Republican Party
A solar energy fight in Arizona
The rising political power of residential solar power
There’s a fight over renewable energy occurring in Arizona right now. The state’s largest public utility asked state regulators for permission to greatly increase the fees paid by homeowners who have solar power on their houses. The utility’s argument is that the increase in solar power produced by these houses is putting a burden on …
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CONTINUE READINGSenator Vitter celebrated the shutdown of the EPA
I’ve written elsewhere about how some elements of the Tea Party and the Republican party have made clear that their goal is not just “reform” of environmental laws, but the elimination of all environmental regulations. Dan has noted the same point in looking at Ron Paul’s campaign platform in the last presidential election. Here’s another …
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CONTINUE READINGDenial As a Way of Life
Climate denial is closely related to debt-ceiling denial.
As it turns out, many of the same people who deny that climate change is a problem also deny that government default would be a problem. No doubt there are several reasons: the fact that Barack Obama is on the opposite side of both issues; the general impermeability of ideologues to facts or expert opinion; …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Debt Ceiling and the Environment
The House GOP plans to require a rollback of environmental regulations as a condition for raising the debt ceiling. This would be a massive power-grab by the House at the expense of the President and the Senate.
It slipped under the radar screen due to all the furor over the impending government shutdown, but the NY Times ran an important article two weeks ago about the debt ceiling. The Republican plan is apparently to condition their agreement to raise the debt ceiling and save the country from default on a massive regulatory rollback. …
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CONTINUE READINGA Farewell to August: Tax Private Jets!
For Dan, Labor Day means thinking about Labor. For me, it means thinking about the horrific traffic that Cape Cod summer residents face on their way back to wherever. Or rather, it means thinking about the ridiculous mode of transportation the some friends of mine used to avoid that traffic. My friends work for a …
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CONTINUE READINGREINS or SPURS?
When it’s not busy passing yet another bill to repeal healthcare reform, the House of Representatives likes to pass an even more sweeping attack on effective government called REINS. REINS is one of those bills that seems suspect from reading the title alone — it’s one of those gimmicky titles (“Regulations from the Executive in …
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CONTINUE READINGThe House GOP Takes a Courageous Stand Against Food Safety
It takes guts to oppose food safety. But that’s no problem for the House GOP. According to the NY TImes, today’s House farm bill wasn’t content to eliminate food stamps, it also took aim at food safety: One overlooked provision in the bill came from Representative Dan Benishek, Republican of Michigan, a surgeon, and would …
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CONTINUE READINGCalifornia Legislature Suspends Oil Severance Tax: Wimp-out or Long Game?
Perhaps the most obvious fiscal reform for California lies in an oil severance tax, which charges producers per barrel coming out of the ground. California is the only major oil-producing state without such a tax (the miniscule fee to fund the Department of Oil, Geothermal, and Geophysical Resources doesn’t count), and because of the international …
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CONTINUE READINGEric Cantor Leads the Anti-NSF Chorus
Eric Cantor, the House Majority Leader, is rounding up the good citizens of the country for a campaign against those evil scientists who are wasting society’s money. Just check out his YouCut website, which tries to crowd source the search for suspect research funding by NSF. He admits NSF does fund some worthwhile research: including “more …
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CONTINUE READINGAre Filibusters of Executive Branch Nominees Constitutional?
President Obama’s announcement today making three nominations to the National Labor Relations Board should remind us that the GOP is the party of permanent constitutional crisis. It has been quite clear from the beginning of the Obama Administration that the Republicans simply have no interest in allowing the NLRB to function. That shouldn’t be much …
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