Climate Politics
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Gingrich slams Obama on Gulf gusher and sounds off on climate
Newt Gingrich, green conservative.Photo: Gage SkidmoreA couple of years ago, Newt Gingrich was sounding like a climate activist. The former Republican speaker of the House posed with current Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi on a couch in front of the Capitol for a 2008 ad sponsored by Al Gore’s organization, the Alliance for Climate Protection. “[O]ur […]
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The latest in Democratic fecklessness
I will never get used to the strategic and tactical fecklessness of the Senate Democrats. After a caucus meeting last week, it seemed like they’d finally stumbled onto the only strategy that has a snowball’s chance in hell of actually working: package a price on carbon with a tough response to the Gulf oil spill, take […]
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In praise of bureaucrats
Brad Johnson calls out the “Climate Peacocks” in Congress who are ostentatiously shaking their tailfeathers in mock outrage over the very idea that the Environmental Protection Agency might actually act as agents of environmental protection: Earlier this month, 47 senators — every Republican and six Democrats — voted for Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-AK) resolution to […]
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GOP puts party over planet, claims pollution is energy
Photo: Wonk RoomCross-posted from the Wonk Room. The habitability of our planet is threatened by fossil-fueled politicians who can’t tell the difference between pollution and energy. After a White House meeting on energy reform this morning, Republican senators rejected President Obama’s call for a price on carbon pollution, repeating the Newt Gingrich lie that it […]
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Senate oil savings’ greatest hits
Is Congress moving us toward a fuel-efficient future? Plug-in hybrid electric cars could be the cars of tomorrow.Photo courtesy of Argonne National Laboratory Oil, oil, everywhere, but not a drop for fuel. This is the stark view of Gulf Coast residents who see a 24,500 square mile oil slick menacing their shores. The devastating BP […]
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FDA takes steps to limit use of antibiotics in livestock
Updated June 30 The FDA took a significant step yesterday toward restricting the routine feeding of subtherapeutic (medically unnecessary) doses of antibiotics to livestock. As Grist has detailed in previous coverage, this practice — which by some estimates consumes nearly 70% of all antibiotics administered in the U.S. — has been linked to the rise […]
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White House climate-bill meeting ends with a whimper
Photo: Cliff1066 via FlickrIt feels like we’re writing about the “very last chance for a climate bill in 2010” just about every week. Well, Tuesday morning’s White House meeting between President Obama and 23 senators was billed as yet one more last chance to breathe some life into the bill that the Senate can’t seem […]
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Why eaters alone can’t transform the food system
Farmer Morse Pitts’ stall at the Greenmarket.(Windfall Farm blog)In the cover piece of the newest American Prospect, Heather Rogers skillfully makes a point I’ve been flogging for years: that public policy, not consumer choice, is the villain propping up the industrial food system and constraining the growth of organic farming. Rogers, author of the new […]
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Remember when Republicans liked cap-and-trade?
It wasn’t so long ago that a number of Republican senators actually thought happy thoughts about cap-and-trade or carbon pricing — before they got on board with the official GOP talking points and started referring to any climate policy as a “job-killing national energy tax.” We were just kidding: Let’s have a flashback moment with […]
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A Salon debate on cap-and-trade and energy politics: day two
Last week, I took part in a debate at Salon.com on the merits of pricing carbon (and related matters). My debate opponent was Steve Everley, manager of policy research at American Solutions and a contributing author to To Save America: Stopping Obama’s Secular-Socialist Machine, by Newt Gingrich. Salon has graciously agreed to let us republish […]
