legislation
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Legislators from around the world meet to discuss climate policy
Senior legislators from 17 countries met in Washington, D.C., on Monday to discuss their role in shaping climate action plans as world leaders continue to hash out the details of a new international climate treaty. The Global Legislators Organization (GLOBE) is hosting an International Commission on Climate Change and Energy Security summit, which comes just […]
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House Dems say they’re coming together around climate and energy legislation
A group of key House Democratic leaders sent a letter to President Obama on Friday signaling that they intend to work together on climate and energy legislation despite the different views and constituencies they represent. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and John Dingell (D-Mich.), the former chair whom Waxman unseated […]
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Obama calls for climate summit of the world’s biggest polluters
President Obama on Saturday announced that the United States is initiating a Major Economies Forum that will focus on energy and climate change, an attempt to bring the world’s biggest polluters together to discuss a path forward. “The Major Economies Forum will facilitate a candid dialogue among key developed and developing countries, help generate the […]
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New business coalition plans to flex its muscle on climate policy
Nike, Starbucks, eBay, and a handful of other big-name U.S. companies are putting forward a climate agenda that’s just as ambitious as that of many environmentalists, if not more so. The new coalition — Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy, or BICEP for short — grew out of a partnership between Nike and Ceres, […]
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Reid says Dems might use carbon-credit revenues to fund health care
Could the revenue from auctioning off carbon credits be used to pay for a new health-care system? Bloomberg reports: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid [D-Nev.] said he is open to financing an overhaul of the U.S. health-care system with revenue generated from efforts to rein in greenhouse gas emissions. Reid, a Nevada Democrat, told reporters […]
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In lead-up to Bonn climate talks, U.S. and U.N. leaders are cautiously optimistic
Climate leaders in both Congress and the United Nations are optimistic about making landmark progress on an international climate accord this year, but hopes that an agreement will be finalized in 2009 seem to be dimming. Yvo de Boer, the U.N. climate chief, and Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), chair of the Energy and Environment Subcommittee […]
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Supreme Court decisions bode well for global warming-related preemption cases
In the tricky legal world of “preemption” — the principle that federal law “preempts,” or trumps, state law — two recent Supreme Court decisions bode well for ongoing, seemingly unrelated global warming litigation. The first of these decisions, Altria Group, Inc et al. v. Good et al., concerned a class-action lawsuit brought by smokers in […]
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On cap-and-trade, Evan Bayh follows Smokey Joe Barton’s and Rupert Murdoch’s agenda
Originally published on the Wonk Room. On Hardball yesterday, Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) worried that a cap-and-trade system to prevent catastrophic global warming and drive green economic development might “suck money” and jobs away from coal-intensive states: Cap and trade, you’ll probably need 60 votes because it affects so many states economically that if you […]
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A veritable flood of climate and energy bills in Congress
There’s been a deluge of bills on climate and energy introduced in Congress in the past few weeks. But the most notable news is that Congress is likely to omit a climate program from the budget resolution. President Obama’s budget proposal included a cap-and-trade plan to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, but the House and Senate budget […]
