Climate Politics
All Stories
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If sticks don’t work, try carrots
For an $80 billion program, President Barack Obama’s cap-and-trade proposal is very short on specifics. His budget plan [PDF] provides only the briefest policy rationale for cap-and-trade, describing it as “a policy approach that dramatically reduced acid rain at much lower costs than the traditional government regulations and mandates of the past.” The acid-rain program’s […]
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What works for telemarketers might work for junk-mailers
I have a foolproof plan to fight spam: if the government gave out Viagra for free, then most spammers would quickly go out of business as their market would be undercut. Foolproof. Our friends at ForestEthics are trying to do the same for junk mail, except they have an even better plan: a Do Not […]
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Major survey finds overwhelming public support for action on global warming and clean energy
Yale and George Mason Universities surveyed 2,164 Americans last fall about their “climate change beliefs, attitudes, policy preferences, and actions.” Details will be posted at midnight Tuesday here. Here is a first look: 92 percent supported more funding for research on renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind power; 85 percent supported tax rebates […]
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Approach water management as an economic problem
Throughout the United States, water management has been approached primarily as an engineering problem, rather than an economic one. Water supply managers are reluctant to use price increases as water conservation tools, instead relying on non-price demand management techniques, such as requirements for the adoption of specific technologies and restrictions on particular uses. In my […]
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Obama is right to return most carbon revenue to taxpayers
As a climate change policy, President Obama’s carbon cap is a winner. It gets greenhouse reductions at the lowest possible cost and spurs the innovation and invention that will drive us to a clean-energy economy. But if folks are eyeing the carbon cap as a way to raise money to pay for clean energy programs, […]
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Healthcare yes, cap-and-trade no?
George Stephanopoulos says Dems can't possibly pass both healthcare reform and cap-and-trade, and they've effectively chosen healthcare. As much as he bugs me, I fear he's pretty much right about this.
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Los Angeles rejects solar plan, still likes solar power
Los Angeles citizens voted on a citywide solar energy plan on March 3, but the very narrow results didn’t become official until yesterday: It lost (by about 1 percent). That doesn’t mean the city’s electric utility won’t proceed with rapidly expanding its solar voltaic energy portfolio — it still has the authority to do so. […]
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First DOE loan guarantee goes to solar
Today the Department of Energy announced its first energy loan guarantee. It’s going to … Solyndra, a manufacturer of solar panels. What’s the phrase? Oh, right: elections have consequences.
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Let’s call a gas tax the ‘All-American Energy-Independence Assessment’
Whether they are called “revenue enhancements” or “user charges,” fear of the political consequences of taxes restricts debate on energy and environmental policy options in Washington. In a March 7 post on “green jobs,” in which I argued that it is not always best to try to address two challenges with a single policy instrument, […]
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U.S. groups desert precautionary principle, 53 to 6
After ducking the matter for a decade, U.S. environmental organizations finally pulled together a climate policy, but the National Call to Action on Global Warming issued by 53 organizations on March 5 is a mistake and should be reconsidered. The National Call contains key elements that have been startlingly absent from our efforts to date […]
