Climate Politics

Senate turns back sneak attack from climate action opponents

Opponents of climate action launched a surprise assault last Friday night. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) led an attempt to add an amendment to the budget bill that Congress should hold off on enacting cap-and-trade legislation until China and India take more action.

You'd expect Climate Security Act co-sponsors like Virginia's John Warner, Minnesota's Norm Coleman, Maine's Susan Collins, and North Carolina's Elizabeth Dole to oppose the amendment.

But then another surprise -- South Carolina's Lindsey Graham, New Hampshire's Judd Gregg, Florida's Mel Martinez, Alaska's Lisa Murkowski, Kansas' Pat Roberts, Oregon's Gordon Smith, Maine's Olympia Snowe, Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter, and New Hampshire's John Sununu also voted against it. In all, 61 senators voted to kill Sen. DeMint's amendment, with 12 Republicans joining nearly every present Democrat and independent (West Virginia's Sen. Robert Byrd voted for it).

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) then led a counterattack.

Chafee: ‘GOP genuflects before Old King Coal’

The former Senator from Rhode Island, Lincoln Chafee, plants his boot on the ass of his one-time Congressional colleagues: Indeed, “here we go again,” with the Bush EPA weakening environmental rules on building power plants near national parks. The environment is a key issue for many Americans but you would never know it by how […]

Presidential candidates may forgo shooting small animals to impress voters this year

This presidential election, for the first time in decades, will not feature candidates for the highest office in the land donning hunting gear and going out with guns to shoot small animals fleeing in terror. The contrast to the 2004 election, in which both candidates made a publicity stunt out of killing for votes, is stark.

In September of that year, The Arizona Republic published in September a strong op-ed by former White House speechwriter Matthew Scully, who excoriated both presidential candidates for killing innocent creatures while trolling for votes. Scully, a true-red Republican who loathes cruelty to animals, wrote:

Daily Show on green McCain

A man on emission:

RNC ‘Victory Chair’ talks about McCain’s climate agenda

Grist recently caught a few minutes with Carly Fiorina, the “Victory Chair” of the Republican National Committee. (Quite the title, eh? Apparently it means she’s “the primary advocate for John McCain and the Republican Party” at the RNC.) Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard and a former executive at both AT&T and Lucent Technologies, is […]

Bush admin debuts final recovery plan for spotted owl

The Bush administration has released a final plan for helping out the northern spotted owl, after a prior plan was deemed to have been watered down by political interference. Critics admit the plan is an improvement over last year’s draft — which relied heavily on, ahem, taking out predator barred owls with shotguns — but […]

Senate slips life support for ‘clean coal’ boondoggle into war supplemental package

Remember FutureGen, the pilot program that was supposed to yield the nation’s first zero-emissions, “clean coal” power plant? The one that even the Bush administration realized was a bad idea, after the price tag on the project ballooned to $1.8 billion? Well, some senators just don’t want to see it die ($ub req’d). Yesterday, the […]

McCain might not be as opposed to a windfall profits tax as his fellow Republicans

Via the Democratic National Committee’s blog, this video makes it seem like John McCain might not be as opposed to a windfall profits tax on oil companies as are his colleagues in the Senate and at the RNC:

EPA plans to loosen air-quality rules near national parks

Photo: Wolfgang Staudt Call us crazy, but rewriting the Clean Air Act to ease the way for new coal plants near national parks seems to fly in the face of that whole “clean air” thing. But sure enough, the U.S. EPA plans to make a change allowing the government to calculate the average annual emissions […]

‘Energy and Tax Extenders Act’ clears committee, heads to House floor

The House advanced legislation yesterday that would renew billions of dollars in tax breaks for wind, solar, biomass, and other renewable energy sources, and extend a proposed new tax credit for biofuels derived from sources other than corn. The “Energy and Tax Extenders Act of 2008” was approved by the Ways and Means Committee by […]