Political Climate Articles
Clinton Warns U.S. May Trail China in Energy Race, Senators Say
March 16 (Bloomberg) -- Former President Bill Clinton told lawmakers the U.S. may fall behind China in the race to dominate the global market for clean energy unless Congress passes climate-change legislation, two senators said.
"There's concern about whether America is going to remain the competitive economic force that we've been," Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, told reporters today after Clinton spoke to Senate Democrats at the Capitol.
Clinton said the best way to create a surge of U.S. clean- energy jobs is for Congress to put a price on carbon-dioxide pollution blamed for global warming, said Lieberman, who is working with Senators John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, and Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, to craft compromise climate-change legislation.
"I thought he was very powerful," Lieberman said of Clinton's message.
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Senators introduce energy-efficiency renovations program for commercial buildings
WASHINGTON, DC - Last week, Senators Jeff Merkley Mark Pryor, Debbie Stabenow, Sherrod Brown, Bernie Sanders, and Ben Cardin introduced the "Building STAR Energy Efficiency Rebate Act of 2010" to create jobs by promoting the installation of energy-efficient renovations in commercial and multi-family residential buildings.
By utilizing rebates and low-interest loans, the "Building Star" program leverages between two and three dollars in private investment for every federal dollar spent. Rebates included in the bill would amount to $6 billion, in order to stimulate $18 to $24 billion in total investment, resulting in more than 150,000 new jobs. These jobs will pay well, allow companies to rehire laid off workers and infuse sorely needed capital into small businesses and hard-hit communities across the country. The savings accrued by building owners and the profits earned by laborers and manufacturers will power even more economic growth.
"Clean energy is not only the next great growth industry, but it's an engine for job creation today," Senator Merkley said. "Energy-efficiency programs like ‘Building Star' will put Americans to work in construction and manufacturing and save small businesses money as we strive for American energy independence."
"Building STAR" is supported by PIMA and other member organizations of Rebuilding America, a ground-breaking coalition of unions, contractor associations, manufacturers, financial services companies and energy efficiency advocates.
"Building Star" is similar to "Home Star," a parallel program that offers energy- efficiency assistance to homeowners. President Barack Obama announced his support March 2nd for the residential property "Home Star" program, including the financing options recommended by Senator Merkley.
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Medvedev: Russia must tap Arctic resources
Russia must defend its claims to mineral riches of the Arctic in increasing competition with other powers, President Dmitry Medvedev said Wednesday.
Medvedev said global climate change will likely fuel arguments between nations seeking access to energy and other resources.
"Other polar nations already have taken active steps to expand their scientific research as well as economic and even military presence in the Arctic," he told a session of the presidential Security Council.
Icebreaker
Medvedev added that attempts have been made to limit Russia's access to Arctic resources, but he didn't name a specific nation.
"Regrettably, we have seen attempts to limit Russia's access to the exploration and development of the Arctic mineral resources," he said. "That's absolutely inadmissible from the legal viewpoint and unfair given our nation's geographical location and history."
Russia claims a large part of the Arctic seabed as its own, arguing that it is an extension of its continental shelf. In 2007, scientists staked a symbolic claim by dropping a canister containing the Russian flag onto the seabed from a small submarine.
The United States, Canada, Denmark and Norway have also been trying to assert jurisdiction over parts of the Arctic, which is believed to contain as much as a quarter of the Earth's undiscovered oil and gas.
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VIDEO: Bret Baier Interviewing Obama Vs. Bret Baier Interviewing Bush
Yesterday, Fox News anchor Bret Baier aired his 19-minute exclusive interview with President Obama, where he frequently interjected and interrupted the President. (Raw Story counted 16 such instances.) The right wing gave Baier kudos for the interview, saying he "showed us how a genuine professional TV journalist works."
Baier's tenacity, however, seems reserved only for Democratic presidents. His interviews with President Bush were far friendlier, with questions like, "What are you reading now?" and "Do you believe that there hasn't been a terrorist attack on U.S. soil in more than seven years because of the policies your administration has implemented?"
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GOP Congressmen: Most Republicans Now Think Iraq War Was a Mistake
In a Thursday panel at Cato on conservatism and war, U.S. Reps. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) and John Duncan (R-Tenn.) revealed that the vast majority of GOP members of Congress now think it was wrong for the U.S. to invade Iraq in 2003.
The discussion was moderated by Grover Norquist, who asked the congressmen how many of their colleagues now think the war was a mistake.
