climate legislation glob warm bill bak 2

NOTE that this includes bills that help and hurt global warming

and other green issues

120 bak

---

aha see ggl doc (in)action-reaction

denial BS propaganda PR heats up when int'l treaty or US bill proposed:

mashey 2012 has lots on heartland

G.3 Climate outreach, elected officials

In last few years, Heartland has moved more strongly into climate anti-science.

Heartland’s current donation page includes:260

IRS-0E, IRS-5L

“Communicates frequently with every state and national elected official,

sending them a publication about every five days and fulfilling thousands of

information requests.

Heartland has recently run (relatively lavish) climate anti-science

conferences, called International Conferences on Climate Change.

261 They

are shown chronologically with the various legislative bills 262 and a few

related Heartland publications.

10/18/07 Lieberman-Warner Climate Security ActS.2191 introduced

12/05/07 Lieberman-Warner passed in Senate EPW committee

03/02/08 Heart#1 –ICCC-1 - New York, -03/04/08

06/06/08 Republicans filibuster Lieberman-Warner

03/08/09 Heart#2 –ICCC-2 -New York, -03/10/09 [6 Barton staffers]

05/15/09 Waxman-Markey introduced, 05/15/09

06/02/09 Heart#3 –ICCC-3 -Washington, DC

06/26/09 Waxman-Markey H.R. 2454263 passed in House, sent to Senate

07/23/09 Legislator’s Guide to Global Warming Experts (G.4)

08/xx/09 Environment and Climate News, Waxman-Markey front page

Z.2009.08-1. Page 2 exhorted E&CN readers to act.

09/30/09 Kerry-BoxerS.1733 introduced264 in Senate

05/12/10Kerry-Lieberman American Power Act introduced in Senate

05/16/10 Heart#4 –ICCC-4 - Chicago, IL -05/18/10 [4 staffers]

10/01/10 Heart#5 - ICCC-5 - Sydney, Australia

06/30/11 Heart#6 - ICCC-6 - Washington, DC -07/01/11

No climate bills were passed, but the history gives context for Heartland’s

big boost in climate PR activities targeted to legislators.

260 heartland.org/donate

261 www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-2454

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act

262 www.govtrackinsider.com/articles/2010-04-27/climate-change has chronology.

263 MAS2010 p.85 lists Heart#1 – Heart#4. Heartland’s nomenclature changed.

climateconference.heartland.org

264 www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-1733

---

CPP SHADOW DOCKET; LEO 3 ACTUALLY KOCH?! MAJOR QUESTIONS GROOMED

1 END LEGIS 2 REGULATION 3 LITIGATION

The Scheme Time to Wake Up | Senator Whitehouse's Speeches Converge

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse

Apr 23, 2026

April 22 | Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) delivers his 306th speech in his Time to Wake Up series, converging with his 36th Scheme speech. The billionaire-backed scheme to capture and control the Supreme Court was developed largely to protect the fossil fuel industry’s free-to-pollute business model. Here’s the proof.

---

thom 10 23

...

Thus, we can track many of the worst aspects of America’s political dysfunction to these three corrupt Supreme Court decisions, as I detail in The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America and The Hidden History of American Oligarchy.

Prior to the Court’sCitizens Uniteddecision, for example, there was a bipartisan consensus in Congress that climate change was caused by burning fossil fuels and that we should do something about it, as Senator Sheldon Whitehouse so eloquently documents.

John McCain campaigned for president on a platform of doing something about climate change: he was the lead cosponsor of the Climate Stewardship Act, which had multiple other Republican cosponsors. At the time, he said:

“While we cannot say with 100 percent confidence what will happen in the future, we do know the emission of greenhouse gases is not healthy for the environment. As many of the top scientists through the world have stated, the sooner we start to reduce these emissions, the better off we will be in the future.”

