Climate Politics

An incomplete roundup of reactions and commentary to the Bali climate meetings

I feel somewhat guilty for not following the goings-on in Bali more closely. A few of you have written to ask why. It’s just that every single international meeting on climate since I started covering this stuff has gone down the exact … same … way. It’s like clockwork: everyone arrives full of hope, because […]

Nominee for federal fossil-energy secretary has strong ties to Big Coal

From 2001 to 2003, Stanley Suboleski was chief operating officer of mining company Massey Energy, which faces $2.4 billion in fines for more than 4,000 alleged Clean Water Act violations at its coal operations in West Virginia and Kentucky within the past six years. It’s only logical, then, that President Bush would nominate Suboleski, who […]

Sen. Joe Lieberman endorses Sen. John McCain for president

Used-to-be-Democrat-but-now-Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman (Conn.) has angered Democrats by endorsing Republican Sen. John McCain for president. The two men have similar views on the war in Iraq (pro) and terrorism (anti), but Lieberman says his endorsement was also for McCain’s commitment to the environment and fighting climate change. The two joined their names to pen […]

The terrible omnibus bill

Rumors began circulating late last Friday -- as the Senate was passing the much-weakened energy bill -- that some terrible provisions had made their way into the omnibus spending package, which will likely face votes in both bodies by the end of the week.

Now comes word from Friends of the Earth that "the omnibus spending bill expected to come before the House of Representatives tonight and the Senate tomorrow directs $20.5 billion in loan guarantees to nuclear power and $8 billion to the coal industry, with language that includes potential subsidies for the production of coal-to-liquid fuels."

Why did Dems bargain down the energy bill?

Lots of people wonder why Reid and Senate Democrats were so willing, almost eager, to bargain the energy bill down to the point where it was a mere nubbin of its former robust self. Why not draw a line in the sand and force Republicans to take a stand against clean energy? This story from […]

The Bali meeting, and the lessons learned

It's important, this time, to draw conclusions, and to do so publicly. Because Bali has taken us -- barely and painfully -- over a line and into a new and even more difficult level in the climate game we'll be playing for the rest of our lives. In fact, it's not too much to say that, with the realizations of the last year and their culmination at the 13th Conference of Parties, the game has, finally, belatedly, begun in earnest.

First up, we knew going into Bali that if the old routine continued without variation, we'd really be in trouble. The timing of this meeting alone made this clear. Here we were, after the skeptics, after the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report, after Gore's (and the IPCC's) Nobel Prize. We know now how grave the situation is. So it's with great relief that I'm able to say that, judging at least by Bali, the game has indeed changed -- except, of course, for the United States.

Another terrible bill?

I'll cover the debate over the omnibus spending bill here tomorrow. It's being held until at least then, as the Senate deals with FISA shenanigans, which you can view for the next several hours on C-SPAN 2.

House of Representatives’ food service goes sustainable

Cafeterias in the House of Representatives are getting a makeover today: out with the high-fructose corn syrup, in with the free-roaming hens. (Well, there won’t actually be hens roaming in the cafeterias — you get what we mean.) Under Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s ambitious Greening the Capitol initiative, the privately owned House food service — which […]

The Sustainable Ag Coalition delivers its assessment

Ferd Hoefner of the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition has been involved in farm bills since the mid-1970s, working behind the scenes to try to snatch farm legislation from the paws of agribusiness. So when he delivers his assessment on how things went, he does so from the perspective of long memory. His insights are particularly important […]

My opinion, and an industrial soybean farmer’s

Speaking of the farm bill — and who isn’t — y’all should check out an interview I recently did with something called the Lambert Report. Check out the big ol’ Monsanto ad in the upper right corner. And look what they juxtaposed my answers with: those of a dude who used to be president of […]