legislation
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Congress introduces twin bills to control drilling and protect drinking water
ProPublica’s Abrahm Lustgarten reports: In a widely expected move that is sure to draw the ire of the oil and gas industry, Democratic members of Congress today introduced twin bills to amend the Safe Drinking Water Act and give the Environmental Protection Agency authority over the controversial drilling process called hydraulic fracturing. The stand-alone bills […]
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Sierra Club, MoveOn call on House leaders to strengthen climate bill
The Sierra Club, MoveOn, and other green and progressive groups have sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) asking her to work to strengthen the American Clean Energy and Security Act when it moves to the House floor. The letter also went to Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.), the bill’s […]
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Renewables industry protests weak RES proposals in Congress
In January, Barack Obama stopped by the Cardinal Fastener & Specialty Co. in Bedford Heights, Ohio, to promote his economic-stimulus plan. The company, which has manufactured parts for bridges and machinery since 1968, began three years ago to make giant nuts and bolts to hold together wind turbines. During his visit, Obama cited the factory […]
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Climate-news poem: plagiarism edition!
Each time I set out to pen one of my climate-news poems, I try really hard not to make it bouncy and rhyming. But terrible bouncy rhymes seem to flow in my veins. It’s a curse, to write such verse! So this week I promised myself I’d experiment with blank verse — and hey, why […]
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Pelosi won’t commit to deadline for passing climate bill
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has set a soft deadline of June 19 for committee leaders to finish their review of the climate and energy bill that passed out of the Energy and Commerce Committee last month. But she hasn’t set a deadline for passing the bill out the full chamber. Speaking to reporters on Thursday, […]
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Inhofe’s plan: Stall climate action until the next president
The Heartland Institute, an outpost for climate change skeptics, is holding its Third International Conference on Climate Change here in Washington, D.C., this week (just three months after its second one). Yesterday the meeting played host to the Senate’s top climate-change denier, Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe. Inhofe, best known for calling global warming “the greatest […]
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Video highlights from the GOP’s anti-climate-bill crusade
For the past month, House Republicans have been taking their anti-climate-bill efforts on the road, trying to stir up public resistance to the Waxman-Markey climate and energy legislation. The show kicked off in D.C. and moved on to Indiana, Pennsylvania, and California. Now the House Republican Conference has produced a “greatest hits” reel on their […]
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A common person’s guide to the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009
On May 21, following months of work, the House Energy and Commerce Committee passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, a 946-page piece of climate legislation. There have been mixed reactions from environmental and climate groups, but most groups are in agreement that it needs to be strengthened going forward. For some […]
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Everything you always wanted to know about the Waxman-Markey energy/climate bill — in bullet points
You keep hearing about the Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill — aka the American Clean Energy and Security Act, ACES, H.R. 2454 — but what’s actually in it? We combed through the 946-page beast so you don’t have to. Here are the highlights of the bill, which is sponsored by Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif) and […]
