Marianne Lavelle’s Posts

• Toward a stalemate in Copenhagen

  How industry pressures and competing national agendas dim prospects for a climate treaty 2

  Posted 2 weeks, 2 days agoGlobal attempts to craft a pivotal new climate treaty in Copenhagen this December are being stymied by a far-reaching, multinational backlash led by fossil-fuel industries and other heavy carbon emitters, according to a new report by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

• ACCCE in the hole (and not in a good way)

  Shake-ups at high-profile coal industry group 0

  Posted 2 months, 2 weeks ago

  The large power company Duke Energy, whose chief executive James Rogers has long advocated climate legislation, withdrew from the coal group this week.

• Everyone's got a lobbyist

  Tally of interests on climate bill tops a thousand 0

  Posted 3 months, 2 weeks ago

  More than 460 new businesses and interest groups jumped into lobbying Congress on global warming in the weeks before the House neared its historic vote on climate change legislation, a Center for Public Integrity analysis of just-disclosed lobbying records shows.

• in cahoots with newt

  Newt's new money to fight climate change bill 1

  Posted 3 months, 2 weeks ago

  The world’s largest coal company and one of the nation’s top fossil-fueled power companies are among the leading donors so far this year to Newt Gingrich’s political advocacy group.

• Follow the money

  Southern Company dominates the climate lobbying scene 3

  Posted 4 months, 3 weeks ago

  Southern Company, the nation's largest electric power generator, also had the largest force of lobbyists among the hundreds of businesses and interest groups that were seeking to influence the landmark climate change legislation that just passed the House.

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Marianne Lavelle’s Recent Comments

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  Phil's own words

  There was no more articulate spokesman for climate concern than Phil Clapp. I've thought often of this since hearing the terrible news yesterday, so I thought I'd share some of his best quotes from my many interviews with him when I was energy writer at U.S. News and World Report:

  On the 2007 kickoff of U.N. negotiations to replace the Kyoto treaty at Bali: "The world has one shot at getting an effective mechanism in place, and this is it. The future of millions of people and the climate hinge on this."

  On the money being poured into Canadian oil sands, the efforts to exploit the oil shale of Colorado and elsewhere in the West, and the proposals for coal-to-liquid projects: "We're fundamentally scraping the bottom of the oil barrel. Every dollar we put into recovering more oil weds our economy more and more firmly to oil as an energy resource and actually makes us more dependent on the Middle East."

  On the reasons behind the U.S. energy stalemate: "Energy is the most special-interest-driven field that the federal government wrestles with. The U.S. has been absolutely paralyzed on energy policy because of the power of coal, oil, auto, and utility industries on the Republican side and [unions] on the Democratic side."

  And my personal favorite, from my notebook though it somehow never made it into a published story, on policymakers who say that a technology breakthrough is needed to address climate: "For every administration, not just this one, "technology" has always been another way to say, "mañana."

  Marianne Lavelle, energy and climate writer, The Center for Public Integrity http://www.publicintegrity.org

  On Environmental champion Philip Clapp, dead at 54 posted 1 year, 2 months ago 4 Responses