Politics

If Obama’s Done Nothing for the Environment Why Do the Coal Barons Hate Him?

I’ve had more than one conversation with Republican friends (yes, I have some) who are Romney supporters but also environmentalists.  One of the arguments they trump out about why they support Romney despite their environmental interests is that “Obama’s been weak on the environment anyway.”  They make this argument especially about climate change. While I …

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Drive a Stake Through Ethanol’s Heart!

Okay, that’s even worse than a mixed metaphor: that’s a Friedmanism.  But it still applies today. Reuters reports: Two U.S. governors asked the United States government on Tuesday to waive this year’s mandate for making ethanol from corn, adding pressure on it to relieve meat producers from high corn prices spurred by the worst drought …

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Interior, Defense and Energy Departments Team Up to Advance Renewable Energy on Public Lands

The renewable energy side of President Obama’s “all-of-the-above” energy strategy received a significant boost in the past two weeks, with a veritable relay of Department of Energy, Interior and Defense actions on clean energy. On July 24, the Department of Energy (DOE) and Department of the Interior (DOI) released the Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement …

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The Puzzling Silence Surrounding Richard Mourdock’s Consulting Business

Mourdock is a former oil company geologist and coal company executive. But his most recent job before running for public office is a bit mysterious.

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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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Cruz, Fischer and Mourdock: Three Tea Party Senate Candidates Versus the Environment.

Tea Party candidates defeated less extreme conservatives in three GOP Senate nominating contests. Their environmental views are ultra-Right Wing. These candidates should be right on your wavelength — if you think that there’s a plan for U.N. world domination, that EPA should be gutted or abolished, and that climate change is a deliberate hoax by …

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Paul Ryan, Big Oil, and the Environment

Now that Romney has announced his choice of Paul Ryan as his running mate, I thought it would be worth taking a quick look at his environmental positions.  Environment and energy haven’t been signature issues for him, but he’s consistently been a good friend of the oil industry. On general environmental issues, apart from his …

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A Friendly Debate with a Conservative Colleague About Climate

My friend and colleague Steve Bainbridge is out with a new article on “Corporate Lawyers as Gatekeepers,” which, if you are interested in corporate law, you should read (Steve is one of the country’s most distinguished scholars in the field).  But what piqued my interest when he sent it to me was his offhand remark …

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BREAKING NEWS: Another West Coast Win for PACE Energy Financing

Almost a year later, California wins again in the effort to reverse a federal agency’s 2010 decision that decimated PACE, a promising financing program for residential energy efficiency and renewable investments. Federal District Court Judge Claudia Wilken ruled today that the Federal Housing Finance Authority (FHFA) violated the Administrative Procedure Act’s (APA) notice-and-comment requirement when …

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Mitt Romney, Prisoner of the Tea Party

Just about any electoral map will tell you that Iowa is a swing state, and that Mitt Romney needs to win it if he hopes to capture the Presidency. Just about any political observer in Iowa will tell you that the wind energy tax credit, enacted as part of President Obama’s stimulus package (but with …

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