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RESULTS		Results 51 – 75 of 659
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Headline	Author	Published	Section
Solar strides in New York Solar proponents in the Empire State eagerly await new legislation	Adam Browning	21 Jun 2008	Gristmill
My colleague, Shaun Chapman, of our New York City office, offers this update on solar policy progress in the Empire State: Though it is the 5th largest solar state (PDF) (as measured by cumulative installed photovoltaic capacity), there have been strong feelings among solar proponents that New York needs to play catch up in the photovolatic market. It is catching up. Fast. Two very important bills just passed the legislature and will immediately be signed by ...
Topics: energy, legislation, New York, politics, solar voltaic power (all these topics)

White House covers Johnson Bush invokes executive privilege to shield EPA administrator from subpoena	Kate Sheppard	20 Jun 2008	Gristmill
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee was set to vote today to hold U.S. EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson and Susan Dudley of the White House Office of Management and Budget in contempt of Congress for failing to turn over documents related to recent controversial decisions on smog and California's request for an emissions waiver. But it appears their friend in the White House swooped in this morning to block the committee's subpoenas for those docum ...
Topics: George Bush, legislation, Muckraker, news, politics, US EPA (all these topics)

Have a Sense of Tumor! New York state passes bill to create detailed map of cancer cases		20 Jun 2008	News
Posted at 9:40 AM on 20 Jun 2008 In an effort to educate the public about correlations between cancer rates and environmental factors, the New York state legislature just passed a bill that would create a detailed map of cancer cases in the state. The online map would plot the neighborhoods of cancer patients as well as the location of industrial facilities like chemical manufacturers and power plants. &quo ...
Topics: environmental justice, health, legislation, New York, news, politics (all these topics)

Back to Nature Nature publishes my climate analysis and solution	Joseph Romm	19 Jun 2008	Gristmill
Here is perhaps my most succinct and citable explanation of why 'Both national and global climate policy (PDF) must redirect its focus from setting a price on carbon to promoting the rapid deployment of clean technologies' (online here). True, I didn't think I would appear in Nature again. But Nature online asked me for my critique of the Boxer-Lieberman-Warner Bill bill, and they were open to a big-picture commentary based on the latest climate science. They even r ...
Topics: climate, climate change impacts, climate science, legislation, politics (all these topics)

Tough draft Draft copy of EPA rulemaking on fuel efficiency suggests higher standards are possible	Kate Sheppard	19 Jun 2008	Gristmill
Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal teased that they'd gotten ahold of an advance draft of the EPA's regulatory proposals for automobile fuel efficiency. According to the WSJ, EPA staffers found that cars and trucks could be even more fuel-efficient by 2020 than the 35 miles per gallon required by the latest update to CAFE standards. The draft notes that advanced technologies like plug-in hybrid vehicles could help raise fuel efficiency well beyond 35 mile ...
Topics: fuel efficiency, legislation, Muckraker, news, politics, US EPA (all these topics)

It's Hard to Spray Goodbye Ontario enacts province-wide pesticide ban; fine print upsets greens		19 Jun 2008	News
Posted at 9:07 AM on 19 Jun 2008 The Canadian province of Ontario has just passed a pesticide ban that by next spring would prohibit the use of more than 80 ingredients and 300 pesticide products across the province. However, many greens and public-health advocates have decried the just-passed legislation, saying it could ultimately end up damaging public health. The major problem with the ban, criti ...
Topics: Canada, legislation, news, politics, toxics (all these topics)

The politics of clean energy Considering recycled energy will politically facilitate a national clean energy plan	Sean Casten	18 Jun 2008	Gristmill
There is a tendency to frame the politics of clean energy as a debate between the enlightened, forward thinkers on the coasts and the paleolithic environment-hating coal barons in the Southeast and Midwest. It makes a good sound bite, but confuses the ends and the means. Yes, there are strong vested interests in the coal belt and the rust belt that consistently resist GHG caps and clean energy policy. But so long as we frame the clean energy conversation as a wealth t ...
Topics: business, energy, energy efficiency, fuel efficiency, legislation, state politics (all these topics)

House party Yet another climate bill introduced in the House; greens applaud	Kate Sheppard	17 Jun 2008	Gristmill
Since climate change legislation failed to gather steam in the Senate this month, all eyes are now on the House. Energy and Commerce Committee Chair John Dingell (D-Mich.) has been promising a bill for months. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), chair of the Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming, put out an ambitious bill in early June. Today, Reps. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) added their own legislatio ...
Topics: climate, legislation, Muckraker, news, politics, US House of Representatives (all these topics)

Deja vu ... all over again Senate again rejects legislation to extend tax credits for renewables	Kate Sheppard	17 Jun 2008	Gristmill
The Senate failed to invoke cloture on the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008 this afternoon. The vote was 52-44, well short of the 60 needed to move the legislation forward. This legislation would have extended the investment tax credits (ITC) for solar energy and the production tax credits (PTC) for wind, biomass, geothermal, hydropower, landfill gas, and solid waste. The vote fell primarily along party lines, though Republicans Norm Coleman (Minn.), ...
Topics: Congress, legislation, Muckraker, news, politics, renewable energy (all these topics)

