legislation

Who’s stopping it?

You hear a lot, from well-meaning Republican environmentalists of the sort you find on this site, or this one, or this one, that we’ll "never make any progress" on the environment until it becomes a bipartisan issue. Strangely, this scolding isn’t directed at the conservative movement, which has for decades obstructed any action dedicated to […]

A great piece in the WaPo

In Sunday’s Washington Post, Steven Mufson has an excellent big-picture look at the effort to fight global warming via legislation. It offers a sense of the scope of the problem: The potential economic impact of meaningful climate legislation — enough to reduce U.S. emissions by at least 60 percent — is vast. Automobiles would have […]

Helpful energy legislation guides

Three handy guides to the flurry of climate and energy legislation in Congress right now: First, there’s a breakdown of the July 4 "Energy Independence Day Initiative" out of the House, which details all the elements by bill and by committee. Handy. Then there’s this graphic in the WaPo, which focuses on five bills that […]

How legislators can help the rural

In a recent trip through the small town of Walthill, Nebraska, the phrase "rural revitalization" took on a whole new meaning. In this case, it was the lack of any kind of prosperity that made it obvious to me why rural communities are in need of revitalization. Main Street looked painfully deserted, with two recent arsons adding fresh scars to the once-active storefronts. As we drove around the residential area, most houses looked to be in some state of disrepair -- so much so that it was difficult to really tell which were homes and which had already been abandoned. If ever there was a town that needed some life breathed back into it, this was it.

It’s weak

I really don't think we have time to waste on safety valves. That said, the new bill by Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) is worth understanding because it is garnering a lot of support -- at a cost:

But to secure labor and corporate support, the measure also places a limit on the price industry would have to pay for such permits. And to win the endorsement of Alaska's two Republican senators, the bill contains billions of dollars in new money to help their state cope with the effects of climate change on roads, bridges and coastal areas.

And even with this bribe for climate adaptation, Ted Stevens (R-AK) would not concede that the drastic effects of climate change ravaging his state are caused primarily by human emissions:

Regardless of whether these changes are caused solely by human activity, we must take steps to protect people in the Arctic.

Everything you could possibly want to know about the bill is available here. What is the bill's safety valve, which they euphemistically call the "Technology Accelerator Payment"?

Additional emissions permits could be bought at $12 per metric ton of carbon dioxide emissions in the first year, rising by 5 percent above the rate of inflation each year after that. The money from the permits would be widely spread to finance research into clean energy, mitigate the effects of global warming, compensate farmers for higher fuel costs and help low-income families pay their heating and gasoline bills.

I'm with the Sierra Club's Dan Becker:

It's too weak ... It would be better to wait until more members of Congress understand that the heat is on them to act, and that may have to wait until the next Congress and the next president.

I'm also with NWF's Symons, quoted in Greenwire (sub. req'd):

"I've not heard anything to suggest this bill is achieving what the NWF has asked for," said Jeremy Symons, executive director of the National Wildlife Federation's climate program.

Symons said he did not support the bill's expected "safety valve" provision, which would set a limit of $12 per ton of carbon dioxide in the first year for how much industry must pay for reducing their pollution. The price ceiling, Symons said, would crimp the overall integrity of the emerging U.S. carbon market and halt innovation in new energy technologies.

Here is the email that Bingaman's office sent around:

Congess extends abstinence-only funding

Perhaps I can mention this without this post devolving into a population pissing match, but FYI, on Wednesday the House approved continued funding of abstinence-only education as part of Section 510 of Title V of the Social Security Act. The Dems had indicated that they were going to cut the $50 million grant program, but […]

A guest essay from ED’s Scott Faber

The following is a guest post from Scott Faber, Farm Bill campaign director for Environmental Defense. (Scott also has a blog.) — Congress is in serious negotiations over the next version of the Farm Bill. The debate is fertile ground for food policy myths and misconceptions. Perhaps the best (or worst) example is that old […]

He proposes a carbon tax, assuming it will fail

Last Sunday, Rep. John Dingell appeared on the C-SPAN show Newsmakers for a 30-min. interview (transcript here; video accessible via the website), and caused an enormous ruckus with this: SWAIN: Mr. Chairman, I want to go back to your statement that the American people want action [on climate change]. Does that also correlate with the […]

How progressive can legislation be if it’s never allowed to make progress?

Dan Walters writes in the Sacramento Bee:

The messy departure of the chairman and executive director of the Air Resources Board, if nothing else, reflects the extremely intense, largely clandestine struggle in the Capitol over how Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's much-ballyhooed anti-global warming crusade is to be implemented.

Schwarzenegger says he fired ARB Chairman Robert Sawyer last week because the veteran energy researcher was moving too slowly on cleaning up the San Joaquin Valley's dirty air. But Sawyer and ARB Executive Director Catherine Witherspoon, who resigned Monday, have a far different version, one that rings truer. They contend that Schwarzenegger's chief of staff, Susan Kennedy, and other aides wanted them to slow down on implementing anti-global warming legislation passed last year.