Articles by David Roberts
David Roberts was a staff writer for Grist. You can follow him on Twitter, if you're into that sort of thing.
All Articles
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Coal is the enemy of the human remains
"I wanted to secure in my mind that this cemetery was OK. I found out it wasn't OK. It was gone."
-- Walter Young, a resident of West Virginia whose great-grandmother's grave was moved, without his knowledge, by a coal mining company -- the company has no record of where they moved it
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Lieberman-Warner supporter Gregg says Obama climate proposal spends too much on 'special interests'
In 2007, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) supported the Lieberman-Warner climate bill. Widely regarded as something of a Frankenstein bill, it directed revenue at every conceivable constituency, based on sometimes tenuous connections to the climate issue. He said his "one reservation" was that more revenue wasn't returned to taxpayers.
Well! Obama just released a budget proposal that would return vastly more of the revenue -- around 82 percent -- to taxpayers. Gregg, who prides himself on being Mr. Moderate Bipartisan, would surely celebrate this development, right?
Nope:
"It's a stalking horse for raising taxes and spending it on special interests." Gregg said of the Obama plan in a telephone interview. "It's a non-starter."
Again, Obama's plan spends far less on "special interests" (Republican code for public investments) than a bill Gregg already supported. The only difference is that Obama's plan is Obama's.
Gregg has talked his way inside the carbon policy tent and now he's trying to burn it down. He's got lots of company.
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UK activist tosses green custard on Biz Secretary over aviation fight
Peter Mandelson is the (unelected) U.K. Business Secretary who's been instrumental in pushing through a third runway at Heathrow Airport, despite enormous public resistance. When democratic means failed, U.K. activists decided to throw green custard on him.
