Climate Politics

Why not Eilperin?

After four separate posts bashing Peter Baker’s craptastic WaPo piece, I come to a simple question: Why did they have Baker write this piece instead of their environmental reporter Juliet Eilperin? She’s incredibly sharp, one of the best green reporters working today. I doubt she would have gone along with the spin as easily as […]

Dodd and Biden drop out of race for Democratic presidential nomination

After getting trounced in the Iowa caucuses yesterday, Democratic Sens. Chris Dodd (Conn.) and Joe Biden (Del.) dropped out of the presidential race. Dodd was the only candidate who supported a corporate carbon tax as a means to fight climate change; both Dodd and Biden supported a cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions 80 percent […]

Tom Carper totally knows the president

(An on we go, in a series on the WaPo piece so bad it required numerous separate gripes.) Tom Carper would like you to know that he’s a) committed on global warming, and b) tight with the president: People find all sorts of ways to lobby President Bush. Sometimes it comes in the form of […]

Will climate wash out as an issue or help the greener candidate?

If we end up with an Obama v. Romney/Giuliani/Thompson race, the green dynamic will be simple. The guy who wants to do something about global warming vs. the guy who prefers the energy status quo. But if, as I’m now (wildly and irresponsibly) predicting, it’s an Obama v. McCain race, the dynamic shifts in some […]

McCain will likely take it after all

The Republican primary race has been astonishing from the word go — less the embarrassment of riches of the Dem side than just … embarrassment. It’s been a roller coaster. Nonetheless, I’m going to go on the record predicting that McCain will take it. Here’s how I see it. Way back when, Santorum lost his […]

The candidacy is Obama’s to lose

One hesitates to predict anything in a race this mercurial. But I think it’s Obama’s to lose at this point. Hillary’s pitch was always "experience" and (left unstated) inevitability. It was never the experience that made her inevitable, though. It was something more like Dem voters’ loss aversion. She has always been the Establishment Dem […]

Huckabee and Obama win Iowa caucuses; what’s the green angle?

Mike Huckabee is the projected winner of the Iowa GOP caucuses, a surprising victory that puts him at the front of the pack in the Republican presidential race — at least until the New Hampshire primary next week. Huckabee is one of just two GOP candidates who support a cap-and-trade system to fight climate change […]

Huckabee and Obama have it

Sounds like they’ve called the Iowa caucuses. Huckabee’s the huge winner on the R side, with Romney an anemic second. Obama got a very narrow win on the D side (35%), with Edwards and Clinton effectively tied for second with 31%. Interestinger and interestinger. UPDATE: OK, the final looks like 37% Obama, 30% Edwards, and […]

Ex-Im to finance more clean energy exports

The appropriations omnibus bill just passed through Congress "recommends that the Export-Import Bank provide 10 percent of its financing capacity to promote the export of clean energy products and services." This was a recommendation by many groups, including the Center for American Progress:

Having supported more than $400 billion dollars of U.S. exports during the past 70 years, the Export-Import Bank is one of the most powerful tools at the U.S. government's disposal for spurring innovation and economic growth.

But in yet another backward-looking strategy typical of this administration:

Krupp plays along

My ongoing, borderline-obsessive series about how %$@! awful this Washington Post piece is continues. In this episode, we focus on Fred Krupp of Environmental Defense. I’ve tried to give Krupp the benefit of the doubt. The green movement needs somebody sucking up to corporations. (I say that with total sincerity.) But it seems pretty clear […]