Politics
Judging the Environment
It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it. Covering the Senate Republicans’ continuing obstruction of judicial nominees is about as exciting as watching paint dry, but the good folks at Defenders of Wildlife, one of the nation’s most venerable environmental organizations, have decided to invest in doing it, with their vital blog, Judging …
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CONTINUE READINGCan Anyone Stop the Filibuster?
The DC Circuit’s outrageous opinion on Friday essentially banning recess appointments has brought further chaos to the Age of Dysfunction. Now, President Obama will confront potentially dozens of new filibusters without recourse; it didn’t help that less than 24 hours beforehand, the Senate scotched the efforts at meaningful filibuster reform. So what to do now? …
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CONTINUE READINGA Case of Intellectual Bankruptcy
It pains me to say this about a fellow alum of my high school, but George Will has apparently reached the point of intellectual insolvency. A case in point: his recent Washington Post op. ed. about climate change. Will begins by setting up a straw man. He slams climate advocates like Obama for supposedly basing …
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CONTINUE READINGCall for Cabinet Nominations!
With all the heat generated by the nominations for the Secretaries of State and Defense, it is easy to overlook that President Obama must make nominations for four agencies critical to environmental policy: EPA, Interior, Energy, and USTR. And it says something that there do not seem to be obvious, strong candidates that environmentalists can …
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CONTINUE READINGCan We Make a Deal on Keystone XL?
Well, no, we probably can’t. But President Obama might be well advised to try. Republicans are currently trying to force the White House into approving the pipeline. Nebraska’s Governor recently flip-flopped and supported Keystone, saying now that he trusts TransCanada to do the necessary environmental work to protect the state’s econoloigcally sensitive Sandhill region. In …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Political Path to Federal Climate Legislation
For climate legislation to pass, U.S. politics will have to become more like California.
CONTINUE READINGHow the EPA Saved America
If you don’t follow political blogs, you may not have noticed Kevin Drum’s outstanding story about how the decrease in crime over the last 20 years can largely be attributed to the sharp drops in lead ingestion. When I first heard the theory, I thought it was too good to be true, but Kevin’s story …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Last Rockefeller
Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), the current chair of the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee has announced his retirement. Rockefeller is 75, and faced a tough re-election fight in West Virginia, which has gone from being the state of John L. Lewis to the state of Mitt Romney — it went for Romney last year by …
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CONTINUE READINGWhat to expect from President Obama’s inaugural address
The countdown to President Obama’s January, 21 2013 inauguration begins: there are only ten days left for the President’s speechwriters to put the finishing touches on the President’s second, and final, inaugural address. The inaugural address is the first of two important opportunities President Obama will have in the coming months to describe the course …
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CONTINUE READINGWhat More Does it Take to Get the U.S to Act on Climate Change?
One standard explanation for why the U.S. has failed to act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is that it isn’t worth it for us economically. Conventional wisdom has held that we would experience fewer consequences from a warming planet and could adapt more easily to a changing climate than countries in the developing world. Reducing …
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