House Floor Vote – The word from Capitol Hill is that the crucial vote on the Waxman-Markey package of energy and climate change titles is going to happen this week. The timing as Steny Hoyer indicated previously was to be sometime on either side of the July 4th recess. The word yesterday was that it […]
We’ve been seeing a lot of activity in the past few months in the House of Representatives on climate and energy – see a number of blog items here on the Waxman-Markey bill. The Senate hasn’t been idle, certainly, but they’ve been flying a bit below the radar. Senator Boxer, chair of the Environment & […]
I would like to note here that only one Republican on the House Energy & Commerce Committee voted for the Waxman-Markey bill. Mary Bono Mack from California deserves, in my opinion, a pat on the back. Here is an article from the “Press-Enterprise” about her vote and the political pressures on her. The article notes: […]
If you hadn’t guessed, I love looking at the arcane world of politics inside the Beltway and elsewhere. There’s a really readable article in this week’s “NY Times” magazine by the perspicacious Matt Bai. It’s about the politics of health care reform but you could transpose energy and climate change into what’s being said. There’s […]
I’m out of town and so all I’ve got time to offer today is a note on a pretty good bit of political analysis on the cap-and-trade and energy bill from the “NY Times” today. I think that Tim Wirth, who leads the United Nations Foundation, always good for a good quote, has a salient […]
That’s how I’d paraphrase the old Bill Clinton internal campaign motto in the context of the present-day campaign to get an American law into place to combat GHGs. I’ve written about cap-and-trade and the Carbon Markets dozens of times here, including on the cap-and-trade vs. carbon tax debate. For an interesting look at the history […]
A deal has been done between the Democrats in the House driving for a strong, aggressive, meaningful climate change and energy bill and those who are fearful for and/or protective of the special interests of the big utilities, the oil & gas industry, the auto manufacturers and some other heavy industries. The “discussion draft” of […]
In Black Carbon in Waxman-Markey here from a few weeks ago, I noted that “The summary of Waxman-Markey says that black carbon ‘…is a major contributor to warming in the Arctic. EPA is directed in the draft to use its existing authority under the Clean Air Act to reduce emissions of black carbon domestically and […]
My colleague, Elizabeth Balkan, writing the other day at the FPA blog on Energy, had a good update on the state of affairs on REDD, forestry and climate change: Seeing the Forest for the Trees: Shaping Financing to Prevent Deforestation. She looks particularly at the Waxman-Markey draft and how it embraces this critical aspect of […]
The Waxman-Markey bill signals Washington’s intentions to pony up to fund deforestation prevention as part of overall climate legislation. But will climate scientists, C-15 negotiators, developing countries and environmental groups agree on an international forest protection program that everyone, including the trees, can live with? Scientists and climate policy makers now agree that saving forests […]
Black Carbon in Waxman-Markey – As we’ve seen here, particulates from uncombusted materials – coal, diesel, and biomass – have a much bigger impact on the climate than previously recognized, not to mention the devastating direct health impacts. (See under Soot here and at Black Carbon and Solar Cookers.) It is entirely worth noting that […]