Climate Politics

All Stories

  • Conservative French Government again proposes higher solar PV tariffs

    For the second time within twelve months the French Government of conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy has proposed raising the feed-in tariff for solar PV in the coming year. The new provisions are contained in the specific regulations proposed in response to Minister for Energy and the Environment Jean-Louis Borloo’s announcement last November. The proposed regulations […]

    Paul Gipe Politics

  • When lobbyists cheer, the news can’t be good

    As suspected, agribusiness is indeed turning cartwheels over the news that Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln is now chairman of the Senate Ag Committee. The public policy director for the retrograde American Farm Bureau told The Hill, “We couldn’t have handpicked a chairman better than this.” The giant sucking sound you’re hearing is agricultural reform rushing […]

    Tom Laskawy Politics

  • EPA turns the lights on mountaintop removal

    This post originally appeared at TheNation.com. The Environmental Protection Agency made good on its promise today to assert greater scrutiny and “use the best science and follow the letter of the law” with regard to controversial mountaintop removal mining permits in the Appalachian coalfields. In a highly anticipated announcement, the agency declared that all seventy-nine […]

    Jeff Biggers Politics

  • Newly confirmed regulatory czar needs to close OIRA’s backdoor for special interests

    Cass SunsteinAfter weeks of sustained attack from the right-wing on issues that are marginal to the job the President asked him to do, Cass Sunstein has emerged from the nomination process bloody but apparently unbowed (here’s yesterday’s roll call). He is now the nation’s “regulatory czar,” Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, […]

    Rena Steinzor Politics

  • Supreme Court justices say the darnedest things

    During the widely-watched Supreme Court re-argument Wednesday morning of Citizens United v. Federal Election Coalition – a case that challenges the constitutionality of over a century of campaign finance laws restricting corporate spending during elections – the Justices’ varying opinions on corporations were on full display. While some, notably Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, […]

    Hannah McCrea Politics

  • Is Sen. Baucus of Montana standing in the way of swift, strong climate action?

    Sen. Max BaucusPhoto: Center for American Progress Action FundIf you read one story about climate politics today, make it Lisa Lerer’s account of the Max Baucus factor in Politico. It explains why the Democratic senator from Montana–more than any Republican, dirty energy flack, or right-wing blowhard—has become the thorn in the side of those working […]

    Jonathan Hiskes Politics

  • Counting the benefits of climate legislation

    While reducing greenhouse gases will have costs, so will the results of climate change. That may seem obvious, but up until now the debate over climate legislation has only focused on the costs, without looking at the benefits. Last week, a federal interagency taskforce released preliminary findings that began to set a dollar value for […]

    Michael A. Livermore Politics

  • Food reform. Health reform. How about income reform?

    Where the deals are.First came the news that anti-reformer Sen. Blanche Lincoln has taken over the Senate Agriculture Committee. Now, from the US Census Bureau we get even more bad news for those hoping for serious reform of our food system: the Census Bureau announced to day that middle class income is diving. Real median […]

    Tom Laskawy Politics

  • A New Number For a New Era: From 9/11 to 350

    Eight years ago today, two planes flew into the World Trade Center, another crashed into the Pentagon, and a fourth landed in a Pennsylvania field. The raw power of that day came to be symbolized by a date composed of three numbers. Three numbers that evoked the shock of being attacked, the horror of the […]

    Billy Parish Politics

  • Climate change policy as prescription for British health care?

    Will tackling climate change make us healthier — and save the NHS? Since Michael Moore pumped up Britain’s National Health Service in Sicko, there’s been a fair amount of debate on both sides of the Atlantic as to whether this iconic brand represents a model for other health-care systems in the world, or an unsustainable […]

    Ben Tuxworth Politics