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  • BP oil spill highlights our broken immigration system

    A Health Safety and Environment (HSE) worker collects pieces of an oiled snare boom on Port Fourchon beach in Louisiana.Photo: U.S. Coast GuardFeet in 2 Worlds reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is searching for illegal immigrants among people working to clean up the BP oil disaster. ICE conducted two investigations in May at […]

    Tyler Falk Politics

  • King Corn subjects Washington to ad blitz

    The debate around the farm bill, and its generous support for corn production, is already heating up. Long-enshrined subsidies for ethanol production stand on the verge of being phased out. The EPA is mulling whether the nation’s auto fleet can handle more ethanol to be blended into the gasoline supply. In other words, the exalted […]

    Tom Philpott Politics

  • Five reasons why a comprehensive climate and energy plan beats the energy-only approach

    As the Congress returns to D.C., President Obama and Majority Leader Reid will need to keep making the case to the Senate that a comprehensive clean energy and climate bill deserves their attention now, so the president can sign a bill this year. The president has been intensifying his rhetoric in support of climate legislation, […]

    Peter Altman Politics

  • The Murkowski Resolution: A step backward for American clean energy

    This post originally appeared on The Huffington Post. In the last 18 months, the United States has taken major steps forward in the transition to a clean energy economy. With historic investments in solar, wind, and other innovative renewable energy sources, we are positioned to compete for the clean energy jobs of today and tomorrow, […]

    Lisa P. Jackson Politics

  • Will Obama stand up to Big Energy in deeds as well as words?

    Will the real President Obama please stand up?Photo: Mr. Wright via FlickrThis essay was originally published on TomDispatch and is republished here with Tom’s kind permission. —– Here’s the president on March 31, announcing his plan to lift a longstanding moratorium on offshore drilling: “Given our energy needs, in order to sustain economic growth and produce jobs, and […]

    Bill McKibben Politics

  • Schumer says the climate bill is toast [UPDATED]

    Update below. This morning I identified five things that could affect the ultimate fate of the climate/energy bill in Congress. Some comments from Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) this morning add a bit of a twist to the proceedings. On MSNBC this morning, Schumer said that Reid is likely to advance an energy bill modeled on […]

    David Roberts Politics

  • Is the climate bill going to pass? Top five things to watch

    People are constantly asking me, “Is the climate bill going to pass?” The answer is: I don’t know. No one knows. Confident predictions either way are mostly posing. The situation, like so much in politics right now, is incredibly fluid. There are five things to watch in coming months that will give us a better […]

    David Roberts Politics

  • Who’s to blame for the Gulf oil gusher? We break it down

    We all know there’s a lot of blame to go around for the ongoing disaster in the gulf. In the weeks since the Horizon rig first came unglued, all the principals in this mess have taken turns pointing fingers at one another. Now, it’s our turn. We applied Grist’s scientific, who’s-fault-is-it-really, assessment method. The results […]

    Grist staff Politics

  • Why BP’s really glad this week is over

    1. Saturday, May 29: The Kill is gone:  After a week of raising hopes that maybe, just maybe, it had found a way to plug the hole, BP calls off its top kill/junk shot gambit. At first, the process of shooting “mud” and pieces of golf balls, tires, and perhaps kitchen sinks, seems to the […]

    Randy Rieland Politics

  • Strengthening clean energy competitiveness through the America COMPETES reauthorization

    This post was co-authored by Mark Muro and Rob Atkinson, and originally appeared at The New Republic. Having passed the U.S. House of Representatives on May 28, the America COMPETES Act, America’s flagship competitiveness legislation, will soon be debated in the U.S. Senate. The Act was originally passed in 2007 in response to mounting concern […]

    Jesse Jenkins Politics