Rohrabacher:
"I will say that the decision to go in, in retrospect, almost all of us think that was a horrible mistake. …Now that we know that it cost a trillion dollars, and all of these years, and all of these lives, and all of this blood… all I can say is everyone I know thinks it was a mistake to go in now."
McClintock:
"I think everyone [in Congress] would agree that Iraq was a mistake."
Watch the clip:
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Political Donations by Occupational Category
Via Erik Voeten, a plot of the ideological rankings of the recipients of campaign contributions from different occupational categories. Adam Bonica looked at FEC filings and:
Combined with the procedure described the previous post, this allows for interesting comparisons of ideological giving patterns across industries/professions. As a first cut, I recovered ideal point estimates for the 3125 PACs and 131,000 individual contributors that gave to two or more unique candidates during the 2007-2008 election cycle and scaled them using the IMWA procedure. The figure below ranks a subset of occupations from left to right based on the mean ideal point of the members of each occupation. As a point of reference, the occupation ideal points are imposed over the density plots for all Democratic and Republican candidates.
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Senators Introduce Energy Efficient Commercial Building Retrofit Bill, Hearing Held
Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) March 4 introduced the "Building STAR Energy Efficiency Rebate Act of 2010" (S. 3079), a bill that would provide $6 billion in federal investment through rebates and financing incentives. The bill would cover about 30 percent of the cost of installing energy efficient products and/or providing energy efficiency-related services (e.g., energy audits) in commercial and multifamily residential buildings this year. It is estimated that the $6 billion in funding for the Building STAR program would spur $18 to $24 billion in total spending, creating up to 200,000 jobs in the construction, manufacturing and other related industries. The program is designed to work quickly and includes simplified application procedures for building owners.
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Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) to use cap-and-trade funds to balance state budget
Gov. Chris Christie has said he is taking $65 million from the state's model cap-and-trade program to balance the state's $29.3 billion budget, but he is getting pushback from Democrats in the state Legislature.
The money comes from quarterly carbon permit auctions held by the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, an alliance of 10 Eastern states from Maine to Maryland. The governor said he also is planning on taking all of the proceeds from the next three quarterly auctions in 2010.
"Next year, we plan on getting back to RGGI," Christie said in a meeting at The Star-Ledger.
Bob Smith, chairman of the Legislature's environment and energy committee, and a member of the appropriations committee, has vowed to fight the governor over the RGGI funds and the Clean Energy Fund, which the governor appropriated last month.
"The question that will come back to me and the other policymakers will be how can we justify raiding this fund when there are much better alternatives. We should continue for at least another year with higher income taxes on our wealthier residents," said Smith, who is a vocal advocate for economic stimulus through green jobs.
The RGGI funds, like the $158 million in the Clean Energy Fund, were earmarked for use in a variety of energy efficiency and renewable-energy programs. In 2009, New Jersey's RGGI proceeds were $67 million; of that, $22 million has been spent or committed for consumer-oriented programs.
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Drought, refugees, revolution and war – military prepares for climate doomsday
MILITARY chiefs are holding "back room" discussions on how to cope with the threat of a world ravaged by wars provoked by uncontrolled climate change, an expert has warned.
Gwynne Dyer, an influential lecturer in international affairs, said if the climate continues to change at its current rate there will be global conflict in decades.
Tens of millions of climate refuges unable to feed themselves in their own dried-up countries will aim for places like Scotland where conditions will remain favourable.
These countries will in turn use their military powers to barricade their borders, leading to wars over land, food and water.
Mr Dyer was speaking to The Scotsman ahead of the Edinburgh International Science Festival next month, when he will give a talk called "Climate Wars".
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Take a global view of climate change
The Senate is due to unveil a bipartisan climate and energy package soon. As lawmakers consider it, they must not lose sight of the vital connection between people and nature.
Numerous studies — including last month's Quadrennial Defense Review by the Penatgon — have detailed how the changing climate could affect people around the world, wreaking havoc on developing nations and punishing the poorest communities.
But why should Americans care about these far-off communities and the climate threats they face? The fact is, their plight is our plight.
Already, more frequent droughts, floods and other climate-related disasters in the most vulnerable countries are forcing entire communities to flee their homes.
Military experts predict that conflicts over shrinking food and water supplies will destabilize already shaky governments and economies around the world.
In an age of globalization, these seemingly remote challenges directly affect Americans, from the prices we pay for coffee or cotton clothing to the families who send sons and daughters overseas to serve in war-torn nations.
