Global warming still a partisan issue
The latest Gallup Poll on attitudes toward climate change has a disturbing message for advocates of strong policies either to limit greenhouse gas emissions or to promote effective adaptation. Forty-one percent of respondents think that news coverage generally exaggerates the seriousness of global warming, the highest number since Gallup started asking the question in 1997. Worse, the partisan divide continues to grow -- 66% of Republicans and 44% of independents, but on...
CONTINUE READINGA little knowledge
As directed in the FY2008 Consolidated Appropriations Act, and less than six months late, EPA has now issued a proposed rule requiring mandatory reporting of greenhouse gas emissions. The preamble can be found here, the proposed regulatory language here, and additional information about the proposed rule here. Relying on its broad information-gathering authorities under Clean Air Act sections 114 and 208, EPA proposes to require annual reporting beginning next year both ...
CONTINUE READINGBill that would have designated over 2 million new acres of wilderness defeated in House – gun politics to blame?
Today, the Omnibus Public Land Management Act (S. 22), an important land preservation and management bill, was defeated in the U.S. House of Representatives, despite bipartisan support. The bill would have protected over 2 million acres of wilderness in nine states, enlarged the boundaries of several national parks, and authorized land swaps that would have helped to protect western water supplies and other resources, among other features. S. 22 actually combined wel...
CONTINUE READINGFrom Our Far Flung Correspondents: Copenhagen Day 2
A Berkeley Ph.D student in the Energy and Resources program writes: Day 2’s blog will be brief, since it’s already after midnight Denmark time. It’s been a very good day, and my brain is once again full, and ready for bed. Today started with three plenary speakers, including our ERG’s own Dan Kammen plus Prof. Bill Nordhaus (Yale) and Prof. Nebojsa Nakicenovic (IIASA, Vienna U., author of SRES). Bill Nordhaus made the political expediency case for global c...
CONTINUE READINGFailing to “Do the Math”
Remember that DOE canceled the demonstration project for carbon sequestration in Matton, Illinois because of cost over-runs. It turns out that they screwed up the numbers, according to GAO. Now that DOE has a Nobel prize winner at the helm, maybe its math skills will improve.According to Greenwire: A $500 million math error led the Bush administration to cancel plans for FutureGen, a clean coal and carbon capture and sequestration project, the Government Accountabili...
CONTINUE READINGCalifornia’s Salmon Crisis – Searching for Solutions
All the available scientific evidence indicates that California's salmon populations are in deep trouble: several sub-species are currently listed as threatened or endangered under federal and state endangered species laws; the commercial salmon fishing season off the Northern California coast will be shut down for the second year in a row; and the resulting economic impact on California's commercial fishing industry is equally dire. Salmon are a vitally important comm...
CONTINUE READINGNobody’s perfect
The first 50 days of the Obama administration have been heady days indeed for the environmental community. EPA has promised to reconsider its denial of California's request for permission to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars and to think about regulating CO2 emissions from new stationary sources; the Department of Interior has put the brakes on a Bush administration proposal to open new areas to offshore drilling; and presidential memoranda have called for a ...
CONTINUE READINGAn important step toward scientific integrity
Yesterday, together with his executive order on stem cell research, President Obama issued a memorandum to the executive branch on scientific integrity. (Dan noted the news of the pending decision here.) The memorandum is just a starting point, but it is a very good one. It elevates the issue to a high profile, assigning the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (John Holdren, if the Senate ever acts on his nomination) "the responsibility for ensu...
CONTINUE READINGEnvironmental Measures in Spending Bill Clear Congress
At the same time, the measure chips away at several leftover Bush administration policies. It clears the way for the Obama administration to reverse a rule issued late in the Bush administration that says greenhouse gases may not be restricted to protect polar bears from global warming. Another Bush administration rule that reduced the input of federal scientists in endangered species decisions can also be quickly overturned without a lengthy rulemaking process. This ac...
CONTINUE READINGNational Land Use/Smart Growth Policy Coming Soon?
If local governments have maintained control over one policy area, it is land use. Despite tinkering around the edges, states have mostly stayed out, and for good political reasons: land use is the most visible policy that affects people at the local level. But if the Obama Administration moves forward to regulate greenhouse gases, that could all change -- whether or not EPA institutes cap-and-trade or any other new sort of climate policy. How? The key lies in one of t...
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