Nostradamus, I Ain’t
On Friday, I predicted that Senate Republicans would side with Grover Norquist against Tom Coburn and block repeal of one of the egregious ethanol subsidies now polluting both our tax code and our country. Well, so much for that: most Senate Republicans did the right thing and voted to remove the subsidy. In this case, it was the Democrats who voted to maintain the subsidy, along with farm state Republicans. Senate Democratic leaders argued that somehow the Cobu...
CONTINUE READINGAir Resources Board Releases New Environmental Assessment of Cap and Trade to Comply with Judge’s Order
The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is covering all its bases in responding to a judge's order that CARB violated the California Enviornmental Quality Act (CEQA) in adopting its scoping plan to implement AB 32 (the state's climate change legislation). As I reported last week, CARB has won an order from the appeals court allowing the state to go forward in implementing its challenged cap and trade program. But to hedge its bets, the staff of the Ca...
CONTINUE READINGGoodby Ski Slopes, Hello Drought
Climate change means not only changes in temperature, but changes in precipitation. These precipitation changes are especially important in arid regions like the American West. There is reason to be concerned about the future of Western climate, according to the latest report from ScienceNow: The Rocky Mountains have lost an unusual amount of springtime snowpack over the past 30 years or so. During that interval, the average springtime snowpack—the accumulated snow...
CONTINUE READINGThe Attack on Scientific Freedom
A disturbing report from Science magazine: The news that Australian climate scientists were relocated into secure offices after receiving death threats and abusive e-mails became a political issue in parliament this week. . .. Contacted by ScienceInsider, a spokesperson for the Australian National University in Canberra said, "In response to increasing harassment, including death threats, nine staff working in the area of climate change were moved to a more secure locat...
CONTINUE READINGA GOP Ethanol Trap? Not Likely.
I hope I'm wrong. Jon Chait reports that Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) will force a cloture vote on his proposal to eliminate the ethanol "blending" subsidy, which costs the government about $6 billion annually, is horrible for the environment, and is economically inefficient. His take is that this represents an ideological skirmish between Coburn and Wingnut Enforcer Grover Norquist, who forces GOP officeholders to sign a "no-tax" pledge that includes banning the el...
CONTINUE READINGWorse Than We Thought
Apparently, the Japanese nuclear crisis was worse than we thought. The Guardian reports: Molten nuclear fuel in three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant is likely to have burned through pressure vessels, not just the cores, Japan has said in a report in which it also acknowledges it was unprepared for an accident of the severity of Fukushima. It is the first time Japanese authorities have admitted the possibility that the fuel suffered "melt-through" – a ...
CONTINUE READINGGrandfathering bad air: EPA exempts power plant from new climate and air quality rules
EPA has issued a controversial decision exempting a new, natural-gas power plant proposed for California's San Joaquin Valley, a region with some of the worst air quality in the country, from the most up-to-date Clean Air Act rules aimed at reducing climate emissions and the pollutants NO2 and SO2. Here's the E&E story, and here's the EPA decision, likely to be appealed within the agency to the Environmental Appeals Board, perhaps by Earthjustice. The que...
CONTINUE READINGDueling Orders and Lots of Confusion in AB 32 Case
Yesteday, I described a California Court of Appeals order lifting the injunction preventing the California Air Resources Board (CARB) from implementing its cap and trade program. The order was apparently issued last Friday afternoon. Even in this age of instantaneous communication, however, apparently neither the Superior Court judge in the case, Earnest H. Goldsmith, nor the lead attorneys for CARB, Mark Poole and Gavin McAbe of the California Attorney General's...
CONTINUE READINGOf Commerce and Green Evangelism
In 1998, then-Congressman Henry Hyde famously tried to write off an extramarital affair at age 41 as “youthful indiscretion”. I am wondering if President Obama’s Commerce Secretary nominee John Bryson is tempted to use that phrase to explain his long-ago involvement in helping to create the Natural Resources Defense Council. Not that he has anything to apologize for. In reacting to Bryson’s appointment, Representative Darrell Issa called him a dangerous “green...
CONTINUE READINGOn the Advantages of Being Out of the Political Spotlight
Environmental issues haven't been on the front page much recently, and on the whole I think that's a good thing. The fact is that budget issues, the race for the Republican presidential nomination, and Medicare have pushed the environment out of the spotlight. Predictions about politics are always hazardous and seem to be getting even less reliable lately. However, it seems to me that the window for making major anti-regulatory changes in Congress may be closing. ...
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