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  • Oil execs lined up for Washington grilling

    The Deepwater Horizon rig, pre-explosion and pre-tipping.Photo: TransoceanBig Banking, Big Auto, and Big Coal have all been to the woodshed in the last little while. Tomorrow it’s Big Oil’s turn. Capitol Hill Summer Theater kicks off in style when the top execs of the world’s five largest oil companies report for their very own congressional […]

    Randy Rieland Politics

  • Energy politics in the Senate: why Merkley’s oil plan matters

    This morning Sen. Jeff Merkley will introduce “America Over a Barrel: Solving Our Oil Vulnerability” (PDF) [UPDATE: video below], a policy plan devoted to reducing oil use, at an event at the Center for American Progress. I think it could make a big difference in the debate. To understand why, let’s back up and have […]

    David Roberts Politics

  • Rumor watch: Obama has a ‘secret’ plan to redirect the Mississippi River

    Photo credit: the White House/Peter Souza Annie Lowery of the Washington Independent picked up this exchange between Anderson Cooper and historian Doug Brinkley: [W]hen President Obama comes to Florida and Alabama and Mississippi … that is holding BP responsible for the Natural Resource Damage Act, for the Oil Spill Response Act. And, by that, I […]

    Tom Laskawy Politics

  • Brits mad, and worried, about BP bashing

    The cover of Great Britain’s Daily Express — “His rants against BP are a disgrace.”Photo courtesy of the Daily Express While it’s definitely not a diplomatic incident, and of course Americans don’t just think of BP as a British company, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has the British media transfixed. The Daily […]

    Ben Tuxworth Politics

  • Extreme warming in Arctic will cause colder winters — and political gridlock

    The political (or at least the Senatorial) tides are running strongly against a muscular policy response to climate change. Now a top NOAA scientist tells us that even the winds are blowing in the wrong direction — actual winds, mind you, not political. Via Science Daily: A warmer Arctic climate is influencing the air pressure […]

    Tom Laskawy Politics

  • Rolling Stone piece oils up Obama

    Obama listens during a briefing on the BP oil spill by National Incident Commander Admiral Thad Allen at the U.S. Coast Guard Station in Grand Isle, Louisiana. Photo and caption: The White HouseBarack Obama is doing his darnedest to show his world now revolves around the BP oil spill — he’ll make his fourth trip […]

    Randy Rieland Politics

  • Climate Vote Shows Gulf Gusher Changed Nothing In Senate

    If you thought one of the biggest oil spills in history would automatically propel strong legislation to cap carbon emissions and avert a climate crisis, think again. Democratic Senate leaders beat back a conservative attempt to kneecap the EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, but not without six Dems defecting. Only 53 Senators backed […]

    Bill Scher Politics

  • Murkowski resolution goes down to defeat in stupid episode that means nothing

    Lisa Murkowski, source of the stupid.[UPDATED WITH RIGHTEOUS BERNIE SANDERS VIDEO] The Murkowski “Resolution of Disapproval” to overturn the EPA’s endangerment finding on carbon pollution was defeated in the Senate today by a vote of 53-47. Every one of the Senate’s 41 Republicans — including “moderates” considered possible “Yes” votes for climate legislation — voted […]

    David Roberts Politics

  • Chairman Rockefeller knows better

    Sen. Jay Rockefeller.On Tuesday, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) issued a statement saying that he will vote for the Murkowski resolution because it is “a vote for a strong West Virginia economy.” I don’t doubt Sen. Rockefeller’s commitment to West Virginians, but it’s simply appalling that the Chairman of the Senate Science Committee plans to vote […]

    Dan Lashof Politics

  • Rahm Emanuel persuaded Obama to play it cool on climate bill. Post-spill, will the game plan change?

    Rahm Emanuel: barrier to climate progress? Engulfed by the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, Barack Obama is trying to change the subject. On May 26, the president pledged to “keep fighting to pass comprehensive energy and climate legislation,” and on June 2 he declared, “The time has come, once and for all, for this […]

    Eric Pooley Politics