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Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) [UPDATED]
Arlen Specter Sen. Arlen Specter is considered a fence sitter on climate legislation, though on Nov. 5 he sided with all but one of the Democrats on the Environment and Public Works Committee in voting to move forward with the Kerry-Boxer climate bill. As Darren Samuelsohn of Greenwire reported: Specter bemoaned his inability to offer […]
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EPA demands attorneys remove video critical of cap-and-trade
Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel are EPA attorneys who have taken up advocating against cap-and-trade on behalf of rebated carbon taxes, most recently in a Washington Post op-ed. They also posted a video to YouTube making many of the same arguments at somewhat greater length. Now the EPA has instructed them to take the video […]
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Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)
Dianne FeinsteinSen. Dianne Feinstein is expected to vote in favor of the Kerry-Boxer climate bill. In a November 2009 letter to a Grist reader, she doesn’t explicitly endorse the bill, but she does say it “represents an important step”: Dear [Constituent]: Thank you for writing to express your views about the “Clean Energy Jobs and […]
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Senators opposed to Clean Energy Jobs Act are ignoring bill’s benefits to Americans — Part 2
Read Part 1 here. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee passed the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act (CEJAPA), by an 11-1 vote. Since this was the third day of a boycott by Republicans on the committee, the absence of minority members prevented senators from voting on any amendments to the bill due […]
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Cautious optimism for Copenhagen deal as Barcelona climate talks end
Is that the sun we see?The mood was markedly improved on the final day of the Barcelona climate talks, as delegates, observers, and non-governmental organizations all brushed off the pessimism that dominated much of this week and announced that there is still hope for a global deal at the Copenhagen COP15 summit. News that the […]
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How industry pressures and competing national agendas dim prospects for a climate treaty
A version of this post was originally published on the website of the Center for Public Integrity and is reposted on Grist with CPI’s kind permission. —– It is said that borders don’t matter to the atmosphere — all nations have to work together to tackle the problem of climate change. But the forces that […]
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Barcelona outcome: White House strategy is plea for more time
As climate talks wrapped up in Barcelona, the picture wasn’t nearly this pretty.Photo: MorBCNIt’s been 30 years since scientists gained a clear understanding of the dangerous consequences of continuously adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. This week during five days of negotiations in Barcelona, the world learned again that the formula for solving global […]
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Feed-in tariffs — the new school of thought
As a boy growing up near the Louisiana Gulf Coast, I remember looking out of the car window at times and seeing gigantic flames over the bayous: gas flares. Around 1970, the flaring of natural gas peaked. Oil prices were so low back then that marketing gas would not have been profitable. Today, far less […]
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The ‘party of no’ becomes the ‘party of slow’
Cross-posted from the Wonk Room and co-written with energy team interns Jaren Love and Michael McGovern at the Center for American Progress. Senate Republicans are demanding lengthy economic analyses of progressive clean energy policy, despite having spent careers voting for and against major energy legislation without such delay. This week the Republican members of the […]
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Kay Hagan (D-N.C.)
Kay HaganKay Hagan, junior senator from North Carolina, is not a shoo-in on the Kerry-Boxer climate bill, but she appears to be leaning toward supporting it. When asked in mid-October if she would support a climate bill with cap-and-trade, the senator replied, “We’re certainly talking about it. The Kerry-Boxer bill is … out there but […]
