Climate Politics
All Stories
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Negotiations are all well and good, but where’s the bling bling?
With less than six months to go before Copenhagen, the global climate negotiations are at a pivotal moment. After a two-week negotiating session in Bonn, the negotiations are turning the corner. Or are they? For the first time, negotiators in Bonn debated the draft text of a global deal – a mixed bag of good, […]
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The Climate Post: Gimme your wallet–or else the forest here gets it
The Obama administration this week released a 196-page plain-language report that describes predicted future impacts of climate change on the U.S. The report comes during a week of inconclusive negotiation among key House lawmakers on climate legislation, and as the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee passes what could be the third energy bill in […]
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House GOP circulating anti–climate bill document created by coal lobby
[See updates below.] It’s no secret that the fossil-fuel industry produces many of the talking points Republicans use to scare voters about energy legislation. Usually, though, dirty energy execs don’t literally sign on as authors. House Republicans are circulating a PowerPoint document that purports to show the regional breakdown of costs for energy consumers under […]
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Cap-and-trade primer goes to Washington (DC)
We all know that the devil’s in the details when it comes to legislation, and the American Clean Energy and Security Act, a.k.a. Waxman-Markey, is no exception. This 900-plus page proposal tackling climate change and clean energy is chock full of such fiendish facets. We at Sightline Institute carefully studied the climate portion of the […]
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The climate bill is about more than shaking the money tree
Shake it, but please don’t break it.While Tom Philpott has been following the cage match between the House Ag Committee and its chairman Rep Collin Peterson, and Rep. Henry Waxman, author of the Waxman/Markey climate bill currently before Congress, the latest doings seem to have broken through to the broader blogosphere. Maybe it’s because the […]
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CBO: Household costs under Waxman-Markey likely much lower than report reflects
Last Friday, the Congressional Budget Office answered some questions from Sen. John Kerry about its much-discussed report (PDF) on the costs of cap-and-trade. You’ll recall the report’s principle conclusion: a cap-and-trade program would reduce the deficit over the next decade. Despite that positive outcome, the report contained some scary numbers, like the fact that the […]
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What does the CBO report on Waxman-Markey actually tell us? (Not much).
The Congressional Budget Office recently issued its report on the Waxman-Markey bill. The Washington Times soon trumpeted: “CBO puts hefty price tag on emissions plan: Obama’s cap-and-trade system seen costing $846 billion.” This is quite misleading. Actually, the CBO report tells us virtually nothing about the economic costs of the bill or how much consumers […]
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Enviros cringe as Senate committee approves energy bill
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee approved an energy bill on Wednesday that has the environmental community up in arms. The plan, enviros say, relies too heavily on fossil fuels and doesn’t do enough to advance renewable energy. The American Clean Energy Leadership Act was approved by a vote of 15-8. The bill passed […]
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House ag chief Peterson: what, me worry about a warming planet?
Peterson, right, with combine rep: With climate change and big diesel-guzzling combines, we can grow lots of corn!After researching my story last week about the ag lobby’s attempt to turn Waxman-Markey into a cash cow for the agrichem and ethanol industries, I assumed that Waxman would quietly make some unspeakable deal with House ag chief […]
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It’s time to act “after many years of dithering and delay”
The Administration has put together a terrific new website, globalchange.gov, on its landmark 13-agency report, Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States. Every possible summary and graphic you could want is there – heck, they even have the embed codes for their slideshow: GlobalChange.Gov-US Impacts Summary [vodpod id=Video.16092247&w=425&h=350&fv=] If you didn’t catch the live […]
