Climate Politics
All Stories
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At prime time presser, Obama says an energy plan will pass
During his prime time press conference Tuesday evening, President Obama was put on the spot about Congress’ apparent unwillingness to go along with some of his budget proposals. The questioner listed a number of areas where Democrats on Capitol Hill may part ways, including the White House’s proposed cap-and-trade program to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. […]
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EPA issues clarification on mountaintop removal notice
One can only wonder whether the following EPA statement regarding its move on mountaintop removal was prompted by some angry phone calls to the agency from certain influential West Virginia lawmakers. In any event, here’s what the EPA sent out late Tuesday: Following reports that mischaracterize actions taken by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), […]
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Does Sen. Feinstein get global warming, desertification, and California’s looming demise?
Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) appears to like deserts so much that she wants them to stretch from Oklahoma to California and cover one third the planet. The AP reported Friday, “Feinstein seeks [to] block solar power from desert land“: Nineteen companies have submitted applications to build solar or wind facilities on a parcel of 500,000 […]
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Regional climate policy is still moving forward in the Northwest
Over the last couple of weeks, there’s been a lot of hand-wringing about the state of climate policy in the Northwest. Washington’s citizen-backed renewable energy standard is in jeopardy and neither Oregon nor Washington appears close to implementing the Western Climate Initiative. Even British Columbia’s pioneering carbon tax is taking fire. Freak out! Everybody panic! […]
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Boucher bill would put billions into carbon-capture-and-sequestration technologies
Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), one of the House’s biggest coal supporters, on Tuesday reintroduced a bill that would invest billions of dollars in the development of carbon-capture-and-sequestration (CCS) technology for fossil-fuel power plants. Like a similar measure Boucher introduced last year, the “Carbon Capture and Storage Early Deployment Act” would create a $1 billion annual […]
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Newsom says San Francisco will adopt Berkeley green financing model
San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom said something that caught my ear: San Francisco is going to adopt Berkeley’s innovative financing program to fund not only rooftop solar (as Berkeley does) but other distributed generation and energy efficiency projects. That is excellent stuff. Hopefully SF can pull it off successfully and influence other cities to follow […]
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EPA tells White House that greenhouse gases are threat to public welfare
The Environmental Protection Agency told the White House on Friday that climate change is a danger to public welfare — a move that takes the administration a step closer to regulating planet-warming greenhouse gases. The agency’s finding — which the White House will now review — comes in response to an April 2007 Supreme Court […]
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Obama hypes the green aspects of his budget plan
President Obama is giving top billing to clean energy and green jobs as he promotes his $3.6 trillion budget plan. Addressing a group of clean-tech entrepreneurs and researchers on Monday, the president noted that his proposed budget includes $150 billion over 10 years for direct investments in clean energy and efficiency, as well as $75 […]
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First DOE loan guarantee goes to … a solar manufacturer
The Department of Energy announced on Friday that the first energy loan guarantee authorized by the 2005 (!) Energy Policy Act went to a plant that manufactures solar panels: Energy Secretary Steven Chu today offered a $535 million loan guarantee for Solyndra, Inc. to support the company’s construction of a commercial-scale manufacturing plant for its […]
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The U.S. requires a strong climate bill to remain competitive
Contrary to popular belief, a strong climate bill will not harm U.S. competitiveness. Quite the reverse — it is our only hope for restoring U.S. leadership in key job creating industries such as solar energy, wind power, and automobile manufacturing, which was lost in large part because of conservative orthodoxy (see “U.S. left in the […]
