Climate Politics

Lieberman-Warner moved from critical condition to the morgue

The fading hopes for the Lieberman-Warner climate bill have all but ended (see E&E News, "Sponsors lower expectations for Lieberman-Warner bill," $ub. req'd, reprinted below).

Serious climate legislation had been in critical condition for some months (see "Boucher lets conservatives block House climate bill" and "Don't hold your breath on Lieberman-Warner passing in 2008."). Doctors and family members finally pulled the plug this week, and the patient appeared to lose all vital signs. The coroner listed "apathy" as the cause of death.

The only hope for revival now rests in the faint possibility that Lieberman-Warner turns out to be either an immortal cop, a vampire private detective, or possibly a relentless, indestructible killing machine from the future that had taken on the guise of so-so climate legislation in an effort to fulfill its mission of ruining life on this planet for Homo "sapiens." (Note to self: That was a bit harsh.)

More seriously, too many senators simply wanted to do too much watering down of L-W, plus we have the little-known provision of the Constitution that says all pieces of legislation aimed at sparing billions of people from unimaginable misery must receive 60 votes. The messy details are below:

EPA needs to pay attention to carbon monoxide, says judge

Carbon dioxide gets all the press, but the U.S. EPA is way behind on its legal obligation to update the nation’s carbon monoxide regulations — and it needs to get crackin’, a federal judge ruled this week. Federal law requires a reassessment of carbon-monoxide standards every five years, but the EPA last took a look […]

New paper demands consideration of global warming in federal policy decisions

This post is by ClimateProgress guest blogger Kari Manlove, fellows assistant at the Center for American Progress.

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The fact that our country has a National Environmental Policy Act means we should have a national environmental policy, and any national environmental policy is bound to take into consideration global warming, right?

Wrong on two counts.

The U.S. is sorely lacking an updated environmental policy. It's been over a decade and counting. With the EPA as example, and based on its condition as of late (see here and here), the climate's looking grim.

As for a cohesive national policy that takes into account global warming's causes and impacts? Think again. States have been infinitely more active than our federal government (and we thank them).

What North Carolina and Indiana tell us about future oil and climate policy

For nearly two months now, Sen. Clinton has been outperforming the closing polls in primary state after primary state. And no one can possibly say that Sen. Obama had a good past three weeks, with the reemergence of Rev. Wright. Yet this time, he outperformed the recent polls in both states.

This suggests that in the only other big issue to rise in the last week of the campaign -- the gas tax holiday -- Obama did not lose votes taking the principled position. As I (and many others) have blogged, a gas tax holiday would most likely benefit the oil companies more than the the average consumer. Also, it sends a terrible message about future climate policies (namely that some weak-kneed president might roll back carbon prices the first time the economy hit a rough patch after a cap-and-trade system was passed) -- see "A gas tax holiday would be cynical and indefensible."

The green community should mend, not work in vain to end, cost-benefit analysis

Failing the cost-benefit test

The R. Gallagher coal-fired power plant in Indiana emits over 50,000 tons of sulfur dioxide per year. Sulfur dioxide is a major component of particulate matter -- a form of pollution known to cause adverse cardiovascular and respiratory health effects. Sulfur dioxide also mixes with other pollution in the atmosphere to form acid rain. As a result of these adverse health effects, the Office of Management and Budget estimates that each ton of sulfur dioxide released into the atmosphere imposes $7,300 in costs on the American public. This means that the R. Gallagher facility imposes over $370 million worth of costs each year.

Environmentalists have fought for years to clean up or shut down dirty power plants like R. Gallagher. According to an analysis by the Environmental Integrity Project, the dirtiest fifty plants account for 40 percent of sulfur dioxide emissions, but only 13.7 percent of the electric generation. If we cleaned up the worst of the worst, we would make tremendous progress in improving the quality of the nation's air.

What makes the existence of plants like R. Gallagher so galling is that there is absolutely no reason why they should be allowed to pollute the way they do. Given the massive social costs imposed by plants like R. Gallagher, it makes basic economic sense to invest in pollution control technology -- or even build an entirely new efficient plant next door and shut the facility down entirely.

The Bush administration has had almost eight years to fix the problem of R. Gallagher. Despite its professed allegiance to the cost-benefit principles that reveal pollution from the plant as an economic disaster, the administration has done nothing to stop it. Congress, which contains many ostensible fans of cost-benefit analysis as well, hasn't closed the grandfathering loophole in the Clean Air Act that keeps R. Gallagher in business. When tougher environmental regulation is so clearly backed by sound economic analysis, the only explanation for the policy gap is a failure of the political process. This is not an ideological question; it is not a question of competing values. R. Gallagher, and similar polluting plants, stand as perfect monuments to a political system that has failed the American public.

EPW subcommittee seeks answers on politicization in EPA, gets few

The U.S. EPA is committed to transparency, representatives of the agency testified yesterday before a subcommittee of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. The hearing was called to look into recent allegations of politicization and secrecy within the agency. EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson — the man everyone wants to hear from on the subject […]

What will London’s new mayor, Boris Johnson, do for the environment?

Ben Tuxworth, communications director at Forum for the Future, writes a monthly column for Gristmill on sustainability in the U.K. and Europe.

Boris Johnson is mayor of London. It's pretty surprising to many of us here, including a fair number of political commentators and, I'd be willing to bet, even a number of the people who voted for him. It's hard to imagine an American equivalent. George Bush as president has some of the connotations, but lacks the class overtones (Johnson is an old Etonian) that we find so irresistible in Britain.

Johnson's trademarks thus far in his political career have been saying what he thinks (sounds great, but includes occasionally referring to black people as "picaninnies"), being posh and funny, and having blond hair. Despite being a senior member of the Conservative team, in his media appearances he is charmingly off-message, with a self-deprecating gag to deflect any serious questions. He's become a sort of mascot for English love of wit but hatred of the intellectual.

So far so good, but compared to the previous mayor, Ken Livingstone, who battled Maggie Thatcher for the soul of London in the '80s and who defined the new office of London mayor, Johnson seems almost willfully lightweight, with no policy record and no real policies, particularly on the environment. Beyond the knee-jerk stuff -- fight crime! get rid of bendy buses! affordable housing for all! -- Johnson's campaign has been very short on specifics. "This guy is just fumbling around," Arnold Schwarzenegger said after seeing him speak at a conference last year.

Cities

Why don’t candidates who claim to be interested in climate change talk about cities more? That’s where the rubber is hitting the road: Officials in King County and other places are rethinking the way their communities grow and operate, all with an eye toward reducing their overall carbon footprint. After decades of policies that encouraged […]

Senators both GOP and Dem introduce destined-to-fail legislation

Senate Democrats are trying once again to yank $17 billion in tax breaks away from oil companies that are enjoying booming profits. The Consumer-First Energy Act, introduced in the Senate on Wednesday, would also put a 25 percent tax on oil companies that don’t invest in renewable energy. Bill cosponsor Harry Reid (D-Nev.) sums up, […]

Alaska legislature looking for polar-bear skeptics

The Alaska legislature wants to use $2 million in state money to fund an “academic based” conference to highlight the views of scientists who don’t think the polar bear should be put on the endangered-species list. The U.S. Interior Department must make a decision by May 15 on whether polar bears are a threatened or […]