The Clean Air Planning Act was supported by Republican Senators Lamar Alexander, Lindsay Graham, and Susan Collins. Republican Senator Olympia Snow was the lead cosponsor of the Global Warming Reduction Act of 2007. Multiple Republicans supported the Low Carbon Economy Act and the Clean Air/Climate Change Act.}:

In 2009, Republicans supported the Raise Wages, Cut Carbon Act and the Waxman-Markey carbon cap-and-trade proposal. Maine Republican Susan Collins was the lead cosponsor of the Carbon Limits and Energy for America’s Renewal Act, a bill that would have imposed a fee on burning fossil fuels. At the time, she said:

“In the United States alone, emissions of the primary greenhouse gas carbon dioxide have risen more than 20 percent since 1990. Clearly climate change is a daunting environmental challenge…”

And then, in 2010, everything changed.

Clarence Thomas, actively groomed for decades by fossil fuel and other billionaires, became the deciding vote in Citizens United, legalizing not only his own corruption but that of every Republican in Congress.

Once the fossil fuel industry could pour unlimited money into either supporting — or, perhaps more importantly, destroying — the candidacy of any Republican politician, every Republican in the House and Senate began to say, “What climate change?”

As Senator Whitehouse said on the floor of the Senate:

“I believe we lost the ability to address climate change in a bipartisan way because of the evils of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. Our present failure to address climate change is a symptom of things gone awry in our democracy due to Citizens United. That decision did not enhance speech in our democracy; it has allowed bullying, wealthy special interests to suppress real debate.”

When Poppy Bush was president, the world confronted a crisis with acid rain destroying monuments and buildings; Democrats and Republicans came together and put into law a sulfur dioxide cap-and-trade “free market solution” that largely solved the problem.

Why can’t we do the same with a cap-and-trade system for carbon pollution from fossil fuels like the European Union, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea have already done? Citizens United.

Similarly, why can’t America get our gun crisis under control? We’re the only country in the world where schoolchildren are subjected to the monthly terror of active shooter drills.

Bullets are the leading cause of death among our nation’s children. But no Republican will take on the issue because they know the firearms industry and its front groups will destroy them with a waterfall of money for their inevitable opponent in the next election. Citizens United.

Our public schools are crumbling as the charter and private school industries pour millions into politicians’ coffers. Instead of fixing our schools and raising our educational standards, the private school industry has gotten Republican governors in several states to offer vouchers to every student in the state.

thom ref

kickass

How Citizens United Altered the Climate Debate

07.25.14

HOW CITIZENS UNITED ALTERED THE CLIMATE DEBATE

As delivered on the Senate floor

Thank you, Madam President, this is my seventy-fifth “Time to Wake Up” speech,something of a minor benchmark, I suppose. I come here urging my colleagues to wake up to the threat of climate change. I do this every week that we are in session, hoping that someday spark will hit tinder. But even as the evidence of climate change deepens, the dialogue here in Washington remains one-sided.

Climate change was once a bipartisan concern. In recent years, something changed. I think I know what changed, and I will get to that. But first, let’s reminisce about the bipartisanship.

If we take a look back, in this body we have Republican colleagues who once openly acknowledged the existence of carbon-driven climate change, and, and who called for real legislative action to cut carbon emissions. Imagine that. It wasn’t that long ago.

We have a former Republican presidential nominee,amongst us, who campaigned for the presidency on addressing climate change.

We have Republicans who have spoken favorably about charging a fee on carbon, including an original Republican cosponsor of a bipartisan Senate carbon fee bill.

We have a Republican colleague who cosponsored carbon fee legislation in the House, and another who voted for the Waxman-Markey “cap and trade” bill when he was in the House.

For years,for years there was a steady, healthy heartbeat of Republican support for major U.S. legislation to address carbon pollution. Let me be specific.

In 2003, Senator John McCain was the lead cosponsor of Democrat Joe Lieberman’s Climate Stewardship Act, which would have created a market-based emissions cap and trading program to reduce carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping pollutants from the biggest U.S. sources.

Here is what Senator McCain said at the time: I’ll quote him, “While we cannot say with 100 percent confidence what will happen in the future, we do know the emission of greenhouse gases is not healthy for the environment. As many of the top scientists through the world have stated, the sooner we start to reduce these emissions, the better off we will be in the future.”

