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  • Olympia Snowe (R-Maine)

    Olympia Snowe Sen. Olympia Snowe is considered a likely “yes” vote on climate legislation this year. She is a co-chair of the International Climate Change Taskforce, and has been reliably supportive of climate action. Snowe voted in favor of the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act in 2003 and 2005, and she cosponsored the 2007 version of […]

  • Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.)

    Lamar Alexander Sen. Lamar Alexander realizes that we need to do something about climate change and has tried to distance himself from the skeptics in his party. “I am one senator who thinks climate change is a problem, humans are causing it, and we need to deal with it,” he said at a recent hearing […]

  • Henry Waxman’s decade-long fight to improve the Clean Air Act

    Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) is the chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee and coauthor of the ACES bill passed by the House in June. Naturally, political observers are curious about his thoughts on the fight to pass climate/energy legislation this year, but in media interviews he tends to be careful, measured, and fairly abstract. […]

  • Looks like no Senate vote on climate and clean energy bill until at least November

    As I have said many times “Obama can get a better climate bill in 2010” – although that is true only if he and Congress have a coherent strategy to do just that (which at this point, they don’t, see below). Since the CBO has made clear that health care reform is tougher than climate […]

  • Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.)

    Byron Dorgan Sen. Byron Dorgan says he wants to address climate change: “I think there is enough science out there to suggest something is going on.” But he opposes the cap-and-trade approach. “I’m in favor of taking action to reduce CO2 emissions and to protect our environment. But I don’t support the ‘cap-and-trade’ plan now […]

  • Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio)

    Sherrod Brown Sen. Sherrod Brown was one of just four Democrats to vote against moving the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act to a floor vote last year, but this year he says he won’t block climate legislation. “I’m not going to be part of a filibuster on climate change,” Brown said recently. Last year’s bill never […]

  • Mary Landrieu (D-La.)

    Mary Landrieu Sen. Mary Landrieu has been a thorn in the side of enviros for most of her 12 years in the Senate representing Louisiana, a big oil and gas state. Last year, the League of Conservation Voters added her to its Dirty Dozen list of the worst environmental offenders in Congress. During her bid […]

  • Sarah Palin, George Will, and Potemkin debates

    While I was away on vacation (it was wonderful, thanks for asking), the Washington Post editorial page featured opinion pieces from Sarah Palin and George Will, two of conservatism’s leading, um, thinkers, revealing a great deal about the WaPo editorial page and the quality of conservative thinking. Rebuttal has been ably carried out by many […]

  • USDA study finds that climate bill will benefit farmers

    Photo: Dog CompanyThe climate and energy legislation that the House passed in June would increase revenues for farmers, according to a preliminary analysis released by the United States Department of Agriculture on Wednesday. The study contradicts claims from some major agriculture groups that the bill would be economically catastrophic for farmers. Instead, the study predicts […]