legislation

Other conservation tools at stake in the Farm Bill, too

Although recent reports indicate that the new farm bill will provide a $4 billion increase for voluntary farmer conservation programs, there's more to the conservation policies in the bill than just money. Recent attempts by the conference committee to dramatically weaken the new Sodsaver provision are just one example of the one-step-forward, two-steps-backward approach to conservation the farm bill conference seems to be taking.

The Sodsaver provision was designed to help limit the incentive that subsidy and disaster payments create for farmers to bring new, often environmentally fragile, land into production. The House and Senate versions of the farm bill both contained this new provision, which would have prohibited crop insurance and non-insured disaster payments for production losses to producers in any state who plowed up native grasslands in order to plant crops. This would have also prevented these farmers from receiving regular disaster payments, because farmers must first have crop insurance in order to be eligible for disaster payments.

Proposal to curb prices not likely to include ‘gas tax holiday’

Congressional Democrats are expected to announce their plan to counter the rising cost of gasoline as early as next Wednesday, and despite the pressure Sen. Hillary Clinton is putting on her congressional colleagues, it’s not likely to include a “gas tax holiday.” The plan being worked up by Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), Senate Majority Leader […]

Highlights from the American Lung Association’s annual ‘State of the Air’ report

It's become an annual spring ritual, but the American Lung Association's "State of the Air" report -- essentially a report card on the country's air -- contains some valuable lessons.

First is that we have seen progress in dealing with widespread air pollutants such as ozone, or smog, and fine particle soot. States with the most aggressive cleanup approaches, such as California, have seen the most improvement.

But second, and equally important, we still have a major public health problem from air pollution. This is important since virtually all public attention regarding smokestacks and tailpipes concerns global warming. The ALA found that about two in five Americans live in areas afflicted by dirty air. (That number will increase under the new EPA ozone standard.)

Unlike McCain and Clinton, Obama would have us capitulate to Gas Price Terror

Gas prices are high, which is the worst thing that’s ever happened in the history of America, dating back to the time of the dinosaurs. It’s a violation of the spirit of the Constitution of Independence as written by Jefferson Davis. We must declare preemptive war on gas prices before they destroy our freedoms, which […]

Trading efficiency for inevitability

This is the third in a series; see parts one and two. To briefly recap: Simplicity, efficiency, and political buy-in are important elements of climate policy, but if you want the first, you can only get one of the other two. Peter Barnes’ cap-and-dividend proposal gets simplicity and political buy-in; Sean Casten’s output-based standards get […]

The fight over coal heads to a climax in Kansas

The fight over coal in Kansas is headed to a climactic battle on Wednesday, when the legislature gathers to finish its session. Twice it has sent bills to Gov. Kathleen Sebelius that would allow two blocked dirty coal plants to move forward; twice she has vetoed. The game on Wed. is for pro-coal legislators to […]

New Senate alternatives to L-W would take climate policy backwards — way backwards

George Voinovich. There’s an important story in yesterday’s edition of E&E (as always, $ub. req’d) about two alternatives to Lieberman-Warner that have recently been floated in the Senate. One comes from Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) and the other — not so much a bill as a “set of principles” — from a coalition of the […]

Lieberman Warner criticism, Part 3

This is the third in a five-part series exploring the details of the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act. See also part 1 and part 2.

Let's do a thought experiment. Imagine that tomorrow morning, you wake up, reach in your pocket, and find that you suddenly have billions of dollars of cash. Before you have a moment to celebrate, you also realize that you are lying in the middle of an interstate, and there is a big truck coming. What do you do?

(a) Issue an RFP for research, development, and deployment of technologies that will help you get off the highway;

(b) Issue an RFP for research, development, and deployment of crash-retardant pajamas;

(c) Invest in wildlife conservation measures to protect the flora and fauna on the side of the highway that are about to be covered in blood, guts, and twisted metal;

(d) Set aside money for truck driver grief counseling, or;

(e) All of the above.

If you chose (e), read no farther. You have identified yourself as a person who thinks that the Lieberman-Warner approach to greenhouse-gas reduction is perfection incarnate. If, on the other hand, you think that there was a fairly important idea not even listed amongst the options above (hint: it has to do with getting your butt off the highway and/or stopping the truck), then you understand the flaws innate to the Lieberman-Warner approach.

(And if you chose a, b, c, or d ... you're one odd duck. But at least you've signaled your self-interest in high-tech solutions to simple problems!)

Two simple, effective, and diametrically opposed climate policy proposals

This is the second in a series; see part one. I said in my previous post that of the three goals of climate policy — simplicity, political buy-in, and efficiency — it is possible to get only two at once. You can get simplicity and buy-in. You can get simplicity and efficiency. But when you […]