His Climate Stewardship Act actually got a vote. Imagine that!

And when it did not prevail, Senator McCain reintroduced the measure himself in the following Congress. Republican Senators Olympia Snowe of Maine and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island—my predecessor—were among that bill’s cosponsors.

Other Republicans got behind other cap-and-trade proposals: Senator Tom Carper’s “Clean Air Planning Act”, at one time or another, counted Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Senator Lyndsey Graham of South Carolina and Senator Susan Collins of Maine among its supporters.

In 2007, Republican Senator Olympia Snowe was a lead cosponsor of then-Senator Kerry’s “Global Warming Reduction Act.” Senators Murkowski and Stevens from Alaska, and Senator Specter of Pennsylvania, then a Republican, were original cosponsors of the Bingaman “Low Carbon Economy Act.” And that same year, Senator Alexander introduced the “Clean Air/Climate Change Act.” Each of these bills sought to reduce carbon emissions through a cap-and-trade mechanism. Said Senator Alexander, and I’ll quote him, “It is also time to acknowledge that climate change is real, human activity is a big part of the problem, and it is up to us to act.”- 2007

That bipartisan heartbeat remained strong in 2009. Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois, while he served in the House of Representatives, was one of eight Republicans to vote for the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade proposal.

In that same year, 2009, Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona, then representing Arizona in the House, was an original cosponsor of the “Raise Wages, Cut Carbon Act,” to reduce payroll taxes for employers and employees in exchange for equal revenue from a carbon tax. On the House Floor, then-Representative Flake argued the virtues of this approach. Here’s what he said:

If we want to be honest about helping the environment, then just impose a carbon tax and make it revenue neutral, give commensurate tax relief on the other side. Myself and another Republican colleague have introduced that legislation to do just that. Let’s have an honest debate about whether or not we want to help the environment by actually having something that is revenue neutral where you tax consumption as opposed to income.

Was a good idea then, and it is still a good idea now. Those words were echoed that year in the Senate by Senator Collins, a lead cosponsor of the “Carbon Limits and Energy for America’s Renewal Act,” Senator Cantwell’s carbon fee bill. “In the United States alone,” said Senator Collins, “emissions of the primary greenhouse gas carbon dioxide have risen more than 20 percent since 1990. Clearly climate change is a daunting environmental challenge,she said, but we must develop solutions that do not impose a heavy burden on our economy, particularly during these difficult economic times.”

2009, Think of it—there was once, not too long ago, clear and forceful acknowledgement, from leading Republican voices, of the real danger posed by climate change, and of Congress’s responsibility to act.

[Heartbeat Graph]

So what happened? Why did this heartbeat of Republican climate action suddenly flatline?

Madam President, I believe we lost the ability to address climate change in a bipartisan way because of the evils of the Supreme Court’s Citizens Uniteddecision. Our present failure to address climate change is a symptom of things gone awry in our democracy due to Citizens United.That decision did not enhance speech in our democracy; it has allowed bullying, wealthy special interests to suppress real debate.

I’ve spoken before on the Senate Floor about the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision—one of the most disgraceful decisions by any Supreme Court; destined ultimately, I believe, to follow cases like Lochner v. New Yorkonto the ash heap of judicial infamy.

But we’re stuck with it for now.

In a nutshell, the Citizens United decision says this: corporations are people; money is speech; so there can be no limit to corporate money influencing American elections. If that doesn’t seem right, it’s because it’s not.

Phony and improper fact-finding by the five conservative activists on the Supreme Court concluded that corporate spending could not ever corrupt elections, just couldn’t do it.By some magic, it’s pure. That’s a bad enough finding on its face, but they also didn’t get that limitless, untraceable political money doesn’t have to be spent to damage our democracy. Unlimited corporate spending in politics can corrupt, not just through floods of anonymous attack advertisements; it can corrupt, secretly and more dangerously, through the mere threat of that spending, through private threats and promises. The presiding officer was the Attorney General of her state, and she well knows how much mischief can be done in backrooms by threats and promises, that’s what Attorney Generals see when they go out and investigate.

