Climate Politics
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Should Obama be talking more about climate change?
He Who Must Not Be Named?In his new book The Climate War, Eric Pooley describes how the message of climate campaigners has evolved from one focused on, well, climate (“polar bears”) to one dominated by national security, green jobs, and competitiveness. He calls this latter version the “Trojan Horse” message, one that tries to smuggle […]
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CNN Poll: 82% of Americans Approve of the Idea of a BP Escrow Fund
CNN released new polling Thursday with fascinating data on how Americans feel about the response to the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Using the poll’s toplines (PDF), I’ve created a series of charts which present the data in a far more useful format. First and foremost, it looks Rep. Joe Barton (R-Big […]
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Another pathetic day in the U.S. Senate
Today was an important day for the energy bill. Sort of. The entire Democratic Senate caucus met to discuss how to move forward on climate and energy. Kerry, Bingaman, and Cantwell all presented — and argued for — their respective bills. (They made videos, too — Kerry’s; Cantwell’s.) The intent was to make some kind […]
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Kick ass or buy gas?
The Pentagon — BP’s best friend?Photo courtesy of Wikipedia commons This essay was originally published on TomDispatch and is republished here with Tom’s kind permission. Residents of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida are livid with BP in the wake of the massive, never-ending oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico — and Barack Obama says they […]
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What we need here is a little R&D
Thank God for the small people. Or at least allusions to them. BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg’s gaffe gave Barack Obama a brief reprieve from the pundit pummeling that mostly dismissed his first Oval Office speech as more slick than oil. But some columnists, Grist’s David Roberts for one, did spot a glint of promise in […]
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Republican Joe Barton to BP: ‘I apologize’ for the White House ‘shakedown’
Cross-posted from Think Progress. During a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee this morning, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) “apologize[d]” to BP CEO Tony Hayward, accusing the White House of an illegal “shakedown” of the foreign oil giant to secure a $20 billion escrow fund for Gulf Coast damages. Barton repeated the Republican attack […]
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Will Any Republicans Join Democrats in Holding BP Accountable?
Steve Benen and Greg Sargent have been making an important point lately that hasn’t yet received the attention it deserves: to the extent that Republicans intend to oppose efforts to hold BP accountable this summer and fall, they are extremely vulnerable politically. Here’s Benen first, commenting on Republican confusion over just what lengths they should […]
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Some international findings from EPA analysis of the American Power Act
The Obama administration has just released the U.S. EPA analysis of the American Power Act and it shows that U.S. action coupled with reasonable actions by other countries will put us on a path to preventing the worst impacts of global warming.
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The administration’s lame lame-duck climate strategy
Mike Allen, Marc Ambinder, and Juliet Eilperin all report that the Obama administration has adopted a “lame-duck climate strategy.” The idea is to get a slimmed-down energy-only bill through the Senate the week of July 12, drag out conference committee, and send the bill back to both houses in a post-election lame-duck session, “when victorious […]
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Where Obama’s climate leadership is really lacking
If you ever want to know what the inside-the-beltway conventional wisdom is, look for Politico’s screaming headline. “Deadly silence on carbon caps,” is today’s tea-leaf reading article, which asserts that Obama “may have put the dagger into his long-sought plans for a cap on greenhouse-gas emissions by opening the door for alternatives.” Speeches, while important, […]
