Energy
Mountaintop Removal: Incompatible with Climate Solutions and Incompatible with the Environment
Monday thousands of people converged on Washington, D.C. for the Appalachia Rising Rally to protest mountaintop removal (MTR) coal mining. Activists dumped 1,000 pounds of Appalachia dirt on EPA’s front lawn before marching on the White House. At a sit-in at PNC bank, four people were arrested while protesting that bank’s financing of MTR coal mining. …
CONTINUE READINGProp 23: Spinning the Poll Numbers
A new email blast from the California Jobs Initiative trumpets: “Brand new Los Angeles Times poll puts Yes on 23 in the LEAD!” That’s true, sort of. Or at least it has what Stephen Colbert calls “truthiness.” The LA Times story is headlined: “Proposition 23 poll shows a dead heat among California voters.” As shown …
Continue reading “Prop 23: Spinning the Poll Numbers”
CONTINUE READINGOne More Try This Year for a National Renewable Electricity Standard
Is something, in terms of a federal renewable standard, better than nothing? There is new talk of setting a national renewable electricity standard before this session of Congress ends, due to the introduction of S.3813, this week. This Bingaman-sponsored bill echoes an earlier proposal that can best be described as imposing a standard of modest …
Continue reading “One More Try This Year for a National Renewable Electricity Standard”
CONTINUE READINGProp 23 and PG&E: Setting the Record Straight
The California Jobs Initiative is spreading a highly misleading story about PG&E’s opposition to Prop 23, the ballot measure to suspend California’s keystone climate legislation (AB 32). The story appears in an email that they’ve circulated widely. To make it easy to understand, I’m leaving the truthful parts of their story in black and putting …
Continue reading “Prop 23 and PG&E: Setting the Record Straight”
CONTINUE READINGWill the Future Be “Made in China”?
America used to b a place where the future happened first. Now we seem to be fight any kind of change, whether the issue is immigration, health care, the financial system, or energy.
CONTINUE READINGAnd Caldron Bubble
Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble. Or in this case, vast quantities of natural gas bubbled into the Gulf of Mexico: A vast majority of the natural gas that billowed out of BP PLC’s failed well in the Gulf this summer did not escape to the surface and atmosphere. Instead, the …
Continue reading “And Caldron Bubble”
CONTINUE READINGThe Top Ten Facts You Didn’t Know About Kochgate
10. Until the recent disclosures about funding for Proposition 23 in California, you probably hadn’t heard much about Koch Industries because it’s a family business, although it does $100 billion in sales per year. 9. Charles Koch co-founded the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank dedicated to saving companies like Koch from the horrors of …
Continue reading “The Top Ten Facts You Didn’t Know About Kochgate”
CONTINUE READINGProp 23 and Little Oil
Prop 23 is getting national attention, including a story in the NY Times: Charles and David Koch, the billionaires who have played a prominent role in financing the Tea Party movement, donated $1 million to the campaign to suspend the Global Warming Solutions Act enacted four years ago, and signaled that they are prepared to …
Continue reading “Prop 23 and Little Oil”
CONTINUE READINGProp 23 and the Oil Companies
It is frequently said that “the oil companies” are financing Prop 23. This turns out to be a bit of an overgeneralization. According to Greenwire, While some companies are supporting Proposition 23, Shell Oil Co. opposes it, Chevron Corp. is officially neutral, Exxon Mobil Corp. and BP PLC have decided not to get involved and …
Continue reading “Prop 23 and the Oil Companies”
CONTINUE READINGState AGs Ready to Attack Constitutionality of California’s AB 32
An important postscript to my earlier post regarding Berkeley Law’s/CLEE’s newly-published white paper on Proposition 23. That’s the California initiative measure that, if approved by voters this November, would suspend implementation of that state’s Global Warming Solutions Act, better known as AB 32. The San Francisco Chronicle reports today that the Attorneys General of Alabama, …
Continue reading “State AGs Ready to Attack Constitutionality of California’s AB 32”
CONTINUE READING