And as we’re evaluating the effect of Citizens United on our climate change debate, let’s remember one thing; a lot of this special interest money has been spent against Republicans. I’ve had Republican friends tell me, “what are you complaining about?” They’re spending more against us, than against you. There have been times when that has been true. When the Koch Brothers’ polluter money can come in and bombard you in a small primary election, that’s pretty scary. And when the paid-for right-wing attack machine can be cranked up against you in your Republican primary, that’s pretty scary, too. And what the polluters can do with political spending, they can threaten or promise to do, in ways that the public will never see or know—but the candidate will know. The candidate will know, for sure.

So, I wrote a “friend of the Court” brief to the Supreme Court with Senator McCain to highlight for the justices some of the failings and pitfalls of their shameful Citizens United decision. “The dominating influence of super PACs,” we wrote, “makes it all the easier for those seeking legislative favors and results to discreetly threaten such expenditures if Members of Congress do not accede to their demands.” I think we were right.

So how does this bear on climate change?

All that bipartisan activity I talked about preceded Citizens United. After that, polluter attacks funded by Citizens United money, and the threat of those polluter attacks,perhaps promises not to make those attacks, if you behave cast a dark shadow over Republicans who might work with Democrats on curbing carbon pollution. Tens, perhaps even hundreds of millions of dark-money dollars are being spent by polluters and their front organizations, and God only knows what private threats and promises have been made.

The timing is telling. Before Citizens United, there was an active heartbeat of Republican activity on climate change. Since then, the evidence has only become stronger. But after Citizens United uncorked all that big, dark money, and allowed it to cast its bullying shadow of intimidation over our democracy, Republicans—other than those few who parrot the polluter party line that climate change is just a big old hoax— they have all walked back from any major climate legislation.

We have Senators here who represent historic native villages, now washing into the sea and needing relocation because of climate change and sea-level rise. We have Senators who represent great American coastal cities, now overwashed by high tides because of climate change. We have Senators representing states swept by drought and wildfire. We have Senators whose home-state forests—by the hundreds of square miles—are being killed by the marauding pine beetle. We have Senators whose home states’ glaciers are disappearing before their very eyes. We have Senators whose states are having to raise offshore bridges and highways before rising seas. We have Senators whose emblematic home state species are dying off, like the New Hampshire moose, for instance swarmed by ticks, by the tens of thousands that snows no longer kill.

Yet almost none will work on a major climate bill. It’s not safe to, ever since Citizens United allowed the bullying, polluting special interests to bombard our elections, and threaten and promise to bombard our elections, with their attack ads.

Well, despite all the dark money, despite the threats and intimidation, I still believe this can be a courageous time. We simply need conscientious Republicans and Democrats to work together, in good faith, on a common platform of facts and common sense, to protect the American people and the American economy from the looming effects of climate change in our atmosphere, on our lands, in our oceans. We simply need to shed the shackles of corrupting influence and rise to our duty.

In courageous times, Americans have done far more than that. It’s not asking much to ask this generation to stand up to a pack polluters, just because they have big checkbooks. In previous generations, Americans have put at risk their very lives, fortunes and sacred honor—to serve the higher interests of this great republic. We know it can be done, because it’s been done.

We do not have to be the generation that failed at our duty. We are headed down a road to infamy now, but it doesn’t have to be that way. We can leave a legacy that will echo down the corridors of history, so that those who follow us will be proud of our efforts. But sitting here, doing nothing, yielding to the special-interest bullies and their Citizens United money, pretending the problem isn’t real, that won’t accomplish that.

As I have said before seventy-four times, and as I say tonight for the seventy-fifth time, it is time for us to wake up.

I yield the floor. I thank the presiding officer.

---

https://hartmannreport.com/p/citizens-united-has-destroyed-america#details

...Thus, we can track many of the worst aspects of America’s political dysfunction to these three corrupt Supreme Court decisions, as I detail in The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America and The Hidden History of American Oligarchy.

“While we cannot say with 100 percent confidence what will happen in the future, we do know the emission of greenhouse gases is not healthy for the environment. As many of the top scientists through the world have stated, the sooner we start to reduce these emissions, the better off we will be in the future.”

