Climate Politics

Tom Friedman on the need to invest in infrastructure and revitalize the U.S.

Sometimes Tom Friedman drives me crazy, but he often has a good nugget hidden in the middle of his columns, like this one last Sunday:

A few weeks ago, my wife and I flew from New York's Kennedy Airport to Singapore. In J.F.K.'s waiting lounge we could barely find a place to sit. Eighteen hours later, we landed at Singapore's ultramodern airport, with free Internet portals and children's play zones throughout. We felt, as we have before, like we had just flown from the Flintstones to the Jetsons. If all Americans could compare Berlin's luxurious central train station today with the grimy, decrepit Penn Station in New York City, they would swear we were the ones who lost World War II.

I've often wondered what would happen if Germany, Italy, and Japan fought a world war against the U.S., Russia, and Britain in today's world -- but on a more positive note, perhaps we can move past the "private wealth, public squalor" contrast that John Kenneth Galbraith pointed to long ago.

McCain kicks off series of environmental events with address in N.J.

John McCain gave a campaign speech in New Jersey today in which he touched on environmental issues and talked up his record in that area. “There is no doubt our environment is globally challenged,” McCain said in a stop at the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, N.J. “I’m proud of my environmental record.” But […]

U.S. fails to be climate leader because of war, says Obama

The war in Iraq is one reason the U.S. is such an environmental laggard, Barack Obama said in a CNN interview Thursday. “I think the way we have run this war in Iraq has … led us to ignore the critical needs for us to focus on a sound energy policy in this country,” Obama […]

How rising oil prices are obliterating America’s superpower status

The following was originally published on Tom's Dispatch, which has graciously permitted us to use it here.

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Nineteen years ago, the fall of the Berlin Wall effectively eliminated the Soviet Union as the world's other superpower. Yes, the USSR as a political entity stumbled on for another two years, but it was clearly an ex-superpower from the moment it lost control over its satellites in Eastern Europe.

Less than a month ago, the United States similarly lost its claim to superpower status when a barrel crude oil roared past $110 on the international market, gasoline prices crossed the $3.50 threshold at American pumps, and diesel fuel topped $4.00. As was true of the USSR following the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, the U.S. will no doubt continue to stumble on like the superpower it once was; but as the nation's economy continues to be eviscerated to pay for its daily oil fix, it, too, will be seen by increasing numbers of savvy observers as an ex-superpower-in-the-making.

That the fall of the Berlin Wall spelled the erasure of the Soviet Union's superpower status was obvious to international observers at the time. After all, the USSR visibly ceased to exercise dominion over an empire (and an associated military-industrial complex) encompassing nearly half of Europe and much of Central Asia. The relationship between rising oil prices and the obliteration of America's superpower status is, however, hardly as self-evident. So let's consider the connection.

Dry hole superpower

The fact is, America's wealth and power has long rested on the abundance of cheap petroleum. The United States was, for a long time, the world's leading producer of oil, supplying its own needs while generating a healthy surplus for export.

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 […]