Climate Politics

Court strikes down federal clean-air rule that would have actually cleaned air

One of the rare Bush administration clean-air policies favored by enviros has been struck down by a federal appeals court. The Clean Air Interstate Rule would have required 28 Eastern states to reduce soot-causing, smog-forming emissions that easily spread on the wind. The U.S. EPA estimated that the rule would prevent 17,000 premature deaths per […]

Bush admin gets senior-itis, says it won’t decide on emissions before term ends

EPA head Stephen Johnson. Photo: epa.gov Instead of deciding whether greenhouse-gas emissions endanger human health and welfare and formulating standards to reduce them — as the Supreme Court ordered — the EPA will run out the clock for the next few months soliciting more public comment. The Supreme Court ordered the EPA last year to […]

Al Franken talks green jobs while Jesse Ventura threatens to bust heads

Minnesota Senate candidate and former funny-man Al Franken (D) recently put out a very, very sincere video on green jobs: Franken is taking on incumbent Norm Coleman (R), and polls so far have shown Coleman ahead by a considerable margin. But now former Reform Party governor, professional wrestler, and actor Jesse Ventura is threatening to […]

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius talks to Grist about her fight against coal and her VP potential

Among the many names swirling in the Obama VP buzz is that of Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. A second-term Democratic governor in what’s traditionally seen as a bastion of conservatism, Sebelius earned national attention as the chair of the Democratic Governors Association in 2007 and for delivering the Democratic response to this year’s State of […]

Alaska state legislature proposes fund to support alternative energy including coal

Alaska has proposed a $21 billion fund (Greenwire, $ub. req'd), which uses oil surpluses to support alternative energy projects, including:

wind, solar, geothermal, hydroelectric, tidal, biomass and a plant that "produces ultraclean fuels from coal."

State Rep. Les Gara (D-Anchorage) responds:

Coal is not renewable energy and by any fair definition it's not really alternative energy

Sounds controversial!

Smart ideas for post Lieberman-Warner climate policy

Lieberman-Warner had many, many, many, many, many problems. Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) has just done a bit of musing ($ub. req'd) on what the next effort ought to look like; he has done a rather eloquent job outlining the problems with Lieberman-Warner and suggesting what lessons we ought to take from its failure as we advance to a better model.

From Restructuring Today:

We’re number one!

“Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter!” — President George W. Bush, bidding farewell to the G8 meeting with a joke, upon which “Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock”

Boucher’s bill to fund CCS technology at the expense of rate-payers

A few months ago, the debate about greenhouse gas policy in Washington was in the Senate focused on Lieberman-Warner. That effort ultimately failed, as a good idea (reduce GHG emissions within a market framework) got turned into a really crummy bill. Good intentions were bedeviled by lousy execution. Conventional wisdom says that the next effort to develop a U.S. GHG plan will emerge from the House, and specifically from the House Energy committee.

This week, we got our first look at where their priorities lie, and it is not pretty. If there was any lesson taken from L-W's failure, it seems to have been that if your long-term goal is a crummy bill, you might as well just skip the whole good intentions part.

Cheney’s office censors CDC director’s testimony on climate-related health threats

The Center for American Progress Action Fund emails out a great daily report (sign up here). Today's subject is Dick Cheney's one Vader man war to use Jedi mind tricks censorship to keep the American public in the dark side on the dangers of climate change.

In this case, he censored the testimony on the "health threat posed by global warming" by Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last October. She had planned to say the "CDC considers climate change a serious public health concern."

But who really cares what the CDC has to say on the subject anyway when we have White House Press Secretary Dana Perino to assure us "There are public health benefits to climate change"? After all, Perino is an expert on the subject thanks to here bachelor's degree in mass communications and a masters in Public Affairs Reporting.

Here is the Progress Report in full:

If we’re already in energy crisis, what happens when a major Gulf storm hits?

Yesterday, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said he'd be open to letting Big Oil drill on previously-protected public lands. And now this:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called on President Bush to release oil from the government's emergency reserve to knock down gasoline prices she says "are helping push the economy toward recession."

Pelosi, D-Calif., in a letter to Bush noted that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve has been used three times before and each time the action has served to stabilize oil markets and lower gas prices. [...]

Bush turned to the reserves when hurricanes Katrina and Rita disrupted oil supplies in 2005. A total of 21 million barrels were made available to refineries "with great effectiveness to address emergency energy needs in the crisis," according to an Energy Department inspector general's report.

Hate to be the petroleum party pooper, but am I the only one who's worried about what happens if a major hurricane hits the Gulf of Mexico this summer? If we're pushing the post-hurricane panic button now, what do we push when there's actual panic? Can our panic meter go to 11?