Climate Politics
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U.N. food summit ends without agreement on solutions
A high-level three-day United Nations food summit ended Thursday without wide agreement on solutions to the world food crisis. At the meeting, delegates sparred over trade barriers, biofuels’ role in keeping food prices high, agricultural subsidies, how food aid should be spent, and how much aid to give. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon opened the conference […]
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GOP leaders resort to high jinks to stall climate bill
Republican leaders essentially shut down the Senate Wednesday during what was supposed to be a time of debate on the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, forcing clerks to read the entire 492-page bill aloud. Republicans said the maneuver — which sucked up nine hours — was a protest against the Democratic majority’s slow pace in considering […]
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McCain asks Obama to plane-pool to joint town-hall meetings
Now that Barack Obama has the Democratic presidential nomination in the bag, John McCain says he wants to get the general election rolling. This morning, McCain invited Obama to join him for 10 town-hall-style meetings throughout the summer. In a conference call with reporters this afternoon, McCain said the “old-fashioned, traditional town-hall meeting” would “change […]
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Arizona senator says no to Boxer-L-W without giga-subsidies for nukes
McCain said last night that he is the candidate of change. How is billions of dollars in subsidies to build hundreds of nuclear power plants "change"?
Here is everything you need to know about McCain's understanding of both energy and climate issues: He doesn't care enough about the climate to support even a so-so bill like Boxer-Lieberman-Warner unless there are giga-subsidies for nukes beyond the $100 billion or so the industry has received to date.
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Will the Senate ever get to constructive (or destructive) debate on climate bill?
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has said he won’t allow floor debate on the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act to extend beyond next week, according to an article in E&E Daily ($ub. req’d) today. “If we don’t finish it next week, then it means something has gone wrong,” he’s quoted as saying. But at an […]
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Senate GOP delays climate debate still further by forcing clerk to read Boxer amendment
Today in Senate action on the Climate Security Act, Republicans are forcing the clerk to read the entirety of the Boxer substitute amendment [PDF], claiming they haven’t had enough time to read it yet. It’s 157 pages long. Boxer, of course, protested, but her appeal was rejected. The clerk’s been reading for an hour already. […]
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Democrats are undermining the strongest message behind climate policy
In this post, I argued that the best, simplest, and most impactful message for advocates of climate legislation is this: Good climate policy will rescue American families from a sinking ship. I meant to add that the Dems not only seem to miss the power of this message, but are by all appearances working to […]
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Oklahoma senator makes stuff up, wastes time in climate change debate
James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the Senate’s leading climate change denier, had plenty of kooky and alarmist things to say in yesterday’s debate over climate change legislation. Think Progress has video of one of his wing-nuttiest contributions to the discussion, in which he lies about Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, and the IPCC: Yep, the same IPCC […]
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Climate bills will only get better from here
Mark Thoma, whose Economist’s View is an excellent resource for all things economic, posts a roundup of writing on cap-and-trade versus a carbon tax, including a good primer on how the economics work and why the two plans are so similar. He also excerpts a rather cynical take by Pete Davis on the political reasons […]