Articles by Ana Unruh Cohen

Holmstead resigns

Jeff Holmstead, head of the Bush administration's EPA air department and all around promoter of the "Clear Skies" initiative, just announced his plans to leave the agency at the end of August. Next steps for him? Traveling the world with his family for a year. Best decision the guy ever made ...

The latest on energy bill wrangling.

The real work of the Energy Conference gets underway today, and you can watch it live starting at 11 am EST (20 min. ago!). Behind the scenes, Senate and House staffs have been working to hammer out some compromises. That language will be the baseline that conferees work from today. The conference plans to cover the titles dealing with energy efficiency, coal, nuclear power, DOE management, vehicles and fuels, and hydrogen. These are the less controversial titles of the bills so fireworks may be kept to a minimum, although Sen. Wyden (D-Ore.) promises to cause some explosions by offering an amendment to increase fuel economy standards by 1 mile per gallon per year. Since the bill currently does nothing to increase fuel economy, this would be an improvement. Unfortunately, the only question is how lopsided the vote will be that defeats it.

But for you lovers of summer, you aficionados of efficiency, the language expanding Daylight Saving Time to the first Sunday in March to the last Sunday in November continues to survive.

A rundown of the big issues facing the House-Senate energy bill conference committee

President Bush has challenged the congressional leadership to get energy legislation to his desk by the August recess. To do that, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.) -- chair of both the House Energy and Commerce committee and the 109th Congress edition of the energy conference committee -- has set out an ambitious schedule, hoping to get a conference report to the House and Senate in time. Look out for politicos sporting slings as the arm-twisting starts this week. To help you keep track, here's the Cliff Notes version of the marquee (and not-so-marquee) issues confronting the conferees.

G8 climate communiques are out

Full text of the G8 climate communiques are now available here and here.