Climate Politics

Sue and Improved

States to sue Bush admin over weak fuel-economy standards for SUVs Stop us if this sounds familiar: A group of states plans to sue the feds over lax environmental regulations. At this point, the feds have more suits than Armani! Their federalism federalisn’t! Take my states … please! (Hey, we have to liven these stories […]

We’d Do Anything for Love (But We Won’t Do That)

Republican gas-price pander disgusts even pander-lovin’ American people Hollywood producers like to say that no one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American people. Hollywood producers, meet Senate Republicans. Their latest gas-price gambit, coordinated by Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) — a legislator who puts the “less” in “hapless” — seems to have […]

An interview with retiring Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, a GOP leader on environmental protection

Sherwood Boehlert. Photo: AP/Jim McKnight. When leading U.S. climate scientist James Hansen accused NASA earlier this year of stifling his public speech on climate change, Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.) sprang into action. Chair of the House Science Committee, Boehlert immediately fired off a stern letter to the NASA administrator, asserting that “when it comes to […]

Throw in a Pony, and We’ll Talk

In lieu of real energy policy, senators propose sending people checks Apparently driven insane by high gasoline prices, congressfolk are reaching virtuosic heights of pandering and venality, approaching some sort of Platonic ideal of What’s Wrong With Politics These Days. Exhibit A: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) just unveiled a proposal that would bribe […]

Green groups endorse Republican Lincoln Chafee; activists cry foul

The reelection campaign of Rhode Island Sen. Lincoln Chafee, widely considered one of the most vulnerable Republicans in Congress this year, has prompted a verbal blitzkrieg from progressive activists — not aimed at the candidate, but at the Sierra Club and League of Conservation Voters, two green groups that have endorsed him. “This may very […]

Taxholes

House Republicans fight to preserve $5 billion in oil industry tax breaks In public, prominent Republicans are chastising oil companies over high gas prices, and threatening price-gouging investigations and windfall-profit taxes. Behind closed doors, House Republicans are fighting to protect some $5 billion worth of tax loopholes for those very same oil companies. Luckily for […]

Gas price rant

One of the many problems with policy discussions these days is that they tend to be narrow and literal-minded. Take the "problem" of high gas prices. Response? Tax oil companies! Cap prices! Investigate price gouging! Ease environmental restrictions on clean-burning gas!

Stupid. We should take a step back. Here are two relevant facts:

• It's good that gas prices are rising. We want people to buy more fuel-efficient cars and drive less. In the long-term, oil prices are headed up whether we like it or not.
• The hardest hit by high gas prices are the poor, who have the least disposable income and in many cases are stuck in living and work situations that simply don't allow them to drive less in the short-term.

Given that, here are a few policy responses, some local, some federal, just off the top of my head, that make a hell of a lot more sense than whinging about oil companies. In no particular order:

Ukrainian attorney Olya Melen stands up for the Danube Delta

Olya Melen doesn’t think small. In her first-ever court case, the young Ukrainian attorney challenged a massive canal project proposed for the Danube Delta, an internationally recognized wetland on the edge of the Black Sea. Melen, a lawyer for the public-interest group Environment-People-Law, argued that the canal would disrupt the area’s rural communities and diverse […]

In China, Yu Xiaogang is helping locals fight back against dams

China has spent decades trying to harness its powerful river systems with dams. Enormous hydroelectric projects, most notably the Three Gorges Dam now under construction on the Yangtze River, have devastated local economies and ecosystems. Yu Xiaogang. Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize. Chinese environmentalist Yu Xiaogang, founder of the group Green Watershed, says the people harmed […]

You Got Reserved!

Bush presents plan for combating high oil prices, halts reserve deposits In September 2000, then-candidate George W. Bush said that the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve “should not be used as an attempt to drive down oil prices right before an election. It should not be used for short-term political gain at the cost of long-term […]