Mildly different Are McCain's environmental views really so far from Bush's?	David Roberts	17 Jun 2008	Gristmill
The New York Times' Elisabeth Bumiller says, "On the environment ... Mr. McCain has strikingly different views from Mr. Bush." Is that true? Bush wants unstinting federal support and pork for the nuclear industry. He supports "clean coal." He is against raising CAFE standards on automobiles or boosting efficiency and performance standards on other individual economic sectors. He supports removing the moratorium on offshore drilling. He believes in ...
Topics: climate, energy, George Bush, John McCain, legislation, politics (all these topics)

It's not about the fuel The case for fuel-agnostic efficiency	Sean Casten	17 Jun 2008	Gristmill
Those of us who care about energy and environmental policy have a bad habit: the lazy but rhetorically convenient tendency to refer to energy issues as if they were fuel issues. From solar to coal to uranium, we have developed a shorthand that uses these words to describe a whole fuel-chain, from raw fuel extraction/recovery to end-use consumption. But the language is dangerous. What matters is efficiency -- true, fuel-agnostic efficiency, applied equally to every pos ...
Topics: business, energy, energy efficiency, fuel efficiency, legislation (all these topics)

The Brownstein diagnosis What went wrong on Lieberman-Warner?	David Roberts	16 Jun 2008	Gristmill
Ron Brownstein -- for my money the best political reporter out there -- examines the implosion of the Lieberman-Warner bill in National Journal. Here's his three-paragraph summary of what went wrong: The bill would have established enough boards and regulations that the chamber [of commerce] was able to distribute a devastating chart, modeled on those used against Hillary Rodham Clinton's health care plan in 1993, that portrayed the proposal as an impossibly tang ...
Topics: climate, energy, greenhouse-gas emissions, legislation, politics (all these topics)

Oh say can you CCS? Boucher and Upton introduce bipartisan legislation to invest in carbon sequestration technology	Kate Sheppard	13 Jun 2008	Gristmill
House Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher (D-Va.) and ranking minority member Fred Upton (R-Mich.) introduced industry-backed legislation on Wednesday to invest billions of dollars in carbon capture-and-sequestration (CCS) technology. The bill [PDF] is intended to 'accelerate the development and early deployment of systems for the capture and storage of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel electric generation facilities.' It would create ...
Topics: carbon sequestration, climate, legislation, Muckraker, news, politics (all these topics)

Back on the train again House passes Amtrak authorization by veto-proof margin	Kate Sheppard	12 Jun 2008	Gristmill
The House passed a bill yesterday to allocate nearly $15 billion to Amtrak, a move intended to give travelers an alternative as gas prices soar. The bill, which would authorize funding for the passenger railroad for the next five years, passed by a vote of 311-104 -- a veto-proof margin. Within the funding package, $14.9 billion goes to Amtrak, intercity rail services, and a grant program to help states create or expand rail service. Another $1.5 billion would ...
Topics: legislation, Muckraker, news, politics, public transportation (all these topics)

Dingell dangle Dingell promises climate bill friendlier to manufacturers	Kate Sheppard	12 Jun 2008	Gristmill
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair John Dingell (D-Mich.) has been saying for months now that a climate bill from his committee is on the way. Yesterday he talked about his pending legislation to industry folks, promising it would be friendlier to their interests than the Senate bill that failed last week: Dingell told the Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association, the auto supplier trade association, at a luncheon on Capitol Hill Wednesday that the cl ...
Topics: climate, energy, legislation, Muckraker, news, politics, US House of Representatives (all these topics)

So, what now? What we learned from the stymied Climate Security Act, and what comes next	Kate Sheppard	12 Jun 2008	Gristmill
After months of engine-revving, the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act sputtered to a halt in the Senate last week. Now attention has turned to what was learned -- or wasn't -- and how things might play out the next time a climate bill makes it this far. Despite what looked from the outside like an unproductive and anticlimactic week of grandstanding and delays, the bill's sponsors emerged from the experience claiming sunny optimism about the future. 'It ...
Topics: Barbara Boxer, climate, legislation, Muckraker, news, politics, US Senate (all these topics)

Money changes everything Everyone wants a piece of the climate bill pie	Joseph Romm	11 Jun 2008	Gristmill
The debate over the Climate Security Act bill has made it clear that trillions are at stake in global warming legislation. No surprise, then, that the Senate power brokers don't want Barbara Boxer's (D-Calif.) Environment and Public Works committee to have the only say on who gets what. E&E Daily ($ub. req'd) has the story of how the climate bill is likely to have a much longer and far more tangled journey next year:Next year's Senate climate debate is shaping up t ...
Topics: Barbara Boxer, climate, legislation, politics, US Senate (all these topics)

