Climate Politics

Committee hears testimony from whistleblower on EPA dealings

Jason Burnett, the former associate deputy administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency who resigned last month over the Bush administration’s unwillingness to address greenhouse-gas emissions, provided more details to a Senate panel Tuesday about how top White House officials worked to quash new regulations on greenhouse gases. Appearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works […]

Bush admin’s effort to spur oil shale production won’t do much for consumers in short run

New regulations proposed by the Bush administration are aimed at tapping the country’s huge reserves of oil shale, steps Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said are intended to reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil in the short term. But one man’s short term might feel like eternity to consumers paying $4.50 a gallon, as it would […]

Memo calling for increased offshore drilling and shale development

I have received the text of an Alice-in-Wonderland memo (below) that House Republican leaders will circulate today on legislation they plan to offer. It claims:

To increase the supply American-made energy in environmentally sound ways, the legislation will:

* Open our deep water ocean resources, which will provide an additional 3 million barrels of oil per day;

* Open the Arctic coastal plain, which will provide an additional 1 million barrels of oil per day; and

* Allow development of our nation's shale oil resources, which could provide an additional 2.5 million barrels of oil per day

First off, we opened the vast majority of our deep water ocean resources to drilling two years ago and oil prices doubled.

Second, according to the Bush administration's own energy analysts, ending the federal moratorium on coastal drilling would add perhaps 150,000 barrels of oil per day in the 2020s and have no impact on prices through 2030, unless, as seems likely, California blocks drilling off its coast, in which case it would add well under 100,000 barrels of oil per day in the 2020s.

Third, opening up the "Arctic coastal plain" (GOP-speak for Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) would also have no impact on prices, according to the Bush administration's own energy analysts.

Fourth, you can't develop U.S. shale in environmentally sound ways.

Yet Republican leader John Boehner, Republican Whip Roy Blunt, Conference Chairman Adam Putnam, and Chief Deputy Whip Eric Cantor still have the chutzpah to write:

Growing demand and tight supply fuels increase in gas prices

In his "Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress" before the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, U.S. Senate, last week, chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke explained why oil prices are so high and are likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future:

The spot price of West Texas intermediate crude oil soared about 60 percent in 2007 and, thus far this year, has climbed an additional 50 percent or so. The price of oil currently stands at about five times its level toward the beginning of this decade. Our best judgment is that this surge in prices has been driven predominantly by strong growth in underlying demand and tight supply conditions in global oil markets. Over the past several years, the world economy has expanded at its fastest pace in decades, leading to substantial increases in the demand for oil. Moreover, growth has been concentrated in developing and emerging market economies, where energy consumption has been further stimulated by rapid industrialization and by government subsidies that hold down the price of energy faced by ultimate users ...

On the supply side, despite sharp increases in prices, the production of oil has risen only slightly in the past few years.

Matt Yglesias is making sense

On Republican gas price demagoguery: [Anti-density zoning and minimum parking mandates] are regulatory barriers to solving our energy problems every bit as much as the ban on offshore drilling is. And conservatives are against regulation, right? Except the anti-drilling regulation is good for the environment and for coastal economies whereas anti-urbanist regulation is economically inefficient […]

Grist talks to Oregon Democratic Senate candidate Jeff Merkley

Oregon Senate candidate Jeff Merkley was in Austin for Netroots Nation, where he appeared on a panel about energy issues. Merkley is attempting to unseat Gordon Smith, the sole GOP senator on the West Coast, this November, and he’s put climate and environment issues at the top of his campaign agenda. His plans include calling […]

Bush admin proposes rules for domestic oil-shale development

The Bush administration today will propose rules for tapping the U.S.’s vast oil-shale deposits, estimated to hold up to 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil. Oil shale development is enormously expensive and spectacularly polluting, but the U.S. Department of the Interior is expected to frame the debate in terms of high fuel prices and domestic […]

Grist talks to Alaska Democratic Senate candidate Mark Begich

Anchorage’s Democratic mayor, Mark Begich, is challenging Republican incumbent Ted Stevens for his Senate seat this November. Begich, 46, is in his fifth year as mayor, and is the city’s first mayor actually born in Anchorage. In a state that’s already feeling the effects of a warming planet, Begich lists climate change as a top […]

A failure of leadership in the wind

This recently appeared in Wendy Williams' blog. She is coauthor of the book Cape Wind: Money, Celebrity, Class, Politics, and the Battle for Our Energy Future on Nantucket Sound, now out in paperback -- a fascinating and horrifying read.

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I've been giving lots of talks about Cape Wind around the country, and I can tell you -- the American people are getting really angry. Both Democrats and Republicans are equally disgusted by what they read in our book about Cape Wind.

At this point, they're angry about a lot more than Ted Kennedy and Mitt Romney getting together behind the scenes or over dinner to plot about how to kill Cape Wind.

Has the candidate’s stance shifted?

Obama loves coal! No, he’s a flip-flopper who’s ready to embrace policies that would hurt America’s coal industry and its many employees across the country. So which one is it? USA Today is the latest major media outlet to explore the Democratic presidential candidate and his views on coal, with a piece last Friday looking […]