Articles by Adam Browning

House floor debate on federal Energy Bill

Forget live blogging. Watch it live on your computer via C-span.org.

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Hound your representative to add an RPS to the energy bill

If scientists could take the repeated dashing of hopes for a better future and harness it to make electrons, we'd have electricity too cheap to meter. If the crushing of expectations were a renewable resource, this Congress is truly on the cutting edge of the clean energy revolution.

Apparently, Senator Reid and Speaker Pelosi met on Thursday morning and decided to move an energy bill that does not include an RPS [see this post]. Or a tax title. No tax title means no extension of the investment tax credit for solar, and no extension of the production tax credit for wind. Let's see ... nothing for solar, plus nothing for wind, ... add no RPS, carry the zero ... yep, that adds up to nothing for renewable energy. Got that? Congressional leadership is moving an energy bill with nothing in it for renewable energy.

We've got maybe 24 hours to turn this around. I suggest a phone blitz. Melt the %$@*! switchboard. Call your representative. Suggested script:

Biking communities thrive in San Francisco and Santa Cruz

We moved offices earlier this year, and are now a little off the beaten track. To deal with the increased distance, and because I broke my colleague Gwen's foldable bike, I brought in a couple of bikes for the office: a pink Stumpjumper of '80s vintage at a garage sale in Lee Vining, and a more recently minted Hardrock bequeathed by good friend and noted environmental economist Michael Greenstone.

This is all to say that I've been biking around San Francisco quite a bit recently, and I am struck by how much better things are. The lane striping, for one, makes a big difference. It creates a margin of safety that borders on acceptable. The city, with prodding by the super-effective SF Bike Coalition, has done a fantastic job of laying out lane-striped bike routes through popular corridors. For example: to get from downtown to the Haight, you take the Wiggle. Most people have to wait until they get to the Haight before they start wiggling, but not bike riders. They get their wiggle in early, on the way.