Climate Politics

Eager municipalities hopping on board

In case you haven’t noticed, it’s officially the Year of Green Building. And while some areas have had eco-standards in place for a while now (helloooooo, D.C.!), the fevah is spreading in cities across the U.S. Take a gander at a few places considering formal green-building guidelines this spring: In a move described as a […]

Bush administration ignoring environmental laws, building border wall anyway

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced yesterday that he will use authority Congress gave him to waive all environmental laws that will impede construction of 670 miles of border wall between the United States and Mexico.

The wall threatens the rare wildlife of the Southwest like ocelots, jaguars, jaguarundis, and others with extinction because it will prevent animals from reaching breeding populations in Mexico.

Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife, released a statement saying,

Thanks to this action by the Bush administration, the border is in a sense more lawless now than when Americans first started moving west. Laws ensuring clean water and clean air for us and our children -- dismissed. Laws protecting wildlife, land, rivers, streams, and places of cultural significance -- just a bother to the Bush administration. Laws giving American citizens a voice in the process -- gone. Clearly this is out of control. It is this kind of absolute disregard for the well-being and concerns of border communities and the welfare of our wildlife and untamed borderlands that has forced Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club to take a stand and say "No more!"

The Bush administration is aiming to complete the wall before it leaves office, likely because all three presidential candidates have expressed some degree of opposition to it.

The only hopes for stopping the wall at this point are a Supreme Court case by the Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife challenging the Bush administration's authority to waive environmental laws, a so-far anemic effort sponsored by Congressman Raul Grijalva to get Congress to change the law, or civil disobedience in the border region aimed at stopping or slowing the wall.

California’s ‘hydrogen highway’ runs into roadblocks

Despite California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s executive order four years ago that “hundreds of hydrogen fueling stations” be built in the state, nary a station has been built under the program. Depending on whom you ask, the blame for the sputtering “hydrogen highway” lies with: energy companies and utilities, for not stepping forward to take state […]

Eco-laws pushed aside for faster building of border fence

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced Tuesday that it will waive environmental laws in order to finish its 670-mile-long fence along the U.S.-Mexico border by the end of 2008. The waivers will apply to land stretching from California to Texas and will facilitate construction of fencing, towers, sensors, cameras, and roads. Homeland Security has […]

Gore-y climate ads are coming soon to a TV near you

While it is not true that Al Gore is running for president (honestly, how do these rumors get started?), it is true that his Alliance for Climate Protection has officially launched a new “we” campaign. The ad campaign aims to spend $300 million over three years to create a sense of both urgency and solvability […]

Seeing through the EPA’s BS

Looking back at seven years of ever-looming -- yet constantly narrowly-averted -- GHG emissions regulations, it seems like it might have been a lot less painful to industry and damaging to the economy if the Bushies would have laid out a simple set of expectations early on and then just let us handle it from there. Even if the resultant regulations wouldn't have been nearly as stringent as most of us would have liked, industry might have benefited from the certainty.

Preferring to keep us all waiting just a little longer, however, last Thursday Bush's EPA put off any possible whining about regulations until well into the next administration:

... Last year the Supreme Court ruled, contrary to the Bush administration's wishes, that greenhouse gases were a pollutant that came under the jurisdiction of the EPA. So the EPA's scientists took a look, and they concluded that, yes, greenhouse gases contributed to global warming and ought to be regulated under the Clean Air Act. The White House, of course, was not happy about this, so on Thursday EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson deep-sixed the scientific findings and opened up a "lengthy public comment period" to give corporate contributors the public a chance to weigh in on this.

To which Rep. Markey (D-Mass.) adds:

This cynical step by EPA to announce an "Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking" in the coming months should be seen for what it is: an "Aspirational Notice of Procrastinational Rulemaking."

The latest primary dispute: Does Obama take oil money?

This is a new ad from Obama, playing now in Pennsylvania: In response, the Clinton campaign rushed out a statement claiming that Obama does too accept money from oil and gas companies: According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Sen. Obama has received over $160,000 from the oil and gas companies. Two major bundlers for […]

Things that make you go hm

On Thursday at his speech on the economy, Obama was introduced by Michael Bloomberg. Today in an interview with a N.Y. TV station, Obama expressed his support for congestion pricing. Hmm …

Notable quotable

“I think it’s a mistake to think that emission trading alone will be helpful in reducing greenhouse emissions to any serious extent. I think it’s a mistake to extrapolate from the tremendous success of SO2 and NOx to greenhouse gases. And I think the policy debate inside the Beltway is based on a superficial understanding […]

Gourmet magazine points the way toward a green and smart farm policy

In Thursday’s Wall Street Journal, there’s a detailed article about the farm-subsidy mess. It can be summarized as follows: 1) the government-engineered ethanol boom has driven up farm-commodity prices; 2) farm incomes are sharply up; yet 3) the government still makes subsidy payments in the billions per year; and thus 4) it’s time to cut […]