“In the United States alone, emissions of the primary greenhouse gas carbon dioxide have risen more than 20 percent since 1990. Clearly climate change is a daunting environmental challenge…”

And then, in 2010, everything changed.

As Senator Whitehouse said on the floor of the Senate:

“I believe we lost the ability to address climate change in a bipartisan way because of the evils of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. Our present failure to address climate change is a symptom of things gone awry in our democracy due to Citizens United. That decision did not enhance speech in our democracy; it has allowed bullying, wealthy special interests to suppress real debate.”

Why can’t we do the same with a cap-and-trade system for carbon pollution from fossil fuels like the European Union, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea have already done? Citizens United.

Similarly, why can’t America get our gun crisis under control? We’re the only country in the world where schoolchildren are subjected to the monthly terror of active shooter drills.

Special Program to Work on Radical Rewrite of U.S. Constitution

ALEC is extending its conference well into the evening on Friday this year to hold an "interactive academy" on rewriting the U.S. Constitution. Attendees will "learn how an Article V amendments convention will actually play out," and "cast their ballots to decide which ideas to pursue," an invite obtained by CMD details.

One of the goals of the tutorial appears to be to convince lawmakers that a runaway convention can be prevented, despite expert opinions that this is impossible.

"Once you have the convention, it is subject to nobody's control," Georgetown University Law Professor David Super told the AP. "It makes its own agenda. It makes its own voting rules that decides how long it lasts and how far it goes."

At the 2020 Annual Meeting, former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R) detailed a legal strategy to force a convention to rewrite the nation's founding document even though at the time only 28 of 34 states needed had resolutions calling for one pending.

Former State Rep. Ken Ivory (R-UT) will moderate the event, whileU.S. Rep. Yvette Herrell,Prof. Robert Natelson, David Biddulph, former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker, and Dr. Barry Poulson will present.

ALEC is already pushing constitutional convention calls for a balanced budget amendment and sweeping new limits on federal powers, but meeting attendees will also have the opportunity to consider a newly proposed convention call for a package of tax and fiscal reforms, including "abolishing the existing Internal Revenue Code," called the Application Under Article V of the U.S. Constitution to Propose an Amendment to Require Fiscal Limitations and Accountability for the Legislative and Executive Branches of the National Government.

The model application also seeks to combine the states that pass it with other balanced budget amendment convention calls in an attempt to reach the 34 states needed to convene a constitutional convention.

Protecting Fossil Fuel Interests and Other Climate Harming Measures

ALEC politicians will once again consider model bills to protect fossil fuel interests and polluters.

Meeting attendees will debate a number of policies framed around ending "energy discrimination."The radical Energy Discrimination Elimination Act would punish financial institutions and other companies that cease to do business with fossil fuel companies by barring the state from investing in them and denying them state business. The policy also includes an anti-boycott measure which prohibits government contractors from boycotting energy companies, even asking for "written verification" from companies stating that they "will not boycott energy companies during the term of the contract."

This model, as well as the Affordable, Abundant, Reliable Electricity Act, which seeks to protect all energy producers in the name of maintaining a reliable electrical grid, are being lobbied for by Randy Eminger, executive director of the Energy Policy Network, an email obtained by CMD details.

An advocate for "clean coal," Eminger describes his mission at Energy Policy Network as, "to support the continued use of coal-fueled power," in the email, and notes that "four other comrades from the industry" will be at the ALEC conference as well.

In keeping with ALEC's climate-denial history and pay-to-play work for fossil fuel giants, ALEC lawmakers will also vote on resolutions to oppose any government action to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, and oppose any restrictions on the use of fossil fuels to produce electricity.

Indeed, ALEC is even proposing a model bill, the Safeguarding Greenhouse Gas Regulatory Authority Act, to bar any state agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions or entering into any regional compact without "specific legislative authorization.”

