well. But Obama, to prove he’s not a weak-kneed liberal, might be […]

Obama puts the 100 percent auction idea into the mainstream

There were presidential debates on both sides tonight. I don’t have cable, so I didn’t watch them. However, a friend sent along this bit of transcript from the Dem, from a question on climate policy: GIBSON: All right. Let me turn to something else. Reversing — you invoked the name of Al Gore a few […]

Wyoming caucus

Two things you probably didn’t know: Wyoming had a Republican caucus today. (The Dem caucus there is on the 8th.) Romney won it. Thompson came in second, Duncan Hunter third and no other candidate campaigned or got any support. There you have it.