Climate Politics

After the tire gauge fiasco, Obama’s counterpunch should equate McCain with Cheney

This post is by ClimateProgress guest blogger Bill Becker, executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project. —– An old friend of mine used to say that at a certain stage in political campaigns, dead cats start flying through the air. I’ve never understood what he meant by that, but I think the cat-flinging has […]

Exxon sponsors political coverage

ExxonMobil is sponsoring political coverage from CNN, CBS, and National Journal. Here’s a question: Would they accept sponsorship by Philip Morris?

An American Carol, failing to make it to a theater near you

Sen. Boxer none too happy about feds’ attack on ESA

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) wrote a letter Friday to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne expressing “great concern” over the Bush administration’s sneaky attack on the Endangered Species Act. The change would allow federal agencies to green-light many projects with no independent review of impact on endangered species — which, uh, kind of defeats the purpose. Boxer […]

Why McCain hates renewables but pretends he loves them

McCain has been an opponent of renewable energy all his political life. Why? He is a conservative — and that is what conservatives do. The GOP’s ultra-rich big energy donors don’t like competition and dole out millions to get their way. He has long been uncomfortable around cutting edge technology — witness his Internet illiteracy. […]

Oil wealth contains the ‘seeds of its own destruction’

Originally posted to the NDN blog. The reappearance of a belligerent Russia on the world stage, buoyed by high oil prices and newfound wealth, would appear to signal a new era in global politics. For anyone still clinging to the idea of the unipolar moment, the spectacle of Nicholas Sarkozy brokering a deal between Russia […]

The Twinkie lobby

Photo: Nathan Pruzaniec I’ve been pondering writing something about this story in Politico, in which Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says he’s fine with any energy bill that doesn’t "raise taxes," which is Republicanese for revoking some of the billions in tax breaks and subsidies U.S. taxpayers provide oil companies. McConnell is well aware that […]

Why do more men than women support nuclear power?

One other bit from the recent Rasmussen results caught my eye: More than twice as many likely McCain voters (73%) like his idea of building more nuclear plants versus 35% of potential Obama voters. Similarly, 72% of men favor building more plants as opposed to only 40% of women. More women (43%) are against the […]

Will Gore be veep?

I was just thinking to myself, "self, the time is rapidly running out for speculating about Al Gore running for president being selected as Obama’s VP! What fun will punditry be then?" Luckily, Bob Kuttner’s got our backs: Most folks have assumed that Gore is off the VP list, but he hasn’t been slotted as […]

On energy, survey results show public favors supply, increasingly favors Republicans

New polling from Rasmussen confirms current D.C. scuttlebutt: Republicans are winning on energy. The reason can be boiled down to this: Voters overwhelmingly want prices brought down, they’re convinced that increasing supply is the way to do that, and Republicans are the ones most vocally calling for increased supply. There’s lots in recent survey results […]