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  • Coal industry downplays prospects for CCS as it seeks more handouts in Senate climate bill

    The coal industry got a lot of goodies in the House-passed energy and climate bill, but it’s pressing for even more in the Senate version. At a Senate hearing on the future of coal hosted earlier this week by Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and George Voinovich (R-Ohio), representatives from utilities and coal companies told lawmakers […]

  • Racism allegations mar Senate hearing on clean energy economy

    Thursday’s Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on climate change blew up into an argument over race between Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and the chairman of the National Black Chamber of Commerce. NBCC’s Harry Alford was invited to speak at the hearing titled, “Ensuring and Enhancing U.S. Competitiveness while Moving toward a Clean Energy Economy.” […]

  • The case for a national building energy code

    Recently, there has been a good deal of media attention given to building energy codes, generally and specifically, the codes provision of the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), both good and bad. A couple of these articles piqued my interest by asking if building energy codes should be a matter of federal importance […]

  • 34 Nobel winners write Obama about lack of support for energy R&D in climate/energy bill

    This letter was sent to the White House on July 16: The Honorable Barack H. ObamaPresident of the United States1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NWWashington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President: You have repeatedly and appropriately called for a Clean Energy Technology Fund of $150 billion over ten years that could be funded from receipts collected from a […]

  • Big Ag not content with concessions in House climate bill

    The American Farm Bureau Federation, not content with the major concessions for agriculture that its congressional allies secured during the House climate debate, is now lobbying the Senate for a better deal. Appearing at a hearing of the Environment and Public Works Committee on Tuesday, Farm Bureau President Bob Stallman not only pushed for provisions […]

  • Sen. Voinovich stalls confirmation of EPA deputy, demands new climate-bill analysis

    George VoinovichSen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) is holding up the confirmation of a deputy administrator at the U.S. EPA until the agency coughs up numbers on the House climate bill that are to his liking. Voinovich sent a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson [PDF] on Monday saying that he has placed a procedural hold on […]

  • Tennessee Republican comes out swinging against cap-and-trade bill

    Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), a day after he announced that he is not willing to work with Democrats on a climate change bill and instead unveiled his own nuclear-power-heavy proposal, is going out of his way to be a thorn in the side of Senate Democrats. During two hearings on Tuesday convened to focus on […]

  • Senate GOP: Nuke, baby, nuke!

    Republicans in the Senate claim to have an “alternative” to the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act. (OK, so it was just Sen. Lamar Alexander, but we’ll accept his claim that he has some so-far-anonymous colleagues behind him). But on closer inspection, chances that their plans would affect clean energy or energy security seem […]

  • The enemy of my enemy is my friend, ACES edition

    A curious thing happened at Tuesday’s morning meeting of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee when the panel’s infamous climate-change skeptic, James Inhofe (R-Okla.), cited NASA climatologist Jim Hansen in his screed against the House climate bill. Yes, this is the same James Inhofe who once called climate change the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated […]