Climate Politics
All Stories
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Terminal Billness
Senate quashes emissions caps and state authority over LNG terminals The Senate voted yesterday to reject a measure that would have given governors more power over the siting of terminals for tankers carrying liquefied natural gas. The Bush administration has pushed for total federal control over LNG terminal sites, while many state officials — including […]
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A Glowing Reception
Bush travels to nuke plant to tout nuke subsidies, is well-received Yesterday, President Bush became the first commander in chief in 26 years to visit a nuclear power plant in the U.S. (The last time, you may recall, was when President Carter visited Three Mile Island after the accident there. Good times, good times …) […]
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Stickin’ It to the Mandatory
Senate passes weak climate amendment Greens were struck with a severe case of mixed feelings yesterday, as the Senate passed an energy-bill amendment to address global warming (yay!) but passed over a different, tougher amendment (boo!). The latter, sponsored by Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), would have imposed mandatory controls on industrial greenhouse-gas emissions (though it […]
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An interview with activists at the Prison Moratorium Project
Khaleaph Luis (left) and Prince S. Say “criminal justice” and very few people think of the environment. But in reality, there’s a complicated relationship between the work of environmentalists, who are trying to encourage a more responsible attitude toward our planet and everything on it, and those moving in and out of the prison-industrial complex, […]
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Cool Aid
Groups say foreign aid to Africa should be joined with climate action U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair’s top two agenda items for the upcoming G8 meeting of industrialized countries — aid to Africa and climate change — are intimately linked, say a pair of new reports. Britain’s leading scientific body, the Royal Society, argues that […]
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Can’t? Well …
Senate adds eco-friendly provisions to energy bill The Senate put a surprisingly green cast on the energy bill yesterday, approving an amendment that would require power companies to generate 10 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020, and another that would direct $14 billion in tax incentives to alternative fuels and energy efficiency. […]
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It’s Not Your Overall Coughing, It’s How Many Times You Cough Per Hour
Court hands coal-fired power plants huge victory on pollution regs The long-running legal battle launched by the Clinton administration against aging coal-fired power plants — the nation’s largest industrial source of smog-, asthma-, and global-warming-causing emissions — was dealt a decisive blow yesterday by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The court ruled that […]
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One Step Forward, Two Scoots Back
Updates from yesterday’s Senate energy-bill debate Highlights of yesterday’s energy-bill proceedings: The Senate voted to double the amount of ethanol to be added to the nation’s gasoline supply by 2012, from 4 billion to 8 billion gallons. Florida Sens. Mel Martinez (R) and Bill Nelson (D) successfully blocked attempts to end the congressional moratorium on […]
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Between a Bush and a Warmed Place
G8 climate statement edited into submission to appease U.S. An action plan on climate change being prepared for July’s G8 summit has been substantially weakened in the lead-up to the meeting, the latest leaked draft anemic even by the not-terribly-strenuous standards of, uh, the last leaked draft. References to “setting ambitious targets and timetables” for […]
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An interview with Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels on his pro-Kyoto cities initiative
A Nickels’ worth of free advice … Meet the pied piper of one of the most exciting green grassroots uprisings to hit the U.S. in years: Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels (D). He’s managed to get roughly 300 mayors nationwide — from the Northwest to the deep South and everywhere in between — to agree that […]
