Climate Politics
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Why the climate bill is in trouble (and how to help)
If it weren’t for mixed messages, the US Senate wouldn’t be sending any messages at all. Thursday, WaPo ran a story about how the Senate, once hot to trot on passing a climate change bill, had decided to rein it in. Climate legislation got its first hearing before Senator Barbara Boxer’s Environment committee on Tuesday. […]
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Revised and updated: Things I love — and hate — about Waxman-Markey
Editor’s note: A revised and updated federal version of Sightline Cap and Trade 101 is now available. Download Cap and Trade 101: A Federal Climate Policy Primer here. The original version of this post originally appeared June 11, 2009. It was based on the version of the American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act (H.R. […]
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Governments need to lead the breakthrough on technology
The Obama administration once again convened a Major Economies Forum in Italy this week after the G-8 meeting, which included the world’s 17 major carbon emitters, to press forward on a global deal on climate change and the transformation to a clean-energy economy. One of the most important announcements to come out of this meeting […]
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Deliberate misinformation: Making saving money sound bad
The enemies of energy efficiency have unveiled their new tactic to keep you from saving money and energy: they’re just going to tell you ridiculous lies and hope you believe them. It seems that because they have had a hard time weakening the money saving efficiency provisions in the American Clean Energy and Security Act […]
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Global warming commitments at the G8 and the major economies forum in Italy
If you haven’t been in Italy you might not have realized it, but two events just occurred there in which leaders of the 17 largest-emitting countries tried to make progress in the run-up to the Copenhagen climate talks this December. The first event was the annual Group of Eight (G8) meeting, which brings together the […]
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Rumor: Obama pondering big-ag man for key USDA meat-safety role [UPDATED]
Safe enough for ya?UPDATE at bottom of story. ———————————— I normally don’t write about rumors or inside information. I aspire to be like the late journalist I.F. Stone, who scorned the dubious allure of insider “access” and kept his nose in government documents, where useful information leaks out. Today — as in its own time […]
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GOP Sen. Bond thinks climate policy is just too confusing
Missouri Sen. Kit Bond (R) is circulating this incomprehensible graphic that he says illustrates the “bureaucratic nightmare” of the Waxman-Markey climate bill that the House passed last month. Bond devoted the majority of his opening statement at Tuesday’s Senate hearing on climate policy griping that the bill is just too long for people to understand. […]
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Boxer and Reid delay Senate action on climate bill until September
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, is now telling reporters that she won’t have a climate and energy bill ready for a vote in her committee until September, a significant delay for the legislation. Just a few days ago, her staff was outlining goals for getting legislation ready in […]
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Australia’s real climate on climate change
This article was co-written with Erwin Jackson, Director of Policy and Research at the Climate Institute, Australia’s leading independent policy think tank on climate change. The U.S. House of Representatives has joined the Obama administration in its resolve to finally move forward and address the problem of global warming by recently passing the American Clean […]
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State budget crisis could be key to climate change
If the Governors of a few key states pick up their phones in a hurry they could shrink their gaping budget shortfalls and help climate change legislation pass the Senate with one call. On Wednesday, Adriel Bettelheim at CQPolitics explained: The climate change bill (HR 2454) the House passed on June 26 would distribute allowances […]