The Resolution Urging States to Establish**Electric Vehicle** Charging Stations as a Competitive Market Free From Utility Commission Regulation urges state utility commissions to forbid "regulated utilities from using electric customer funds to build its own fleet of electric charging stations," thereby removing crucial funds to expand the infrastructure a larger fleet of electric cars will need in the future. This will have the intended consequence of forcing people to continue driving gas-guzzling vehicles for longer than necessary.

ALEC is also introducing another preemption model bill around plastics, the Act to Establish Statewide Uniformity for Essential Plastic Regulations. Spun as a policy to ensure "essential" plastic products are available, the proposed bill would bar municipalities from banning or taxing plastic food wrappers and plastic water bottles. The measure follows a 2015 American City County Exchange (an ALEC offshoot) resolution that calls on local government not to regulate many single-use products,including, "reusable bags, disposable bags, boxes, cups, and bottles that are made of cloth, paper, plastic, extruded polystyrene, or similar materials."

Regulating Big Tech?...

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/anatomy-of-a-senate-climate-bill-death/

2010

Anatomy of a Senate Climate Bill Death - Center for American Progress

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/anatomy-of-a-senate-climate-bill-death/ 1/8

ARTICLE OCT 12, 2010

The Senate’s failure to pass clean energy legislation this year was due to more than legislative

machinations, writes Daniel J. Weiss.

AUTHORS

Daniel J. Weiss

President Barack Obama took office with four major : a plan to

prevent the recession from growing worse and launch recovery; health care reform;

financial reform to avoid future meltdowns; and clean energy and global warming

legislation to create jobs, reduce oil use, and cut pollution. The president succeeded

The Conoco Oil Refinery in Rodeo, CA, is seen. The deep recession, unified and uncompromising opposition in the Senate, and big spending by oil, coal, and other energy interests all had big roles in

preventing climate legislation from moving through the Senate this year.

with the first three items. But clean energy legislation died in the Senate after passing

the House.

The October 6, 2010 New Yorker has a “ ” dissection of the rise and

fall of climate legislation in the Senate. It provides an interesting insider view of the

always messy legislative process.

Reporter Ryan Lizza details some senators’ admirable willingness to stretch beyond

their comfort zones on some energy issues to cement an agreement that would

establish declining limits on carbon dioxide and other global warming pollutants while

allowing more offshore oil drilling and subsidies for nuclear power. He also notes the

critical miscommunications and different approaches by senators and the Obama

administration that reduced prospects for success.

Lizza gives short shrift, however, to the real reasons Senate passage of climate

legislation was impossible in 2010: the deep recession, unified and uncompromising

opposition in the Senate, and big spending by oil, coal, and other energy interests. Let’s

take a close look at these factors.

The Great Recession took its toll

Many economists described this latest recession as the worst since the Great

Depression in the 1930s. Economists Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi in the July 2010

report “ :”

Eighteen months ago, the global financial system was on the brink of

collapse and the U.S. was suffering its worst economic downturn since the

1930s. Real GDP was falling at about a 6% annual rate, and monthly job losses

averaged close to 750,000. Today, the financial system is operating much more

normally, real GDP is advancing at a nearly 3% pace, and job growth has

resumed, albeit at an insufficient pace. [Emphasis added]

The economic decline sped up just as President Barack Obama took office.

jumped from 6.2 percent on Labor Day 2008 to 8.2 percent by

President Obama’s State of the Union on February 24, 2009. Nobel Laureate

noted in March 2009, “At first, the current recession didn’t hit industrial

production all that hard. But the pace accelerated dramatically last fall. At this point

we’re sort of experiencing half a Great Depression. That’s pretty bad.”

After the jobs picture has not gotten significantly better. The Bureau of Labor Statistics just announced September

2010 unemployment rate held steady at 9.6 percent. that “The jobless rate

has now topped 9.5 percent for 14 straight months, the longest stretch since the 1930s.”

These and other effects of the recession significantly added to many Americans’ longterm economic uncertainty or fear. And this economic environment made politicians

much more susceptible to Big Oil, dirty coal, and other special interests’ “tired dance,

where folks inside this beltway get paid a lot of money to say things that aren’t true

about public health initiatives,” as noted by . This

includes that predicted that global warming

pollution reductions would devastate the economy.

