Climate Politics
All Stories
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A breakdown of the renewables vote in the Senate
One day after declining to support tougher fuel-efficiency standards, the Senate yesterday voted down a measure that would have required 20 percent of the nation’s electricity to be produced from wind, solar, and other renewable energy sources by 2020. Currently, less than 2 percent of U.S. electricity comes from renewable resources. The measure that could […]
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Bush’s global warming plan is just the tip of the iceberg
MEMO TO: All National Petroleum Unlimited employees FROM: Jack Morris, CEO Has this CEO gone soft, or was there something sweet — nay, touching — in the details of President Bush’s new emissions plan? Rather than demand that we do our part to slow the pace of global warming, he’s simply letting us volunteer! Friends, […]
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A breakdown of the CAFE standards yeas and nays in the Senate
By a vote of 62 to 38, the U.S. Senate decided yesterday to remove from the energy bill a provision that would have increased Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency vehicle standards. Instead, the Senate opted for an industry-backed proposal to give the Bush administration two more years to study the implications of raising CAFE standards. You […]
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Supercuts
U.S. EPA Administrator Christie Whitman faced tough questioning from Congress members yesterday as she tried to defend her agency’s decision to cut the number of Superfund toxic waste cleanups in half, from more than 80 per year during the Clinton administration to about 40 under President Bush. Whitman blamed the cuts on lack of funding; […]
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Green-goes
Giving the lie to the myth that lower income and minority Americans don’t care about the environment, Latino voters are proving to be some of the most dedicated environmentalists in California. For example, 74 percent of Latino voters approved a recent $2.6 billion parks and open space measure that was supported by just 56 percent […]
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Jonna Higgins-Freese
Jonna Higgins-Freese is environmental outreach coordinator at Prairiewoods: Franciscan Spirituality Center in Hiawatha, Iowa. She is a fellow of the Environmental Leadership Program. Monday, 11 Mar 2002 HIAWATHA, Iowa Just for the record, I am not a nun. I do work for nuns, so folks often want to know if I’m one of them. I […]
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Tricky Dick
Critics have long suspected that the Bush administration’s energy policy was the result of very cozy relations with corporations, and now they’ve got the evidence to back it up: Eighteen of the energy industry’s top 25 financial contributors to the Republican Party advised Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force, according to interviews and election […]
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Resigned to His Fate
In the most dramatic move yet relating to the Bush administration’s internal battle over federal clean air policy, a senior U.S. EPA official resigned this week to protest White House efforts to weaken tough emissions standards for power plants and oil refineries. Eric Schaeffer, head of the agency’s Office of Regulatory Enforcement, accused the Energy […]
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Pander-monium
BP, the world’s third-largest oil company, announced last night that it will halt all of its political contributions worldwide. The decision appears to reflect a desire to avoid accusations of influence peddling in the era of Enron, and could set a precedent for other companies. It could also be seen as a triumph for anti-globalization […]
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Shrimp Fried
Under pressure from the Bush administration, a federal judge yesterday revoked the protected status of several hundred thousand acres of Southern California land considered essential for the survival of two imperiled species. U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson called on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to re-assess the economic effects of protecting the land on […]
