Climate Politics
All Stories
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Democrats toughen up on finance reform. Could it work for clean energy?
A funny thing happened outside the twisted world of Congressional energy politics. Over at the Senate Banking Committee, Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) announced he’s going to push forward with finance reform and consumer protection bill, even if Republicans don’t want to help. This comes after weeks of negotiating between Dodd and Tennessee Republican Bob Corker, […]
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Senators negotiate green economy bill with polluters who deny threat of global warming
Cross-posted from the Wonk Room. As the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman triumvirate works to craft green economy legislation, they’re negotiating with industry lobbyists who deny the threat of global warming. After meeting with President Barack Obama and a dozen industry-friendly lawmakers, the trio of Senate negotiators sat down with representatives of the fossil-based economy: A cross section of […]
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How the cap-and-trade controversy could lead to good clean energy policy
On Wednesday, bipartisan groups of legislators from both houses of Congress joined together to support a bill: the Rural Energy Savings Program, which would make low-interest loans available to rural homeowners to fund efficiency retrofits. The loans would come with no upfront cost and would be paid off with a small surcharge on utility bills […]
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Job Creation Begins at Home
Originally published on TheRoot.com Today the Senate Energy Committee will begin debating a weatherization bill known as Home Star that aims to make American homes more energy efficient, while creating thousands of American jobs in the process. Home Star has the potential to significantly reduce residential energy consumption, saving consumers almost $10 billion over the […]
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Where do things stand on international efforts to address global warming?
It is almost three months after the Copenhagen Accord was hammered out by 28 of the world’s key countries that represent over 80 percent of the world’s global warming pollution and some of the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change (as I discussed here). Given the state of the Accord just after Copenhagen […]
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Colbert grows a ‘crisis herb garden’
Funny how everything these days is circling back to the garden. Troubled (in every sense of the word) ex-Housemember Eric Massa went on Glenn Beck recently to … to … self-immolate. Many progressives tuned in, and thus were exposed to an ad for so-called “Survival Seeds” — a kit for helping you grow your own […]
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How to provide relief to rural Americans, create jobs, and lower emissions … all at once!
Most homeowners in the U.S. would come out ahead if they invested in energy efficiency improvements — new insulation, sealed windows, more efficient boilers, and the like. So why don’t they do it? Simple: the upfront costs are steep and the paybacks can take a long time. Many homeowners don’t have access to the capital […]
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Big Oil uses fake ‘Americans’ to attack fake ‘energy taxes’
Cross-posted from the Wonk Room. Big Oil is using fake “Americans” to defend billions in tax subsidies. The American Petroleum Institute is running full-page ads in Politico and Roll Call that attack Congress for “new energy taxes”: Congress will likely consider new taxes on America’s oil and natural gas industry. These new energy taxes will […]
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Citizens gather in Washington to end 'mountain bombing' of Appalachia
More than 200 citizen lobbyists from across the nation gathered in Washington, D.C. this week to urge Congress to pass legislation curbing mountaintop removal. This especially destructive form of coal mining involves blasting off the tops of Appalachian mountains and dumping the waste into headwater streams below, a practice known as “valley fills.” The activists […]
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Why pricing emissions is the least important policy
Last week, I documented that the public supports trains and auto efficiency standards and renewable requirements, along with other policies sometimes slandered as “command & control” over emissions pricing. This week: some historical perspective on why the public is right, and mainstream environmental groups are wrong. Historically U.S. infrastructure, the basis on which this nation […]
