Climate Politics

Senate session will kick off with vote on big wilderness and lands bill

Action in the Senate will begin this year with a Sunday vote on an omnibus public-lands bill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced on Wednesday.

The legislation was reintroduced on Wednesday by Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. It combines more than 150 bills on wilderness areas and other federal lands, and would protect more than 2 million acres of wilderness in nine states.

Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) repeatedly blocked the bill last year, and has threatened to do so again, using any parliamentary tactic necessary. "The decision by Senate leaders to kick off the new Congress with an earmark-laden omnibus lands bill makes a mockery of voters' hopes for change," said Coburn in a statement on Tuesday. "This package represents some of the worst aspects of congressional incompetence and parochialism. Congress should spend the next few weeks holding hearings on an economic stimulus package and identifying areas of the budget to cut to pay for that proposal. Instead, the Senate is set to resume business as usual."

With Markey in place, the House is geared for ambition on climate and energy

As Kate reported earlier today, new House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) is reorganizing the committee, unifying oversight of climate, energy, air quality, and water issues under a single subcommittee: the Energy and Environment Subcommittee.

The Boston Globe just broke the news that Ed Markey (D-Mass.) will chair the new subcommittee.

This is a big deal, even if you don't particularly care about inside Congressional baseball.

Right now Markey chairs the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, and reportedly enjoys working on telecom policy. Due to his seniority, he had his choice of subcommittees this session -- which meant he could, if he wanted, take the reins of the Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee from coal lover and Dingell ally Rick Boucher (D-Va.). That alone would have been, as Joe noted the other day, "almost as big a deal as Waxman defeating Dingell for committee chair."

But now Waxman has consolidated environment and energy jurisdiction in one subcommittee. Gone is the Environment and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee, chaired by Gene Green [D-Texas], another Dingell ally.

Apparently that sweetened the pot enough to make it irresistible to Markey.

Markey will remain chair of the Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming. Joe said the other day that he "can't see the point in keeping the Select committee if Markey switches positions," but I think that misses something important.

Jeff Merkley and Tom Udall to join Senate Environment Committee

Two new senators, Oregon's Jeff Merkley and New Mexico's Tom Udall, will be joining the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, chair Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said on Wednesday.

The two attended the committee's first hearing of the year on Wednesday, though their appointments are not yet official. Adding the two senators would give Democrats a three-seat majority on the committee, after holding a one-seat lead last Congress.

Final organizational structure has not yet been worked out, however, as the outcome of the never-ending Minnesota race between Al Franken (D) and Norm Coleman (R) may determine the ratio of Democrats to Republicans on the committee. The leadership from both parties will need to come to agreement on the breakdown.

The committee lost Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), who was booted from his seat in November as punishment for campaigning for Republican presidential candidate John McCain. It also lost Republicans John Warner (Va.) and Larry Craig (Idaho) to retirement. No word yet on who will replace them.

Senate Environment Committee gets rolling in 111th Congress

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said on Wednesday that she has been consulting with incoming Obama administration officials on a climate plan, though she didn't give a sense of when to expect a new bill this year.

"I will be putting out basic principles shortly," Boxer told reporters. "I wanted to have some consultation [with the incoming administration]." As for when to expect a new bill, Boxer said only that her committee will begin working on one "as soon as it makes sense."

She was also asked about what sort of green stimulus to expect in the upcoming economic package, and said that while she didn't give specifics, she foresees it including green measures. "I'm very optimistic we'll have some green jobs in this proposal, but I can't say how many."

Boxer's committee kicked off the 111th Congress on Wednesday with a briefing on "Investing in Green Technology as a Strategy for Economic Recovery," featuring New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman and clean-tech investor John Doerr, a partner at legendary venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. The two guests urged the committee to push for a price on carbon and massive investments in the research and development of new energy technologies.

Waxman creating new environment subcommittee

Henry Waxman. New House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) is planning some major changes to the organization of the subcommittees, notably creating a single subcommittee to oversee climate, energy, air quality, and water issues. In a letter [PDF] to Democratic committee members on Tuesday, Waxman proposed combining the two subcommittees that currently […]

Bush's last marine protection area isn't so much with the protection

On Tuesday the Bush administration announced plans to create the world's largest marine protection area in the Pacific Ocean.

It's a big deal. Huge even. Progressives like Jonathan Stein are rightly shocked and excited.

Remember though, an attitude of utter cynicism toward the Bush administration has served as an unfailingly accurate guide for eight years now. Let's not be too quick to give it up.

After all, there's this:

Two years ago with fanfare, President Bush declared a remote chain of Hawaiian islands the biggest, most environmentally protected area of ocean in the world.

