Climate Politics
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Key Democrats deal opening hand in climate debate
House Energy and Commerce Committee leaders released the much-anticipated draft of their climate and energy legislation on Tuesday, a proposal that includes emissions goals more ambitious than those proposed by the Obama White House but also leaves open many of the most contentious questions on climate policy. Sponsors Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) […]
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Waxman-Markey bill gets a B+
House Energy and Commerce Chair Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Energy and Environment Subcommittee Chair Ed Markey (D-Mass.) are releasing their long-awaited draft energy and climate bill today. Based on reports from a Committe debrief and an E&E Daily story this morning ($ub. req’d, excerpted below) and a Reuters story (here), I’ll give some first impressions. […]
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Republican budget has more pictures of windmills than charts of numbers
Last week, congressional Republicans rolled out their own alternative budget proposal [PDF] — but it doesn’t contain any actual hard numbers. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs points out that there are actually more pictures of windmills in the budget than charts of numbers:
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Legislators from around the world meet to discuss climate policy
Senior legislators from 17 countries met in Washington, D.C., on Monday to discuss their role in shaping climate action plans as world leaders continue to hash out the details of a new international climate treaty. The Global Legislators Organization (GLOBE) is hosting an International Commission on Climate Change and Energy Security summit, which comes just […]
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Why the mainstream media’s coverage of global warming is so fatally useless, part 1
Averting catastrophic global warming requires completely overturning the status quo, changing every aspect of how we use energy — and doing so in under four decades. Failure to do so means humanity’s self-destruction, Hell and High Water. Media coverage of the problem and the solution has been dreadful (see here and here). But why? In […]
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The food movement needs to hone its political skills
I haven’t had a chance to weigh in on the issues raised by Andrew Martin’s recent NYT feature on the food movement. Despite the giddiness that comes with hearing that “a prominent food industry lobbyist… said he was amazed at how many members of Congress were carrying copies of ‘The Omnivore’s Dilemma,'” some felt that […]
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Oregon tries to undo ethanol leg. while ‘enviros’ lobby for biofuels subsidies
Oregon is struggling to undo bad ethanol legislation. Meanwhile, the Oregon Environmental Council continues to shill for ethanol subsidies because there might someday be a magic pony of ethanol created in an entirely different way, using entirely different plants and processes, and if we don’t support agribusiness with subsidies and mandates now, why, why, they […]
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House Dems say they’re coming together around climate and energy legislation
A group of key House Democratic leaders sent a letter to President Obama on Friday signaling that they intend to work together on climate and energy legislation despite the different views and constituencies they represent. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and John Dingell (D-Mich.), the former chair whom Waxman unseated […]
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U.S. climate envoy tells international gathering all the right things about climate
If you’re looking for rays of hope amidst the torrent of idiocy and bad news — not that I’m projecting — you could do worse than reading U.S. Climate Envoy Todd Stern’s speech to the recent international climate gathering in Bonn, Germany. How’s this for a rousing beginning? I am pleased to be here in […]
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Obama gives best clean energy and global warming solutions job to Cathy Zoi
Cathy Zoi, CEO of Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection, has been nominated by President Barack Obama to serve as Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy (EERE) under Energy Secretary Steven Chu. Zoi has a unique combination of expertise in clean energy and high level federal government experience — she was Chief of […]