The terrible economy and growing unemployment made it much more difficult to pass

clean energy and global warming legislation. In fact, an analysis of the unemployment

rate when fundamental environmental protection laws were enacted since Earth Day

1970 found that the annual unemployment rate was 7 percent or lower most of the year

of enactment. [1] (see chart)

The first Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, and Resource

Conservation and Recovery Act (hazardous waste disposal) were all enacted when

unemployment was 6 percent or lower. Unemployment is 50 percent higher now. Only

six major environmental laws were enacted with annual unemployment over 7 percent,

and none with unemployment greater than 7.7 percent. Unemployment averaged 9.3

percent in 2009 and 9.7 through September 2010.

In other words, the worst unemployment in nearly 30 years made the up-hill climb to

pass a global warming bill even steeper. And certainly the special interests’ opposed to

action on global warming played on Americans’ concern about unemployment to

frighten senators into opposing global warming action.

For instance, the urged strong opposition to the APA:

The draconian carbon reduction targets and timetables in this bill would trigger

destructive change in America’s economic climate. This would add billions of

dollars in energy costs for American families and businesses, destroy the jobs of

millions of American workers, and make our nation more dependent on foreign

energy sources…If senators want to increase the loss of manufacturing jobs in

the United States and postpone the resurgence of the American economy, then

they should vote for this bill.

The bought a series of

threatening job killing energy taxes. Its homepage headline reads, “

.”

The heavily funded has also poured money into defeating

climate and clean energy action for the last several years. More recently, the Big Coal

backed front group staged in protest of EPA’s proposed global

warming pollution regulations with signs reading “Coal Keeps the Lights on,” and “Coal

Miners ‘Dig’ Their Jobs.”

Whatever it is, we’re against it!

As if high unemployment weren’t enough, Senate advocates of clean energy and global

warming pollution reduction legislation had to contend with Senate rules that allow

unlimited debate.

This required bill sponsors to persuade a 60-vote “supermajority” to end debate and

pass their bill. With several Democrats unalterably to reduce global

warming the sponsors needed support from at least four or five Republican senators.

Lizza describes that this was difficult to achieve because opposition to global warming

pollution reductions had grown in GOP ranks.What’s more, Senate Minority Leader

Mitch McConnell (R-KY) convinced his senators that their route to the majority was a

solid wall of opposition to whatever President Obama wanted to do for the nation.

Lizza reported that:

The Republican Party had grown increasingly hostile to the science of global

warming and to cap-and-trade, associating the latter with a tax on energy and

more government regulation. Sponsoring the bill wasn’t going to help McCain

defeat an opponent to his right.

By not automatically resisting everything connected to Obama, these senators

risked angering Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader and architect of the

strategy to oppose every part of Obama’s agenda, and the Tea Party movement,

which seemed to be gaining power every day.

Sens. John Kerry (D-MA), Joe Lieberman (I-CT), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) (before

he dropped out), the champions of climate legislation, could never break this wall of

opposition or neutrality even among Republican senators who had previously

sponsored or voted for global warming legislation.

This includes (R-AZ), who sponsored multiple global warming

pollution reduction bills and advocated significant reductions during his 2008

presidential campaign. (R-ME) also co-sponsored global warming

bills in previous Congresses. Nearly four years ago (R-KS) said: “It

seems to me just prudent that we recognize we have climate increase and temperature

change. We have CO2 loading and we need to reduce the amount of CO2 in the

atmosphere.”

Yet none of these senators publicly supported action or engaged in serious negotiations

with key climate legislation crafters Sens. Kerry, Lieberman, or Graham in 2010.

This Republican lockstep opposition to the energy bill and other Democratic priorities

is reflected in Senate floor voting patterns.

based on the proportion of votes that “pitted a majority of one party

against a majority of the other.” Such votes reflect that each party’s position was

different, and a majority of the senators voted with their party.

