Barack Obama
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Offshore drilling most popular among Republicans, elderly, white, and wealthy
When President Obama announced recently that he’d open new coastal areas to offshore drilling, there was considerable speculation as to what the political fallout might be. Most progressive pundits were baffled by the decision, and the general consensus seemed to be that it was a political move designed to influence key decision makers. The immediate […]
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Nuclear arms reduction is better than nuclear warfare
Today President Obama and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev signed a nuclear arms reduction pact that slightly limits each country’s stockpile, reinstates inspections, and restores relations between the two countries. This is good news. Nuclear warfare is not sustainable. The New York Times explains how it works. Money quote: While the treaty will mandate only modest […]
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Filling our short-term fossil-fuel needs
Like many Americans, I battle with my waistline, watching the same twenty pounds come and go year after year. Eating everything from Tootsie Rolls to asparagus, at times the healthy fare wins over the junk food, but usually the other way around. No food is either good or bad, because consumption isn’t measured against a […]
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Time for Obama to embrace another GOP energy plan
By Jesse Jenkins and Yael Borofsky With President Obama’s announcement Wednesday that the administration would support expanded offshore oil and gas extraction, it’s now apparent that price pressures on oil make political pressures on politicians impossible to ignore and that some expansion of offshore drilling is inevitable. But despite Green backlash against the Obama administration’s […]
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Can we get some attention for our issues now?
Fareed Zakaria — prominent foreign policy writer, Newsweek International editor, Washington Post columnist — uses President Obama’s campaign words to suggest it’s time for the president to devote his attention to energy policy: During the 2008 campaign — before the global economic crisis — Barack Obama said the top three things he wanted to accomplish […]
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Obama was against offshore drilling before he was for it
While blogger Adam Bink is correct to point out that then-candidate Obama pivoted on offshore drilling in the final months of the presidential campaign, he misses a few important points.
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The Climate Post: Read this. Read now. Pay nothing.
First things first: The Obama administration today finalized greenhouse gas emissions standards for cars and light trucks first proposed last May. The practical upshot of the rules is a roughly 40 percent rise in fuel economy, to 35.5 miles per gallon, by 2016. The government said the measures would save owners about $3,000 in fuel […]
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Understanding the allure of ‘drill baby drill’
President Obama’s decision to expand offshore drilling leases seems to affirm the power that the “drill baby drill” battle cry holds in the American energy conversation. Turns out a short, simple, much-repeated slogan holds more currency than detailed policy arguments from clean-energy advocates. I want to tease out a connection between “drill baby drill” and […]
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Is Obama’s offshore drilling plan winning any GOP votes?
The consensus, among People on the Internet anyway, is that Obama’s far-reaching offshore drilling expansion is a bid to win Republican support for clean-energy legislation. More offshore drilling is a major Republican energy priority, after all. So how are GOP leaders responding? House leaders John Boehner and Mike Pence attack the plan as a job-killing […]
