Politics

Today’s House Subcommittee Hearing on Climate Change

President Obama’s recent announcement on climate change irritated some in Congress—but we didn’t need a hearing to find that out.

Today, Republican leaders in the House Energy and Power Subcommittee called a hearing to discuss climate change.  Has the Right suddenly taken an interest in responding to climate change? As you might anticipate, the answer is no.  The hearing, entitled “The Obama Administration’s Climate Change Policies and Activities,” focused on attacks to the President’s Climate …

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The Roberts Court’s Corporate Romance

Forty years ago, before going on the Supreme Court, Lewis Powell wrote a call to arms for business interests, calling on them to counter “enemies of the free enterprise system” like Ralph Nader.  Among other things, he recommended a concerted campaign to influence the courts.  The campaign seems to have been a success. The NY Times …

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On the politics of the Keystone pipeline

This article from the New York Times a couple of days ago describes how President Obama, on a fundraising visit here in the Bay Area, made clear how difficult environmental politics are for a President in the midst of a recession – especially the Great Recession:  Appearing at the home of an outspoken critic of …

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The future of climate politics (Pt. 2)

In my last post, I noted a recent report that called for a new political path for environmentalists and others seeking to enact carbon policy in the United States, one that focused on developing policy proposals that would help mobilize a grassroots movement to support limits on greenhouse gases.  My question was, is there anything …

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The future of climate politics (Pt. 1)

I’m a little late to the game here, but I’ve finally had a chance to read Harvard Prof. Skocpol’s post mortem of why she thinks cap-and-trade legislation failed in the U.S. Congress in 2009-10, and what she thinks the best way forward in the future is.  (Dan blogged about this already here and here; Matt …

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Setting the Record Straight on Obama and the Environment

We shouldn’t underestimate Obama’s environmental achievements.

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The role of science in climate politics

Jonathan in his recent post and his comments to that post made a big point of emphasizing the importance of science as the basis for action in terms of climate change.  He also emphasized his belief that the denial of climate change by leading Republicans in the current campaign is an unprecedented rejection of science …

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The filibuster and environmental law

The filibuster in the U.S. Senate has been (rightfully) in the news quite a bit over the past few years.  The use of the filibuster has dramatically increased in those years, to the point where there is currently a de facto 60-vote supermajority requirement to pass legislation in the Congress.  That has led to a …

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Why Oil Companies Might Want to Kill Renewable Energy

Dan’s post about the connections among various efforts to decrease renewable energy production raises the question of why fossil fuel interests would want to take those steps.  One obvious answer is the potential for economic competition in the future – though to the extent that renewable energy continues to be more expensive than many fossil …

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ALEC’s Battle for Dirty Energy

Nobody ever calls themselves “the Committee to Increase Corporate Profits” — American Legislative Exchange Council sounds much better. These phony organizational names make it harder to identify special interests or ideological zealots. Which of course is the point.

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