Climate Politics

Connecticut goes big with emissions-reducing goals

The Connecticut senate has unanimously passed a bill aimed at reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, becoming the fifth state to pass such legislation (after California, Hawaii, New Jersey, and Washington). The bill would require Connecticut to reduce emissions 10 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and 80 percent below 2001 levels by 2050. If, as expected, Gov. […]

Rejecting and renouncing

Hillary Clinton has been pushing Congresscritters to take a stand on her gas tax gimmick. Now a group of 28 members of the House of Representatives have issued a statement in which they “unequivocally” reject the notion of a gas tax holiday.

McCain and Clinton: job killers

According to the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, the gas tax holiday proposed by John McCain and Hillary Clinton would destroy 23,107 jobs in California alone. UPDATE: Steve’s got a point. The ARTBA report only criticizes McCain’s proposal, because McCain proposes no replacement for the lost revenue. I should have looked more closely at […]

Reid smarter than Clinton

Vows to keep the gas tax holiday out of pending Democrat gas price legislation.

Friends of the Earth Action launches ad against Clinton’s ‘gas tax holiday’

Friends of the Earth Action, which over the weekend endorsed Barack Obama in the Democratic primary, issued a new web ad today criticizing Hillary Clinton for supporting a “gas-tax holiday” and praising Obama for his “honest clean energy policy.” Here’s their ad:

Bhopal activists detained after protest at Prime Minister’s house

Activists and victims of the world’s worst industrial accident in Bhopal, India, in 1984 were detained by police this week after protesting in front of the Indian Prime Minister’s house. The Bhopal protesters, including many children, have been in Delhi for over a month waiting for an audience with the PM after walking there from […]

Direct mailers from Obama campaign hail ‘clean Kentucky coal’

Obama for clean Kentucky coal Hillary Clinton has been pilloried for pandering to working class voters with her gas-tax holiday proposal. But she’s not the only one telling working-class voters what they want to hear. “Barack Obama believes in clean Kentucky coal.” So reads a direct mailer being distributed in Kentucky ahead of the state’s […]

Obama energy adviser Jason Grumet talks climate, coal, and transportation policy

As executive director of the National Commission on Energy Policy, a bipartisan group of 20 energy experts created in 2002, Jason Grumet has come in for some flack from environmentalists. NCEP’s influential 2004 energy report called for several measures anathema to greens, including a "safety valve" that would set an upper limit on the price […]

Clinton vows to take down OPEC

Now Clinton’s going to dissolve OPEC: “We’re going to go right at OPEC,” she said. “They can no longer be a cartel, a monopoly that get together once every couple of months in some conference room in some plush place in the world, they decide how much oil they’re going to produce and what price […]

Glenn Hurowitz’s analysis of Democratic election strategy

Hurowitz has written a book that analyzes how the Democrats managed to lose control of Congress for 12 whole years and let Bush get into and hold his office for the last eight. He sums up the problem in a single word: Courage. What makes the Hottentot so hot? What puts the "ape" in apricot? Courage can be hard to define, but you know it when you see it. For example, here is an old YouTube video where some guy off camera tells Cheney to GFY.

Sometimes there is a fine line between courage and stupidity. This guy, who may now be sitting in Guantanamo for all I know, sure had balls. Base jumpers and NASCAR drivers are on the wrong side of that line, because courage only counts when an individual takes a personal risk for others. We instinctively admire courageous leaders. If they are also smart leaders, they can impart a serious competitive advantage.

Hurowitz's book Fear and Courage in the Democratic Party is about 270 pages long but has only six chapters. Four of those chapters juxtapose four politicians: the late Paul Wellstone, Bill Clinton (gutless wonder), Tom Daschle (circumstantial coward), and Nancy Pelosi.