Climate Politics

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  • MMS goes under the spotlight

    Last week, execs from BP, Transocean, and Halliburton took their Capitol Hill beatdown.  This week, federal regulators will be led into the ring.  With Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar at the front of the line, they’ll appear before three Senate committees tomorrow and then a House committee on Wednesday, at which members of Congress […]

    Randy Rieland Politics

  • What the Kerry-Lieberman climate bill means for farmers

    Thus far the majority of analysis of the Kerry-Lieberman climate bill has focused on the energy components of the bill, including an extension of nuclear power, “clean coal” from carbon storage and sequestration, and offshore drilling expansion. The bill also provides unprecedented programs for agriculture and food systems in the U.S. and internationally. Unfortunately, while […]

    Meredith Niles Politics

  • Climate change: Four futures

    As the debate over the climate bill heats up, there’s one rule of thumb that may help you keep your bearings as the rhetoric becomes more gaseous and the weeds grow ever higher around the facts. It’s this: There are, in the end, only four possible futures here. Future 1: Continuation More business as usual. […]

    Sara Robinson Politics

  • New Conservative British government agrees on more feed-in tariffs

    Cross-posted from Wind-Works. Less than two months after Britain’s Labor Party launched its highly regarded feed-in tariff program, the newly elected Conservative government has announced the program will be expanded. The announcement is included in the coalition government’s agreement published as the new government took office. Britain’s new government is a coalition of the Conservative […]

    Paul Gipe Politics

  • What to expect from Britain’s new coalition government

    Prime Minister David Cameron and Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne heading out to announce that the government will cut its greenhouse-gas emissions by 10 percent over the next 12 months.Photo: Prime Minister’s OfficeEnvironment policy didn’t break the surface during the U.K. election campaign. How will it fare in a coalition of parties at […]

    Ben Tuxworth Politics

  • Obama’s unconvincing ‘anger’ at BP and lax regulators

    Obama giving his “angry” speechPresident Obama has so far declined to give voice to the connection between the massive, stomach-churning fossil-fuel disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and the massive, stomach-turning damage that fossil fuels wreak every day. He hasn’t used his bully pulpit to highlight the opportunities to use energy more intelligently and gather […]

    Jonathan Hiskes Politics

  • Solid at the core: the integrity of the emission limits in the American Power Act

    David Doniger posted an overview based on NRDC’s “first read” of the Kerry-Lieberman American Power Act discussion draft. Here I will delve more deeply into the environmental integrity of the core emission limits in the bill. There is good news here. While the reductions fall well short of what the latest science suggests is needed, […]

    Dan Lashof Politics

  • Brits are aghast at us Yankee “greens”

    U.K. farm owner, “eco-dwelling” builder, and Grist reader JRWoodman offers some perspective on the apparently greenish platform of the new Conservative-LibDem coalition government: The UK’s Conservative party springs out of the old families that lived in stately homes in the countryside and enjoyed country pursuits. To this day if you look at an electoral map […]

    Jonathan Hiskes Politics

  • Tools for supporting international action on global warming: American Power Act

    The draft of the American Power Act is now out (see NRDC’s first read summary of the entire bill). The core global warming pollution limits in the bill, covering all major pollution sources, are a solid foundation for Senate legislation to put a final bill on President Obama’s desk this year. So how does this […]

    Jake Schmidt Politics

  • Want to phase out a hazardous substance? Dump it in the Gulf!

    A U.S. Air Force plane sprays chemical dispersants over the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.Photo: Deepwater Horizon ResponseEPA chief Lisa Jackson, along with other EPA officials and representatives from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, gave a press teleconference on use of dispersants in the Gulf Wednesday afternoon. I attended and got in […]

    Tom Philpott Politics