Climate Politics
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A crucial climate vote lost with Ted Kennedy’s death
Ted KennedyPhoto: jonathanpbergerSen. Edward M. Kennedy’s environmental legacy was remarkable, wide-ranging, and not all roses. Joe Romm’s got an early look at his record. But there’s one clear and simple impact of Kennedy’s death late Tuesday night: The push for a climate-change bill in the Senate lost a reliable supporter. That push needs absolutely every […]
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‘Monkey trial’ petition tells EPA to ‘eliminate the taint’
Cross-posted from Wonk Room. Calling for the “Scopes trial of the 21st century,” the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has delivered a petition [PDF] to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for a public hearing on the EPA’s proposed global warming endangerment finding. The petition, acquired by the Wonk Room, claims that scientific research demonstrates global warming […]
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Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, champion of the environment and clean energy, dies at 77
Kennedy, the last surviving brother in a unique American political dynasty and one of the most influential senators in history, died late Tuesday night at his summer home on Cape Cod after a 15-month battle with brain cancer. He was 77. He was a great champion of progressive causes, and his death is a great […]
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Sen. Landrieu’s plan to export Louisiana’s coastal destruction to Florida
While Louisiana struggles to restore coastal wetlands ravaged in large part by decades of oil and gas drilling, its senior senator is leading the effort to lift the ban on drilling off Florida’s Panhandle. U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) is the lone co-sponsor of legislation sponsored by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) to open up new […]
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Chuck Grassley does not believe in the threat of anthropogenic climate change
Chuck Grassley In a Tuesday conference call with Iowa agricultural reporters, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) offered some state-of-the-art Republican doubletalk on climate change (maybe he read it in Glenn Beck’s book). This is worth reading in full, in part to admire the blithely inconsistent muddle of it all, but also in part to marvel at […]
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Pachauri’s call for 350 ppm is breakthrough moment for climate movement
Amazing news just arrived at 350.org headquarters. Rajendra Pachauri is the U.N.’s top climate scientist. He leads the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which every five years produces the authoritative assessment of climate science. Its last report, in 2007, helped set the target of 450 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the […]
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GOP team at American Energy Alliance runs ‘Energy Town Hall’ oil bus tour
American Energy Alliance staffers Kevin Kennedy, Patrick Creighton, and Laura Henderson on tour in Pennsylvania. All are former House GOP staff. Cross-posted from Wonk Room. The American Energy Alliance (AEA), a new polluter front group, is touring the nation to smear President Barack Obama’s clean energy reform agenda. Employees riding the “American Energy Express” bus […]
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Badass mayor builds bridges between working class and enviros
Mayor John FettermanPhoto: The Cap SolutionJohn Fetterman is not easy to miss. He’s 6’8″, 325 pounds, and usually dressed in a black work shirt and boots. He sports two large tattoos on his forearms, a shaved head, and a goatee. You might mistake him for a steelworker at first glance, but he’s actually the 40-year-old, […]
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Washington Post features rail hack job from Robert Samuelson
This post originally appeared on Streetsblog DC. This is the big problem with Ed Glaeser’s New York Times posts purporting to analyze the costs and benefits of a high speed rail system. Despite Glaeser’s acknowledgment that his “back-of-the-envelope calculation” doesn’t “[represent] a complete evaluation of any actual proposed route,” the posts are sure to be […]
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Barack Obama is not Bagger Vance
Things are pretty grim among progressives these days, what with health care bogging down and climate legislation on indefinite delay; right wing crazies everywhere and Blue Dogs intransigent; the organized coalition that brought Obama to office fractured and ineffective. Disillusionment is in the air. In response, on listservs and private conversations, I’m hearing more and […]
