Latest Articles

Is there another side to Seattle’s good news?

This is excellent news:

Seattle is one of the first major U.S. cities to claim it has cut greenhouse-gas emissions enough to meet the targets of the international Kyoto treaty aimed at combating global warming.

The achievement, at a time when the city has enjoyed a boom in population and jobs, sets Seattle apart both from the nation as a whole and other cities that have seen greenhouse gases soar in recent years.

Well, good on Seattle. But at risk of sounding like a stick in the mud, there's still a question mark in my mind about how much progress the city's really made.

America’s Climate Security Act passes out of subcommittee

America's Climate Security Act -- aka the Lieberman-Warner bill -- passed through its first markup hearing today, but not without losing support from the Senate's most vigilant advocate for action against climate change, Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)

The hearing was, in a sense, a tête-à-tête between Sanders and the bill's primary author, deal-maker extraordinare Joe Lieberman (ID-Conn.). It was a chance for Sanders to attempt to improve the bill in ways he must have known would be rejected, and a way for Lieberman to do the actual rejecting -- if only to keep his fragile coalition together.

All but one of Sanders' proposed amendments failed badly, including bids to strengthen the auction of pollution allocations, lower the cap on emissions, earmark subsidies for renewable energies, demand accountability from the auto industry, and diminish industry's capacity to stall simply by buying carbon offsets.

In most cases, the only man voting alongside Sanders to improve the bill was New Jersey Democrat Frank Lautenberg.

Drifting toward disaster

Eleven years ago, I wrote an article for the Atlantic Monthly with various predictions and warnings on oil and energy technology and climate. Since those subjects remain hot today -- concern over oil prices and peak oil is at a three-decade-high, and Shellenberger and Nordhaus have reignited the technology debate with a variety of historically inaccurate claims about the clean energy R&D message -- and since this is probably the best thing I wrote in the 1990s, I am going to reprint it here. It is a long piece so I will divide it up into several posts.

"MidEast Oil Forever?" (subs. req'd), coauthored by then deputy energy secretary Charles Curtis, became the cover story for the April 1996 issue (click on picture to enlarge -- yes, that is a lightbulb, the sun, and a windmill about to go over the edge of a sea of oil).

The backstory is that the Gingrich Congress had come in with its passionate hatred of all applied energy research, and the Clinton administration was desperately trying to save the entire clean energy budget from being zeroed out. I wrote most of the piece in the summer of 1995 and revised it in January 1996. The title was a warning that the U.S. would be stuck with its dependence on Middle Eastern oil if that happened. Hence the subhead for the article:

Congressional budget-cutters threaten to end America's leadership in new energy technologies that could generate hundreds of thousands of high-wage jobs, reduce damage to the environment, and limit our costly, dangerous dependency on oil from the unstable Persian Gulf region.

Researchers quantify U.S. wildfire carbon emissions

The estimations are in on the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere from Southern California’s recent wildfires. And the winner is … somewhere between about 6 million tons and 8 million tons. Which sounds like a lot, but on average, wildfires in the United States each year spew some 300 million tons of […]

Could intercity public transit finally be getting some support from Congress?

I don’t have time to do this justice right now, but it’s quite exciting to hear that Amtrak may finally be getting some support from Congress. I’ve never understood why Amtrak is supposed to be self-financing, and money to Amtrak is considered "subsidies." Nobody says that about roads, on which we spend exponentially more taxpayer […]

Mayors gather in Seattle to discuss climate

Today I’m heading down to the [deep breath] United States Conference of Mayors Climate Protection Summit, taking place in my hometown of Seattle. Around 100 mayors from across the nation will be there, discussing how to green their cities. NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg is giving the keynote today, Al Gore will make a special appearance […]

The vote

After Sens. Barrasso and Baucus (D-Mont.) spent a few minutes fawning over coal, they moved to the vote.

Here's the roll call.

Yea:

Baucus
Lautenberg
Lieberman
Warner (by proxy)

No:

Isakson
Barrasso
Sanders

Indeed, Sanders rejected it. But, as they say, the ayes have it, and it will be reported favorably to the full committee.

Barrasso and the supposed good will in the GOP

Barrasso (R-Wy.) wants the bill to sunset after five years. This amendment will die, fortunately, but don't forget it. It's emblematic of the supposed goodwill the GOP has in this process.

P.S. Lieberman is drowning Lautenberg in obsequiousness. It looks to me as if the chairman has simply accepted the likelihood that Bernie Sanders will oppose this thing and he's counting on the New Jersey senator to pull the bill over the top. The vote's coming up in moments.

Sanders again!

John Barrasso (R-Wy.) has proposed about seven of his own amendments. Most have been either withdrawn or defeated. The others are fairly weak -- so forgive me for skipping them.

Sanders, on the other hand, is trying desperately to strengthen this thing, and is meeting with almost no success. He wants to limit the total tonnage of carbon that companies are allowed to offset (in lieu of direct reductions). But Lieberman ... does not.

He also wants to increase the mandatory emission reductions under the cap -- to require 80 percent reductions, mandatory reductions, by 2050.

This is key. The numbers we've heard from Senator Lieberman -- that his bill will lead to emissions reductions in the neighborhood of 65 percent -- are based in large part on projections. ACSA's mandatory emissions reductions -- the ones under the cap -- are really very weak.

But not too weak for Joe Lieberman.

Sanders has said this is his most important amendment. It's going to die. So, possibly, will the chances that he'll vote yes on the bill.

Sanders’ fifth amendment

This is a big one. He wants the bill to move to a full auction of allowances by 2026 as opposed to 2036 as currently stipulated. A lot of enviros would like a 100 percent auction from day one, so this isn't as radical as it sounds, but it's still immensely important.

But Joe Lieberman says no. He says that the bill as is will already involve some hardship to some industries, so they basically need tons of subsidies. Right.

Lieberman paid lip service to the possibility that the auction provisions might be strengthened later on, but said that 2036 is the "balance point" for political compromise right now and killed the amendment nonetheless.