Climate Politics

New Mexico Sen. Jeff Bingaman chats about global warming and the heated climate around the energy bi

He may hail from an energy state out West, and he may be a soft-spoken moderate, but Jeff Bingaman, Democratic senator from New Mexico and ranking member on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has joined the sparsely populated ranks of members of Congress pushing for real progress on climate change. Sen. Jeff Bingaman. […]

French constitution gets a dash of green

A landmark achievement. Photo: David Roussel “vecko.” Ahhh, the French. Toujours inexplicable. They chain smoke. They drink enough espresso before noon to cause lockjaw. And they jam their veins with butter, cheese, and beef. But despite how reckless they seem, their leaders recently made a stand for public health, granting every citizen the right to […]

Diamond chronicles how a small southern town made environmental history

When Margie Eugene-Richard won the Goldman Prize last year, it was a stunning public recognition of decades of struggle. Richard -- the first African-American to win the award, which some refer to as environmentalism's Nobel Prize -- had waged a 30-year campaign against Shell Chemicals with fellow residents of Diamond, La. Like the proverbial David, the African-American, working-class neighborhood took on a Goliath -- and won.

How a Bill Becomes a Flaw

Senate passes energy bill Late last month, after seemingly endless go-rounds, the Senate passed an energy bill that contains big boosts for nuclear power, “clean coal,” and corn-blended ethanol, and would require 10 percent of electrical utilities’ power to come from renewables by 2020. “With oil prices recently topping $60 a barrel, this legislation can […]

Gutting, No Glory

House Republicans trying to tweak cornerstone environmental laws Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.) and allies on the House Resources Committee have laid siege to two key environmental laws. They’ve inserted language into the House version of the energy bill to remove numerous drilling projects from review under the National Environmental Policy Act, which mandates environmental impact […]

G8 Expectations

Bush gets the watered-down G8 climate statement he wanted President Bush got exactly what he wanted on climate change during last week’s G8 meeting of industrialized nations: The appearance of compromise without any shift in his administration’s position. Just when it seemed that U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair — buoyed by London’s winning bid to […]

GAO to investigate whether Cooney’s editing was illegal

Chris Mooney has a good catch today: Senators Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Harry Reid (D-Nev.) have asked the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, to determine whether recently-resigned Bush administration official Philip Cooney violated federal statutes against obstruction of Congress and false statements.

Cooney, as you may recall, is the former oil industry lobbyist, turned chief of staff of the White House Council on Environmental Quality who edited research reports to play up uncertainties about global warming. Turned, uh, oil industry lobbyist. (To everything turn, turn, turn, eh?)

Lautenberg and Reid are also asking the Climate Change Science Program to retract the redacted reports, writes Chris. "I don't know what kind of results this will achieve, but it's a new tactic, as well as a strong demonstration that Congress is getting serious about the science abuse issue."

My Own Private Saudi Arabia

Energy execs beg Congress to let them dig up the West for oil shale “We can safely say of our future with regard to oil and gas, it has yet to see its brightest days,” said Rep. James Gibbons (R-Nev.) in a House subcommittee meeting yesterday. We know what you’re thinking: What the … ? […]

Craig’s %$#! List

Idaho senator tries to axe center that analyzes endangered salmon Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) has inserted a rider into the federal energy bill that would eliminate funding for the Fish Passage Center, which has tracked salmon in the Columbia and Snake River systems in the Pacific Northwest for over 20 years. Craig is peeved that […]

Schwarzenegger’s solar-roof plan could get sidelined by partisan squabbling

Fiddling on the roof. Photo: AstroPower/NREL. The Golden State could soon enact the most ambitious solar-energy initiative ever proposed in the U.S. — legislation intended to put photovoltaic panels on a million California rooftops. Unless, that is, the bill gets derailed by a behind-the-scenes political pissing match between Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has thrown […]