Articles by David Roberts

Sue me harder

So, remember how we're going to dump billions and billions of dollars into the laps of the Big Three automakers, to rescue them from their own myopic decisions? And remember how automakers are suing the crap out of every state that tries to implement California's tailpipe emission standards? Remember how Obama green-lit the waiver for those standards yesterday, and how those standards are overwhelmingly supported by the public?

Putting all that together, it occurred to New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert to wonder whether automakers will use that taxpayer money to fund their lawsuits against, um, taxpayers.

So she contacted them, and the following day put up a second post: Yes. Yes, they are going to use taxpayer money to sue taxpayers.

Obama doesn't need to back away from investment to appease conservatives

Conservative pollster Frank Luntz takes to the pages of the L.A. Times to share the news that everyone loves infrastructure:

Last month, I conducted a national survey of 800 registered voters on their attitudes toward infrastructure investment ...

The survey's findings were unlike any other issue I have polled in more than a decade. Iraq, healthcare, taxes, education -- they all predictably divide and polarize Americans into political camps. Not infrastructure.

Consider this: A near unanimous 94% of Americans are concerned about our nation's infrastructure. And this concern cuts across all regions of the country and across urban, suburban and rural communities.

This demonstrates yet another reason why Obama's attempt to appease conservatives by bumping transit infrastructure investments to make room for tax cuts is pointless. The people want infrastructure, they want stimulus, and those two happen to be the same thing, so who gives a f*ck what Republicans want?

Nate Silver follows up with this excellent point:

I'm not sure why Obama isn't doing more to highlight the green portions of the stimulus bill. The public seems to tolerate the spending on bridges and highways -- but they also see it, perhaps not wholly improperly, as make-work. The long-run benefits of the alternative energy programs, on the other hand, are far more intuitively appealing. If the central critique of the stimulus is that the debt we're creating will be burdensome to future generations, that concern could be mitigated if the spending in question is portrayed as a down payment made on behalf of those future generations toward cleaning up the environment and mitigating dependence on fossil fuels. It also provides for some sense of purpose to the stimulus: we'll come out of this, Obama can say, with the greenest, most energy-independent major industrial economy in the world, etc. etc.

Exactly. I really don't see why Obama has to trim his sails one bit on this stuff. It's overwhelmingly popular and substantively correct policy, a combo that doesn't come along very often.

E.U. leaks details of its proposed Kyoto successor treaty

On Wednesday, the European Commission will release a communiqué outlining the E.U.'s vision for a successor agreement to Kyoto, to be hashed out this December in Copenhagen.

There have been some leaks related to the document, covered in The NYT and elsewhere, but now EurActiv has gotten a draft copy [PDF] to look over. It's got pencil marks on it, so obviously it's preliminary and could change by Wed., but it gives a good sense of the direction E.U. sees things going.

I write book reviews and talk on the radio

Because too much Roberts is never enough:

What seems like a million years ago (I'll never get used to paper media schedules), I wrote a review of Van Jones' new book The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems for In These Times. It's up now, with the somewhat unfortunate headline "It's Not Easy Becoming Green." (Note to eco-headline writers: no more Kermit references; no more inconvenient-anything references; no more "green is the new X.") Of course you'll want to read every scintillating word, but the basic thrust is, Van Jones in person is an unbelievable dynamo who's reshaping the political landscape in extraordinary ways; Van Jones in his book is rather flat and prosaic. With a few exceptions, it's difficult to hear the former's voice in the latter.

In other Roberts news, I appeared on the Liberal Oasis radio show while I was in D.C., discussing prospects for green legislation in coming years. My mellifluous tones and perspicacious insights are available via a variety of electronic delivery options: iTunes / XML feed / MP3. You should subscribe to the podcast -- host Bill Scher is a top notch thinker and communicator.