Energy and Commerce Committee – We all seem agreed that substantive federal legislation addressing climate change will emerge from the 111th Congress. It seems entirely likely that the new Congress will have a measurably higher Democratic component than now, in both houses. (See this from PollingReport.com and this from the “NY Times” which reports that ” the political handicapper Charlie Cook envisions Democratic gains of up to 20 House seats and 7 Senate seats, close to the 60-vote threshold in the Senate needed to break filibusters by the minority.”)
What also seems likely, to me anyway, is that the main vehicle for climate change legislation is going to come from the House of Representatives. The puissant John Dingell, Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, has long since set his staff and the subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality to flesh out concepts for legislation. The committee has issued a series of thoughtful, cogent “Climate Change Legislation Design White Papers.” These are worth reading as we gather momentum toward a real US cap-and-trade regime, along with a raft of other possible measures such as some form of carbon tax, and heightened ” efficiency and or other performance standards, incentives for the purchase of advanced technology, and funding for research, development, and deployment of advanced technology.”
Boone Pickens Meets Al Gore – You would have to be pretty foolish to ignore input from a successful energy billionaire. Boone Pickens made his in oil. Now he’s got a Plan. It’s called, appropriately enough, the Pickens Plan. He wants to expand windpower, take natural gas out of electricity production and devote it to surface transportation, and reduce US oil imports by $300 billion a year in the bargain. He’s got a folksy slide show right at the top of the website. Check it out. See also Green In Greentech For Pickens from “Forbes.”
Canada – I haven’t said an awful lot here about our brothers and sisters to the north. I noted in March, though, that a strict interpretation of the EISA might bar the importation of fuels made from Canadian tar sands. (See under Oil Sands here.) In a story from last month from the Canwest News Service, Scientists make climate plea to Harper, we are told that “More than 100 leading climate scientists have launched a new offensive challenging the federal government’s climate change plan “ For more on this story and the letter itself, see Scientists appeal for “urgency and determination’ on climate issues from the CBC.
One of the driving forces behind the letter and a powerful force among Canadian scientists for an aggressive approach to confronting global warming is Gordon McBean , a sort of Canadian Jim Hansen. McBean is the policy chair for the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction and took part in a conference last month, North America 2030 – An Environmental Outlook, along with a host of other academics studying the environment, including Thomas Homer-Dixon. Homer-Dixon does fascinating work on the confluence of environmental stresses and conflict.
In any event, the scientists’ letter to the Canadian political leadership was an important call for Canada to come up to speed on confronting the climate change crisis.
Good Information Resource – You might want to bookmark this site: Environmental Expert. There are thousands of potentially useful links, articles, companies, etc. to explore.