It hasn't worked out that way.

Cleanup efforts have slowed, garbage is still piling up and Bush has cut his budget request by 80%.

And one wonders just how a cash-strapped federal government plans to police this brand new marine sanctuary. Turns out, Jim Connaughton, Chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, was asked just that earlier this week during a press briefing:

Q: Two questions. One, you mentioned monitoring. You also mentioned how remote this area is -- and I have actually fished this area quite a bit. And my question to you is, monitoring is one thing, but enforcement is an entirely different issue. And I don't honestly see how you can enforce any of this out there with the amount of government-based traffic that you have in the area. How do you plan to enforce these laws?

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: Well, let's begin -- first, this is our experience -- these are challenging areas to get to, so there's an embedded enforcement of just the difficulty of getting to these areas. Two, we operate from the presumption that most people who care about the resource, including your constituency, are law-abiding citizens, and so we expect that there will be a fair amount of increased awareness of the importance of the resource, and certainly that the boating community is very good about staying up to date on charts, especially the adventurous boating community, and staying up to date on -- just for safety purposes -- the conditions with respect to these remote areas.

Now, is there the potential for some Chinese commercial fishing fleet to come in and intrude the area? The answer to that is yes. And so one of our goals is through the management planning, and through several years of building out capacity, to also build out our capability to enforce.

So, the president's plan is to someday get around to have better enforcement. As to monitoring, Connaughton had this to say:

Pelosi promises mass transit and energy investments, not just roads and bridges

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed today that the stimulus package Congress is working on will do more than just invest in traditional projects like roads and bridges. "Make no mistake: this is not your grandfather's public works bill," said the Speaker.

The package, which she said must be passed "no later than mid-February," will have significant investments in transit, energy, and other technological advancements.

"Thanks to the leadership of our Chairmen on the Science Committee, Mr. Bart Gordon, and especially on Infrastructure, Mr. Oberstar, this is a smart, 21st century plan that will create new jobs by investing in a cleaner energy future. Mr. Waxman is working on that; strengthening high-tech infrastructure to bring the power of renewable energy and broadband to communities across America; and rebuilding our bridges, and modernizing our schools," said Pelosi.

The remarks came at a Democratic Steering & Policy Committee forum this morning on the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan." Also attending the forum: Dr. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moodyseconomy.com; former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich; Harvard economist Martin Feldstein; Norman Augustine, author of Rising Above the Gathering Storm and the former chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin; and Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Former TVA head rips coal, coal ash, coal industry, kids on his lawn

On Monday Living on Earth did a priceless interview with former utility exec David Freeman, ex-head of the TVA (and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District and the New York Power Authority), about the massive Tennessee coal ash spill.

Freeman's a crusty old coot (in a good way!) and he minces no words. Hard to pick my favorite bit, but this is a gem:

CURWOOD: Now it seemed to me though that there must be some kind of alternative to just dumping the stuff in a big pile. I mean, what alternatives, if any, are there out there?

FREEMAN: Well, the best one is to stop burning the coal and shut the plant down and use solar power and wind power. I am not gonna suggest that there is a clean way to control the filthy stuff that's left over when you burn coal. It's time that we outlawed new coal-fired plants and start systematically by age, shutting down the old ones.

Or this:

A legacy-making move for the outgoing prez

President George W. Bush deserves praise from ocean lovers for his creation of three new marine national monuments in the Pacific Ocean. This action protects some of the few remaining pristine coral reefs in the world by prohibiting all forms of commercial fishing and severely restricting recreational fishing.

These are among the last places on the planet where you can still see sharks and other top predators in something like a healthy state. President Bush -- and the Pew Environment Group, Marine Conservation Biology Institute and Environmental Defense Fund, who worked so hard for these monuments -- can be justifiably proud of the results.

It's easy to point out that the protected areas around the 10 islands could have been 16-times larger if Bush had included the full 200-mile exclusive economic zone in the monuments. As National Geographic scientist Enric Sala points out, there's no magic scientific line at 50 miles. It looks more like a political line to me.

Obama's campaign ag adviser mounts a weak defense of industrial food

Will Obama lead food and ag policy in new directions?

He raised hope late in the campaign season, when he indicated he had read -- and understood -- Michael Pollan's "Farmer in Chief" essay.

Since then, things have turned more dour. Obama made a boldly conventional pick for USDA chief -- a corn-belt ex-governor with ties to the GMO and biofuel industries. And now the chief adviser to this campaign on agricultural issues, Marshall Matz, has come out with a Chicago Tribune op-ed advocating a business-as-usual approach to ag policy. Matz co-wrote the piece with Democratic Party eminence grise (and farm-state politician) George McGovern.