Articles by Joseph Romm

Sadly

E&E Daily (subs. req'd) confirms earlier press reports:

Markey [D-MA] said in a statement yesterday that he decided to pull his amendment after consulting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), even though he believed he had the votes to move the legislation. While Pelosi personally favored a CAFE standard of 35 miles per gallon, industry lobbyists said she did not whip votes on the legislation and it appeared Markey was not assured of the votes needed to pass the bill.

Should we be surprised?

This post was written by Kari, the ClimateProgress assistant.

A year and a half overdue, the Bush Administration finally submitted its Climate Action Report -- 2006 (CAR) last Friday afternoon, with hardly any mention by government officials of the report or its shameful findings (like a 15.8 percent increase in U.S. emissions since 1990).

While the mainstream media has been either silent or blind to the report's release, major kudos are due to the blogosphere. The few adept, new media journalists to blog on the report include Kevin Grandia from DeSmogBlog and Rick Piltz at Climate Science Watch.

The latest from Congress

The Washington Post reports today:

Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) claims to have rounded up about 200 votes for an amendment raising fuel economy standards, while the Energy and Commerce Committee chairman, John D. Dingell (Mich.) and 50 other Democrats have signed on to a weaker version ... But yesterday, Pelosi said the bill was not likely to address fuel economy at all, postponing the issue until a conference committee reconciles House and Senate energy bills in September ...

Pelosi is eager to avoid a breach with the powerful Dingell, who opposes the Markey amendment and whose committee will handle many important pieces of legislation, including health care. The United Auto Workers union and automakers have also lobbied against the Markey measure.

Unfortunately for the nation and the planet, Dingell is working to make fuel economy standards and serious action on climate as politically unpalatable as possible with a classic poison pill strategy:

It’s not a ‘sustainable’ biofuel

So Europeans are buying Indonesian palm oil as a "sustainable" biofuel, but it isn't sustainable, as we've noted before. The tragedy continues:

Palm oil companies are burning peat forests to clear land for plantations in Indonesia's Riau province, despite government pledges to end forest fires ... Blazes have started flaring again since the end of June with the start of the dry season.

How a big deal is this? As The New York Times put it earlier this year, "Considering these emissions, Indonesia had quickly become the world's third-leading producer of carbon emissions that scientists believe are responsible for global warming." [Note to NYT: you can drop the "scientists believe" crap. Carbon emissions cause global warming -- deal with it, MSM!]

The emissions from the 1997 fires alone are staggering, as Nature reported in 2002 (sub. req'd):