Climate Politics

Last chance to pick your top hero/villain of 2008

Just before the holidays, we put up a list of green heroes and green villains for 2008 and asked readers to vote for their favorite (or, um, unfavorite).

Readership is low around the holidays, so I just want to bring those lists to your attention one last time, because voting closes in 24 hours! At that point we will declare winners and start handing out prizes, as soon as we come up with some prizes.

Currently the top hero is Sierra Club's anti-coal activist Bruce Nilles, with 661 votes -- a healthy lead over the second place hero James Hansen at 437. (Guess it helps to have a very large club at your back.)

Third is Barack Obama with 399 and fourth is Michael Pollan with 258.

Dead last? Poor Jim Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy, with 6 votes.

Meanwhile, flaccid apparatchik Stephen Johnson, head of the EPA, is walking away with the top villain spot. He's got 397 votes, far outpacing second place Sarah Palin (240) and third place (and personal favorite) Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship (236).

Amusingly, Jim Rogers is losing this one too -- just 12 votes. Perhaps we should come up with a new category for this dude.

Anyway: Go vote now while you still can! We'll announce the final winners tomorrow.

Obama lays out his economic stimulus plan

On Thursday, President-elect Barack Obama called for doubling production of alternative energy in the United States over the next three years as part of his "American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan." In a speech officially rolling out the plan, he also set a goal of retrofitting more than 75 percent of federal buildings and 2 million homes to make them more energy-efficient.

"In the process, we will put Americans to work in new jobs that pay well and can't be outsourced -- jobs building solar panels and wind turbines; constructing fuel-efficient cars and buildings; and developing the new energy technologies that will lead to even more jobs, more savings, and a cleaner, safer planet in the bargain," he said. (He did not say, nor is it entirely clear, why jobs manufacturing turbines and cars can't be outsourced.)

Obama also pledged to make major investments in infrastructure, including not just road and bridge repairs but construction of a new, national "smart grid" that "will save us money, protect our power sources from blackout or attack, and deliver clean, alternative forms of energy to every corner of our nation."

A draft of the full plan [PDF] circulating on Capitol Hill outlines more specifics, including a call for a federal renewable-energy standard of 25 percent by 2025 and an extension of the production tax credit for renewable energy.

The draft includes $50 billion in loan guarantees to help the auto industry "retool, develop new battery technologies, and produce the next generation of fuel-efficient cars here in America." This figure is double what Congress allotted last year, and the Obama plan calls for speedier dispersion of the funding as well.

The plan also calls for the creation of an Advanced Manufacturing Fund that would be used to support promising new manufacturing strategies. There's no dollar figure on the fund, but the plan says it would be based on a peer-review process and similar to Michigan's 21st Century Jobs Fund. It calls for a doubling of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, which works with manufacturers to improve efficiency and spur new technologies, but whose funding has been cut in recent years.

ZOMG BREAKING! Carol Browner is a commie!!1!

"Seriously."

Court to hear case that interprets Clean Water Act's purview over mine fill

The future of America's streams, rivers and lakes is on the agenda of U.S. Supreme Court justices this Monday, Jan. 12, when they hear arguments on whether a pristine Alaskan lake may be killed by operators of Kensington gold mine.

Earthjustice attorney Tom Waldo, who has kept the lake alive through a series of successful battles in lower courts, will again take the lead in this final showdown -- but the stakes have become much greater.

"The whole reason Congress passed the Clean Water Act was to stop turning our lakes and rivers into industrial waste dumps," Waldo said. "The Bush Administration selected the Kensington Mine to test the limits of the Clean Water Act. The Army Corps had never issued a permit like this before."

That the high court even agreed to review the case is troubling because of the damage that may be inflicted on the federal Clean Water Act. A ruling in favor of the dumping scheme would allow reinterpretation of the Act so that mining waste could be dumped into waterways throughout the United States. Should the worst happen, defenders of the country's waterways would almost certainly have to rely on Congress and the Obama administration for relief.

The case is being closely followed in Alaska because of its immediate implications for Pebble Mine, a massive gold mine proposed for development above the headwaters of Bristol Bay, the world's richest sockeye salmon fishery.

American Enterprise Institute endorses tax credits for super-efficient, furnace-free homes

If the American Enterprise Institute starts acknowledging that residential energy efficiency has a "positive rate of return" -- and advocating federal support to capture the full energy savings possible -- perhaps the world is changing.

Then again, it may just be temporary institutional schizophrenia, since others in AEI continue to assert (without any supporting evidence), "No matter what you've been told, the technology to significantly reduce emissions is decades away and extremely costly."

Kevin Hassett, AEI's director of economic-policy studies, has a Bloomberg News column that I excerpt below, because of its surprising degree of common sense -- and because he cites actual research:

Funding transit to reshape the Sunbelt

The city of Phoenix celebrated the dawning of the new year by beginning normal, paying service on its shiny new light rail line. The current 20-mile segment runs from north of central Phoenix through the city, past Sky Harbor airport, and into Tempe and Mesa. If current plans are realized, an extension to the line will be completed by 2012, and a full(ish) network will begin to take shape over the following decade.

The light rail line is part of a wave of transit construction that's bringing transit systems to a new generation of booming cities. These emergent metropolises often went through crucial development phases at a time when the highway was king. Compared to older cities in the Northeast and Midwest, the amount of space devoted to dense, gridded development in such places is quite small indeed, and it has long been unclear whether transit could work in these cities, built for the car. A dreadful chicken and egg problem seems to exist. Few neighborhoods are currently dense enough to support transit, so opponents argue that systems won't draw riders. And because opponents can make this argument and systems often die on the drawing board, these cities never have the opportunity to catalyze denser, transit-oriented growth.

 

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.