Climate Politics

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.

Schwarzenegger set to steamroll environmental regs with budget plan

California is in a heap of trouble. A $42 billion heap, to be exact. I've never had to figure out how to fix a $42 billion deficit, and I don't envy Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger or his legislative sparring partners. But it's worth noting some environmental skullduggery that seems to be creeping into the negotiations. (OK, it's more straightforward than skullduggerous, but that's just too fun to say.)

First, there's a push in Schwarzenegger's proposed budget to exempt several transportation projects from environmental review. Or, to put it more plainly, "Just let us build our highways, you girly men." Supporters of the California Environmental Quality Act (traditionally known as "Democrats") are not happy.

Democratic aides leak list of Reid's top priorities for 2009

TAPPED's Tim Fernholz posts a list of the first 10 bills that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is planning to move on in the 111th Congress, according to Democratic aides. Energy and environmental issues will be addressed by some of the legislation, including the stimulus bill, which may have notable green elements. Here's the summary of the stimulus plan:

S.1 -- American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. "To create jobs, restore economic growth, and strengthen America's middle class through measures that modernize the nation's infrastructure, enhance America's energy independence, expand educational opportunities, preserve and improve affordable health care, provide tax relief, and protect those in greatest need, and for other purposes."

Also on tap:

S.5 -- Cleaner, Greener, and Smarter Act of 2009. This is a bill that focuses mainly on green investment and updating infrastructure to be more efficient and less polluting. But since a lot of those priorities are expected to be rolled into the stimulus package, one wonders if this is a vehicle for cap-and-trade and the Kyoto Protocols, given this provision: "requiring reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases in the United States and achieving reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases abroad."

Fernholz also lists the "Returning Government to the American People Act," a bill intended to "return the Government to the people by reviewing controversial 'midnight regulations' issued in the waning days of the Bush Administration." This too could have green implications.

Former N.Y. guv says stimulus funding should go to smart meters and plug-in charging stations

Newly minted Slate columnist Eliot Spitzer (yep, that one) has some deep thoughts about, ahem, stimulus. He says the big bucks should be spent on transforming the economy rather than on repairing the bridges, buildings, and other infrastructure of yesteryear, and he names two energy initiatives as top priorities:

In the energy arena, two investments are critical. The first is smart meters. These would permit, with a smart grid, time-of-day pricing for all consumers, with potentially double-digit reductions in peak demand, significant cost savings, and consequential remarkable energy and environmental impacts. These declines in peak demand would translate into dramatic reduction in the number of new power plants. The problem with installation of smart meters has been both the cost and, often, state-by-state regulatory hurdles. Now is the moment to sweep both aside and transform our entire electricity market into a smart market.

Second, the most significant hurdle to beginning the shift to nongasoline-based cars is the lack of an infrastructure to distribute the alternative energy, whether it is electricity -- plug-in hybrids -- or natural gas or even hydrogen. Once that infrastructure is there, it is said, consumers will be able to opt for the new technology. If that is so, let us build that infrastructure now: Transform existing gas stations so they can serve as distribution points for natural gas or hydrogen, build plug-in charging centers at parking lots, and design units for at-home garages. These would, indeed, be transformative investments.

Mississippi governor illustrates how the resource curse works in America

If you think of U.S. energy policy in Freudian terms, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour represents the pure, unbridled id. His energy strategy for the state? "More energy."

If you're wondering what that means, he spells it out:

Mississippi has large deposits of lignite coal, and the Mississippi Power Co. has announced that it will build a coal-fired electrical generation facility that will have carbon capture and sequestration. As I understand it, this coal-fired plant will have the emissions of a power plant powered by natural gas because the captured carbon will be compressed and then injected into older oil wells to boost production.

Rentech has announced that it's building a coal-to-liquids fuels plant near Natchez. In Greenville we've got a biodiesel plant going in. And Entergy has already applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build a second nuclear reactor near St. Francisville.

The response of his interlocutor T. Boone Pickens? "The rest of the country might want to take a look at your state."

Yeah, take a look at what the resource curse looks like in America: Among U.S. states Mississippi ranks 50th in infant mortality, first in children living in poverty, second in teen pregnancies, 48th in bachelor degrees, 50th in per-capita income, first in obesity, 49th in overall health, second in unemployment, and first in poverty.

Despite the grinding poverty, Mississippi ranks 14th in per-capita energy consumption, perhaps because it ranks 47th in energy efficiency.

Yes, the rest of the country might want to take a look at what a supply-obsessed "more energy" strategy yields.