Climate Politics
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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 […]
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MoveOn calls on Senate to preserve Clean Air Act in climate bill
MoveOn is running full-page ads in D.C.-based publications urging the Senate to maintain the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide. The climate bill passed by the House last month would limit the EPA’s ability to regulate CO2 under the Clean Air Act, instituting a new regulatory system instead. Keeping the EPA’s authority intact […]
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Jeb Bush still skeptical about climate change
Jeb Bush, the former governor of a hurricane-plagued, sea-level-rise-threatened state sports a NOAA cap. That’s the same NOAA whose scientists have documented the threat of global warming.NOAA.govAs bad as George W. Bush’s environmental record was, W. at least got around to acknowledging that climate change is real and human-caused before leaving office. Yet his little […]
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McCaskill says House climate bill will sink in Senate
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) doesn’t think that the climate and energy bill that passed the House last month stands much of a chance in the Senate. And if climate legislation is going to pass the Senate, it would have to have a “very gradual implementation,” McCaskill told conservative Missouri talk radio host Mike Ferguson on […]
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Monsanto’s man Taylor returns to FDA in food-czar role
Michael TaylorIn a Tuesday afternoon press release, the FDA announced that Michael Taylor, a former Monsanto executive, had joined the agency as “senior advisor to the commissioner.” If the title is vague, the portfolio (pasted from the press release) is substantial–a kind of food czar of the Food and Drug Administration: • Assess current food […]
