"Tell the teacher we're surfin', surfin' USA." From BlueClimate: A report on an important analysis of Congress' draft energy legislation from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. From DeSmogBlog: Some informative and fun "TV." At TreeHugger: A good review of Chris Mooney's new book, Storm World. Chris is a really interesting thinker and writer […]
"The best-laid schemes o’ mice an ‘men Gang aft agley, An’lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain, For promis’d joy!" Congestion pricing, a rollicking success story in London, Stockholm and Singapore, may have taken a massive hit yesterday when the NY State Legislature declined to advance the legislation necessary for New York City to proceed, […]
There are a slew of stories that I have been scanning while I've been working on some other projects. Here are some of them now. "The Washington Post" says Report Warns of a Much Warmer Northeast – Effects Could Be Disastrous, Says Two-Year Study. As someone who grew up skiing on the blue ice of Vermont, […]
This week’s “Economist” has a leader (BritSpeak for editorial) and an article on the state of play in Congress on the energy bills and their relationship to climate change legislation. They are not complimentary. The editorial, A pale shade of green, is off base in several ways. I agree with some of what’s being said […]
I must say that sometimes the workings of our federal government’s legislative branch, properly known as Congress, aka The Hill, escape me. Certainly there are disparities in the proportional representation in the Senate which complicate things. That Wyoming (pop. 515 thousand) or Vermont (pop. 624 thousand) have the same number of representatives in the Senate […]
We are just back from a three-day weekend at the house of some friends in Columbia County, NY. We took a half-day trip too over to visit a nursery school pal of my daughter whose parents are working at a theatre festival in an old Western New England college town. The college is also my […]
I've been preparing an article for the FPA on green building and coming up with some great stuff some of which I wanted to get out now. There are some incredible projects out there and more on the drawing boards. I've interviewed Kevin Hydes, chair of the World Green Building Council, for the article. (See […]
Dingell v Waxman (and others) – Congressman John Dingell has been in the House of Representatives since 1956. He holds the seat held by his father from 1933 to 1955. If you want to follow the federal energy legislation wending its way through Congress, you have to know the players and John Dingell is near […]
I mentioned the superb work of RENEW Wisconsin and my old friend, Michael Vickerman, at Some Notes on Renewable Energy from April 30. Michael has been kind enough to share his impressions from a recent major renewable energy event. ******* Random Thoughts from this Year's Renewable Energy Fair For some, turnout is the measure of […]
We looked at the Senate energy legislation from June 15 to 22. (See various posts below.) Now the ball is very much in the court of the House. Yesterday, the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, led a press conference of leading Democratic committee chairs to “Announce America’s “Energy Independence Day’ Legislation.” Frankly, the package, […]
I'm on a short vacation now between the end of my daughter's school year and the beginning of day camp. We're in the Florida Keys and the whole experience makes one mindful of a number of things: technology, for one thing. Checking destinations and flights out on the web, making reservations by phone (the old […]
After I posted last night, the Senate came back for a late session in which they approved a complete package. The final result was that the CAFE improvements were in, as was a huge boost in ethanol production and a requirement for ethanol use in vehicles, a frankly feel-good provision on price gouging was included, the tax […]
Tax Package , An excellent bit of legislation came to a screeching halt on the Senate floor early this afternoon. The Senate Finance Committee's tax package for energy (see my item on this in the previous post), and passed by them 14-6 just two days ago, was held from a final vote on the Senate […]
Barry Commoner , The "NY Times" has a great offering this week in its science section: A Conversation With Barry Commoner – At 90, an Environmentalist From the '70s Still Has Hope. In my post from April 5, Renewable Energy, I wrote "When I read Barry Commoner's The Politics of Energy, published in 1979, I […]
Dingell v Pelosi – This is from the Center for American Progress today: “Two senior House Democrats — facing opposition from their party’s top leader, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — have abandoned their legislative effort to block California and a dozen other states from regulating greenhouse gases from cars and trucks.” Energy in the Senate […]