Action on Solar Investment Tax Credit Delayed Lack of credit threatens solar industry	Michael Moynihan	11 Jun 2008	Gristmill
Originally posted at the NDN Blog. The failure of the Senate to obtain cloture on the Solar Investment Tax Credit -- coming on the heels of the collapse of climate change legislation last Friday -- should send a wake up call to the environment and clean technology communities that a new more forceful strategy is needed to make progress on climate change and energy independence. At a moment when the U.S. economy is suffering from the effects of a full blown oil sh ...
Topics: business, climate, economy, energy, legislation, politics (all these topics)

Why not a revenue-neutral carbon cap? The silver-lining of Lieberman-Warner's demise	Peter Barnes	11 Jun 2008	Gristmill
The demise of the Lieberman-Warner climate bill may not be a bad thing if it spurs environmentalists and politicians to ask: Is this the best way to cap carbon? Let's be clear what Lieberman-Warner was. Yes, it contained a carbon cap. But mostly it was about spending or giving away trillions of dollars. It was, as Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) put it, 'the mother and father of all earmarks,' and every lobbyist in town was at the trough. The bill sought to allocate a vast ...
Topics: cap-and-dividend, carbon trading, climate, legislation, politics (all these topics)

'Partisan bickering' It's long past time to assign responsibility for stymied climate legislation	David Roberts	11 Jun 2008	Gristmill
In an otherwise insightful piece on the failure of the Lieberman-Warner bill, Eric Pooley says this: It would have taken a truly great floor debate to begin resolving some of those difficult areas -- a half dozen thorny deal-breakers (how to contain costs, what to do about China) that need to be figured out before any such bill can pass. But not much of that table setting took place last week, because the debate never made it past the partisan bickering and eco ...
Topics: climate, jackassery, legislation, politics (all these topics)

Stronger, simpler, fairer Upward from the Climate Security Act	Patrick Mazza	11 Jun 2008	Gristmill
Climate Solutions Policy Director K.C. Golden has some thoughts on where to go with national climate legislation after last week's down vote on the Climate Security Act. As thunderstorms and tornadoes ripped through the nation's capital last week, the U.S. Senate tied itself in a procedural knot, preventing a vote on the substance of the Climate Security Act -- the first meaningful climate legislation to reach the Senate floor. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid c ...
Topics: cap-and-dividend, climate, climate change mitigation, greenhouse-gas emissions, legislation (all these topics)

Renewed anxiety Renewables industry fears for future if Senate doesn't extend tax credits	Kate Sheppard	10 Jun 2008	Gristmill
The Senate once again failed to pass tax-credit extensions for renewable energy on Tuesday, and folks in the industry are starting to get worried. Companies working in wind, solar, and other renewables rely on the tax credits, which are set to expire at the end of the year. Trade organizations that represent renewable-energy firms on the Hill say they're already seeing a slowing of growth in the sector because companies are hesitant to start new projects without the ...
Topics: energy, legislation, Muckraker, news, politics, renewable energy, US Senate (all these topics)

Global boiling Senators ignore the warning signs	Brad Johnson	10 Jun 2008	Gristmill
Originally posted at the Think Progress Wonk Room. Recently, the United States Senate has taken several votes on building a green economy that moves away from fossil fuel dependence, creates new green industry, and addresses global warming. Each time, a minority of senators blocked the way. On Friday, 38 senators filibustered mandatory greenhouse-gas reduction legislation (S. 3036). This morning, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) joined 41 Republicans to filibuster the Cons ...
Topics: climate, climate change impacts, legislation, politics, severe weather (all these topics)

No renewal for renewables Senate Republicans block movement on two bills to spur renewable energy investment	Kate Sheppard	10 Jun 2008	Gristmill
With gas prices now averaging a record $4.04 a gallon in the United States, the Senate voted on two bills Tuesday that would have revoked tax breaks for Big Oil and extended tax credits to renewable energy. Proponents of the two measures touted them as vital for consumer relief and transition to new energy sources, but both measures failed to muster the 60 votes needed to proceed. The first vote, on the Consumer First Energy Act, fell short of cloture by a vote ...
Topics: legislation, Muckraker, news, politics, US Senate (all these topics)

In the clearing stands a Boxer Boxer op-ed argues the Climate Security Act vote was a big step forward	Kate Sheppard	10 Jun 2008	Gristmill
Environment and Public Works Committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) wrote an op-ed in today's San Jose Mercury News on the failed Climate Security Act that she championed in the Senate. In it, she argues that last week's vote was an important advancement. '[O]ur strong vote proves that we are moving in the right direction,' she writes. She also notes that other landmark environmental laws took quite a bit of time to pass: Our generation has been handed a tremendou ...
Topics: Barbara Boxer, climate, legislation, Muckraker, news, politics, US Senate (all these topics)

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