Obama Administration

Alert Lou Dobbs and Glenn Beck!

American stimulus funds benefiting foreign wind energy firms 8
Posted 1 week, 1 day ago The Investigative Reporting Workshop released a report on Thursday detailing how one of the first big chunks of money for clean energy under the stimulus package went to wind power projects owned by foreign companies.
Isi serious?

Obama’s attempt to tap an agrichemical-industry flack runs into trouble 2
Posted 1 week, 4 days ago When Obama nominated an agrichemical-industry point man to a top post in the U.S. Trade Office, I cynically thought he would skate right through the Senate confirmation process. Now I'm not sure.
President Obama announces $3.4 billion investment to spur transition to smart energy grid 0
Posted 1 week, 4 days ago As the Senate debates the Kerry-Boxer climate bill in Washington, President Obama travelled to Arcadia, Florida to announce a $3.4 billion investment in to modernize the U.S. energy grid. Grist shares the official White House press release on the president’s new smart grid proposal.
Swagga, bitchez!

Greens have finally got the Big Mo 1
Posted 2 weeks, 2 days ago It looks like greens pushing for clean energy legislation finally have the wind at their back, with a streak of positive media stories about new friends and very stupid enemies.
Badgering the green team at SEJ

Looking beyond Copenhagen, with no Plan B 2
Posted 4 weeks, 1 day ago President Obama's lieutenants put on their game faces as they fielded journalists' questions Friday, but there was a palpable sense that they know the game is already over going into the global talks on climate change in December.
GMO job--or new food paradigm?

Another Monsanto man in a key USDA post? Obama’s ag policy’s giving me whiplash 20
Posted 1 month, 2 weeks ago With new ag appointments, the Obama administration's food/ag policy keeps zigzagging between progressive change and the agrichemical status quo.
Garbage in, garbage out, journalists in between, all but useless

Treasury memo hysteria shows media incapable of screening out junk 0
Posted 1 month, 2 weeks ago
Is any piece of nonsense from right-wing opponents of clean energy policy too silly, too outrageous, to get its day in the national press spotlight? It would seem not.

Last week, CBS conservo-blogger Declan McCullagh breathlessly reported: "Obama Admin: Cap And Trade Could Cost Families $1,761 A Year." That figure spread like wildfire through right-wing blogs, then jumped to Glenn Beck, and eventually reached The Washington Post. Now Republican lawmakers are repeating it.

The number is completely and utterly misleading. At least in reference to current policy options, it's a lie. But now it's out there, forever part of conservative mythology and forever a "controversy" in the eyes of the establishment media. Is there any way it could have been stopped? Is there any way the next lie can be stopped?
What you can do

A message from Van Jones 16
Posted 1 month, 3 weeks ago
My family and I want to thank everyone for the outpouring of love and support that we have received over the past week or so.
With bunnies!

Everything you always wanted to know about EPA greenhouse gas regulations, but were afraid to ask 10
Posted 1 month, 3 weeks ago

Two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the EPA has the authority and the obligation to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. At a stroke, the politics of climate change were changed. The choice was no longer between legislation or no legislation -- it was between legislation or regulation. One way or another, climate pollution would be controlled by a federal program.

Most experts agree that EPA regulations will be complex and somewhat unwieldy. Industry believes they will be onerous and expensive. Conventional wisdom, at least initially, was that fear of regulation would drive utilities and manufacturers to the bargaining table, changing the dynamic in Congress. EPA was supposed to play the role of the big, silent goon in the corner, tapping his baseball bat in his hand.

That theory isn't holding up too well.
delete and reboot

Can Obama deliver health and energy security with a half (assed) message? 0
Posted 2 months ago
On climate, at least we have one positive message: clean energy jobs, jobs, jobs. Normally, however, a winning campaign has four messages.
Sunday morning hot air

Talking about Van Jones 14
Posted 2 months ago
The resignation of President Obama's green jobs adviser was touched on during several of the TV networks' Sunday morning political gabfests. Here are the relevant excerpts...
Green jobs adviser Van Jones resigns White House position 5
Posted 2 months ago
President Barack Obama's special adviser for green jobs has resigned under pressure from leading Republican politicians and revelations about his controversial past statements.
Paranoid racists ascendent

Thoughts on Van Jones’ resignation 37
Posted 2 months ago
Van Jones had to resign. It became inevitable when Gibbs offered no support.

Much of the blame for this incident lies squarely on the White House. The information used against Jones was freely available on the web. All it took was a search. I thought by hiring Jones they intended to take a chance on a real left progressive, but now it appears they were simply caught flat-footed. Either Valerie Jarrett -- Jones' champion in the upper echelons of the administration -- didn't know much about him or didn't widely share what she knew. They certainly seemed disinclined to mount a vigorous defense with Glenn Beck gnoshing on his favorite new chew toy and the health care reform battle was about to heat up again.
Bile for all

Will Glenn Beck bring down Van Jones after all? 47
Posted 2 months ago
A couple days ago I ran a post defending Van Jones from some of the more absurd charges leveled at him by noted race-baiter Glenn Beck over the last month. He's not an "ex-con," he's not a communist, he's not even a czar. He's not, to pick just one of Beck's darkly hinted smears, on a top-secret mission to secure the U.S. treasury and dispense slavery reparations. He is, however, two things that scare the whitey tighties off of Beck and his tighty whitey audience: black and liberal.

It was mostly a tempest in a teabag until the last couple of days, when Jones got tagged with a few things that could very well end up being the end of his career in the executive branch.
while we're young?

White House announces Gulf restoration task force amid criticism of Army Corps 0
Posted 2 months, 1 week ago
In response to criticism that the Army Corps of Engineers has failed to take needed action, President Obama is creating a federal task force to overhaul management of coastal restoration efforts in Louisiana and Mississippi.
Fearless Protest Shuts Down Mountaintop Removal Blasting

Tree-sitters do environmental regulators’ job 1
Posted 2 months, 2 weeks ago
In a stunning blow to mountaintop removal blasting operations in the Coal River Valley of West Virginia this morning, two fearless protesters scaled massive trees and unfurled banners from their 80-foot-high platforms. Within 300 feet of the Massey Energy's Edwight mountaintop removal blasting site, above Pettry Bottom and Peachtree in Raleigh County, W. Va., the protesters called on the federal agencies to crack down on the scandal-ridden West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WV DEP) and the stop the unsafe and reckless blasting in the area.
Things that go clunk in the night

Cash-for-Clunkers to end Monday night, for real this time 2
Posted 2 months, 2 weeks ago
The "Cash for Clunkers" program has been so successful that it will have to be wrapped up earlier than expected, the Obama administration announced on Thursday.
Van Jones on a green collar economy 0
Posted 2 months, 3 weeks ago
Notable quotable

How Barack Obama is like Marvin Gaye 3
Posted 2 months, 4 weeks ago
EPA chief Lisa Jackson draws the comparison.
Take notes: This could be on the test!

Lessons from the coal industry: Using vs. engaging communities of color 0
Posted 3 months ago
This week revealed some of the best and worst moments in the role of people of color in the struggle over our nation’s energy and economic future.