Climate Politics

Now That’s an Exit Strategy

Sens. Bingaman, Specter introduce industry-backed climate legislation Two U.S. senators have introduced climate legislation that’s a bold compromise or a copout, depending whom you ask. The Low Carbon Economy Act, sponsored by Sens. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), would cut current U.S. carbon-dioxide emissions 60 percent by 2050, using a cap-and-trade system that […]

The Sweet Smell of Politics

Rep. John Dingell proposes carbon tax, doesn’t really mean it Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), the powerful chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, plans to introduce a carbon-tax bill that would raise the cost of burning fossil fuels. Yep, you heard that right: Dingell’s proposal, announced in an interview on C-SPAN, would impose a […]

Interviews and info on the presidential candidates’ environmental positions

Updated 22 Aug 2008   Forget boxers or briefs. You want to know about the presidential candidates’ stances on energy and the environment, right? Well, you’ve come to the right place. Compare the candidates’ green positions using our handy chart. Get a quick rundown on each candidate below, where you’ll also find links to interviews […]

How progressive can legislation be if it’s never allowed to make progress?

Dan Walters writes in the Sacramento Bee:

The messy departure of the chairman and executive director of the Air Resources Board, if nothing else, reflects the extremely intense, largely clandestine struggle in the Capitol over how Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's much-ballyhooed anti-global warming crusade is to be implemented.

Schwarzenegger says he fired ARB Chairman Robert Sawyer last week because the veteran energy researcher was moving too slowly on cleaning up the San Joaquin Valley's dirty air. But Sawyer and ARB Executive Director Catherine Witherspoon, who resigned Monday, have a far different version, one that rings truer. They contend that Schwarzenegger's chief of staff, Susan Kennedy, and other aides wanted them to slow down on implementing anti-global warming legislation passed last year.

For shame

Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas Zuniga is interviewed in the spring issue of Terrain, the publication of the excellent Ecology Center in Berkeley, Calif. He has some interesting views to share about the green movement, including his disappointment that the top six environmental groups have more cash assets than the "vast right wing conspiracy," yet they keep their pet issues so siloed that they cancel their collective clout, keeping a national green agenda effectively sidelined. But where he loses me is with his tepid but clear endorsement of clean coal:

I'm a big supporter of Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer, who is one of the heaviest proponents of clean coal technology and carbon sequestration. Right now we're dependent on the Middle East for a large percentage of our energy needs, and it's clearly making us weaker from a national security perspective. It precipitated the horrid war in Iraq, and it may precipitate another one with Iran. Anything that weans us off that foreign energy and makes us self-dependent I think is a better thing in the short term.

He definitely needs some more data.

Letter in the Washington Post

John Kerry had a letter in today's Washington Post:

A glimpse of environmental policies to come from Gordon Brown

Peter Madden, chief executive of Forum for the Future, writes a monthly column for Gristmill on sustainability in the U.K. and Europe.

Britain has a new prime minister. After leading the country for 10 years, Tony Blair has stepped down. Gordon Brown, Blair's number two for the past decade, takes up the reins.

Brown is viewed as solid and dependable, if a little dour. He is slightly to the left of Blair on most issues, though he has also pushed through a lot of business-friendly policies.

Gordon Brown is notoriously difficult to read; he gives very little of himself away. So what can we expect on the environment from a Brown premiership?

All Is Not Well in La-La Land

Top Schwarzenegger air-quality officials depart under protest If Arnold Schwarzenegger were a cobbler, his children would have no shoes. Or something like that. While the Governator has been busy spreading the climate gospel around the world, his air-quality agency is coming apart at the seams. Last week, Schwarzenegger fired Robert Sawyer, chair of the California […]

Talking carbon tax in N.H.

Democratic presidential candidate Chris Dodd talks energy policy at a house party in New Hampshire last week:

Parsing 15 years of electric data

Environmental pressures have forced us to generate more of our power from natural gas, and this focus on gas has caused power prices to increase ... right?

Wrong, conventional wisdom notwithstanding. And the lessons from the last 15 years indicate the importance of considering how markets will respond when mandating new technologies and fuels.