Articles by David Roberts

Carbon policy = tax cut

A final note about cap-and-trade auction revenue in Obama's budget.

I know some folks (see Sean) object to the whole notion that climate policy should be viewed as a means of raising (and spending) revenue. And there are good policy reasons to fear the conflation.

Still, political reality being what it is, I can't help but think this is a stroke of genius. What you've got now is a tax cut for 95% of American workers, paid for by wealthy industries and individuals. It's flipped the "war on the poor" attack on cap-and-trade completely. Now blocking carbon legislation is a war on the poor.

"Mr. Inhofe, why do you oppose a tax cut that will help so many hard-hit Oklahoma families? Whose interests are you defending?"

Heh.

Raising rates to afford cheap coal

"It allows us to continue to use coal, even though the cost of coal is going up."

-- Jeri Matheney, corporate communications manager for Appalachian Power, defending his utility's request for a substantial rate hike in West Virginia

Friday music blogging: Dark Was The Night

The Red Hot Organization is a nonprofit devoted to battling AIDS by mobilizing pop culture. Among other things, this has meant a long series of music compilations featuring popular artists.

Most pop music compilations tend to be less exciting than they sound at first blush, but Red Hot's have been unusually high quality, certainly well above the genre's average.

The latest is Dark Was the Night, a compilation of cover songs and unreleased tracks from a who's who of indie luminaries, from The National to Iron and Wine, The Decemberists, Feist, Sufjan Stevens, Arcade Fire, and on and on. It's excellent.

Tough to pick a track, but what the hell, here's The New Pornographers covering a song by Destroyer, a band led by Canadian artist Dan Bejar, also known as a prominent member of ... The New Pornographers.

Takin' it to the streets … of NPR

I was on NPR's "News & Notes" program last week, talking about Obama's green stimulus. Listen if you dare.