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Pro-Business Lobbying Blitz Takes on Obama's Plan for Wall Street Overhaul
WASHINGTON — With the Obama administration looking to score another major legislative victory, an array of pro-business groups and fiscal conservatives are mounting a well-financed campaign to scale back or block altogether the Democrats' plan to overhaul regulation of the financial industry.
By the time the campaign is over, opponents of regulation plans will probably have spent tens of millions of dollars to lobby Washington lawmakers, run advertisements and start petition drives. It is an effort that many of the players, from the United States Chamber of Commerce down to smaller splinter groups, see as vital to their economic survival.
"This is a re-ordering of our financial institutions for generations to come," Paul Schott Stevens, president of the Investment Company Institute, said last week at a meeting hosted by the chamber.
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Quiz — Who said:
"Continuous research by our best scientists is the key to American scientific leadership and true national security. This indispensable work may be made impossible by the creation of an atmosphere in which no man feels safe against the public airing of unfounded rumors, gossip, and vilification"?
If you want a hint, the very next sentence by this man known for his bluntness is, "Such an atmosphere is un-American."
It was President Truman in his Address to the Centennial Anniversary of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Today, unrestricted greenhouse gas emissions are among our gravest national security threats (see "NYT: Climate Change Seen as Threat to U.S. Security" and "Veterans Day, 2029"). Yet scientists who are working to inform us of the threats to our national security are still under assault (see "Sen. Inhofe inquisition seeking ways to criminalize and prosecute 17 leading climate scientists").
Here is a longer excerpt from Truman's still-all-too-relevant remarks:
Continuous research by our best scientists is the key to American scientific leadership and true national security. This indispensable work may be made impossible by the creation of an atmosphere in which no man feels safe against the public airing of unfounded rumors, gossip, and vilification. Such an atmosphere is un-American....
Now and in the years ahead, we need, more than anything else, the honest and uncompromising common sense of science. Science means a method of thought. That method is characterized by open-mindedness, honesty, perseverance, and, above all, by an unflinching passion for knowledge and truth. When more of the peoples of the world have learned the ways of thought of the scientist, we shall have better reason to expect lasting peace and a fuller life for all.
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Climate Change Is a Scientific Reality, Not a Political Debate
Climate denials have reached a fever pitch in the past few weeks. Anti-science screeds have littered the pages of the major newspapers and dominated talk radio.
From a New York Post editorial called "The EPA's Climate Con" to a Rush Limbaugh show in which he says "Al Gore…ought to be subject to being sued" because global warming is a "hoax," commentators have been trashing documented scientific evidence.
What I found most alarming about this trend is the fact that the media coverage and political debate so often take these rants at face value.
The scientific consensus confirms the dangers of climate change. Yet rarely are climate deniers called on to cite fact-based, peer-reviewed evidence for their rebuttals.
Instead, they spout unsubstantiated claims that fly in the face of climate data compiled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Academy of Sciences, the Pentagon, the National Intelligence Council, and the CIA.
Secretary of Energy Steven Chu characterized this trend in a recent interview: "If you look at the climate skeptics, I would have to say honestly, what standard are they being held to? It's very asymmetric. They get to say anything they want."
Inadvertently, Marc Morano, one of the driving forces behind denier website Climate Depot, identified the right's key strategy. At the Accuracy in Media Awards at the 2010 Conservative Political Action Conference, Morano said climate change is "a political movement. It is not a scientific movement."
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Senate Trio Targets Week of Earth Day for emissions bill
The three senators at the center of climate and energy negotiations are aiming to unveil their bill during the week celebrating the 40th anniversary of Earth Day on April 22.
Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Lieberman will finish writing their draft proposal that sets a first-ever price for the industrial releases of greenhouse gas emissions and expands domestic production of oil, gas and nuclear power.
The three lawmakers expect to be out of Washington for much of the two-week recess that starts today, but they said their staffs will be busy on Capitol Hill writing the bill and meeting with key industry officials and environmental lobbyists to glean last-minute ideas for the proposal.
Graham yesterday outlined several specific decisions already made, including sector-specific emission limits for power plants starting in 2012, with manufacturers to follow four years later. For allowances, the senators will propose recycling all revenue generated by the sale of the utility industry's allowances back to consumers through local distribution companies.
They also will add a "price collar" to give industry certainty about compliance costs. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) is taking a lead on this issue, meeting with Kerry, Graham and Lieberman, along with Tom Ferrell, the chairman, president and CEO of Richmond-based Dominion Resources Inc., and Tom Kuhn, the president of the Edison Electric Institute.
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