The proportion of these party-unity votes have increased significantly over the last 20

years. (see chart) In the 101st Congress, serving from 1989-90, less than half the Senate

votes were party-unity votes. Before 2009, the highest proportion of Senate party-unity

votes occurred in the 104th Congress, from 1995-96. This was the so-called “Contract

with America” Congress with the Republican leaders in 2009, however, adopted a strategy of opposing President Obama on every major legislative effort to deny him victories that would enhance his

popularity. Seventy-two percent of Senate votes, therefore, were party unity votes. This

grew to 79 percent in 2010, which means nearly four of five votes were along party lines.

The 111th Congress

also saw an

increase in the

proportion of

Republican

senators

voting with

their party

majority.

Eighty-five percent of

Republicans voted with their party in 2009, while that increased to 90 percent in 2010.

By comparison, there were only 3 of 10 previous Congresses when Republicans were

more unified.

describes the increased Senate polarization in 2010.

Almost four out of five roll call votes in the Senate have pitted a majority of

Democrats against a majority of Republicans—the highest percentage of so-called party-unity votes seen since Congressional Quarterly began tabulating them in 1953.

Most telling, however, is the support accorded President Obama on the 51

Senate roll calls this year… where he took a position. On average, Democrats

supported him 95 percent of the time, up from 92 percent in 2009. And

Republicans backed away from their 50 percent average presidential support

score last year to vote with Obama just 42 percent of the time so far this

election year.

(D-LA), a conservative Democrat and no ally of global warming

legislation, noted that the Senate Republican caucus had become more unified in

opposition to Democrats. She said: “This Republican Party’s not the one it used to be.

There were moderates that would reach out with those of us that were moderate on the

other side, but that’s not the direction they’re going in.”

The best bill money could stop

The House of Representatives passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act on

June 26, 2009. This bill was supported by some major companies and trade

associations, including the and the .

Fear of a consensus energy bill that had some industry support galvanized most big oil

and coal companies to invest heavily in their efforts to oppose a Senate bill. Companies

in these and other industries thus spent records amounts of money on lobbying,

campaign donations, and other pressure tactics to defeat clean energy legislation in the

Senate. And this spending does not include millions of dollars spent on message

advertising, “astro turf” rallies (fake grass roots), and other pressure tactics that do not

require public spending reports.

found that electric utilities and oil and gas companies spent more than

$500 million in lobbying from January 2009 to June 2010,primarily to weaken or defeat

energy legislation. A Center for American Progress Action Fund found thatoil

companies were six of the top seven spenders on lobbying and campaign contributions

during this period, with ExxonMobil number one.

Big Oil’s campaign contributions are heavily tilted toward Republicans, who

that went to the two parties. reports that as

… debate raged in Congress about offshore drilling, energy independence, ‘cap-and-trade’ legislation and a shift away from fossil-fuel energy sources …

congressional candidates and federal political committees nationwide have

raked in more than $17 million from the oil and gas industry so far during the

2010 election cycle—a number on pace to easily exceed that of the most recent

midterm election four years ago.

The recipients of the funds have remained relatively consistent over the years,

with Republicans accumulating a majority of the industry’s campaign

contributions.

The , too, gave nearly 70 percent of its campaign cash to Republicans.

The bigger picture

The New Yorker pulled back the curtain on the admirable but frustratingly unsuccessful

efforts of Sens. Kerry, Lieberman, Graham, and others to achieve Senate passage of

comprehensive clean energy and global warming legislation. But Lizza pinning the

blame on the White House or senators misses the larger factors behind this huge

disappointment.

Al Gore spelled it out succinctly during an interview with Lizza after the legislation was

dead for the year. He agreed that the economy, a unified wall of opposition in the

Senate, and special interest spending were at the heart of this outcome.

I asked Al Gore why he thought climate legislation had failed. He cited several

reasons, including Republican partisanship, which had prevented moderates

from becoming part of the coalition in favor of the bill. The Great Recession

made the effort even more difficult, he added. “The forces wedded to the old

patterns still have enough influence that they were able to use the fear of the

economic downturn as a way of slowing the progress toward this big transition

that we have to make.

There were gale force economic, political, and special interest winds blowing against

global warming legislation in 2010 that were beyond the influence of its champions. The

question should not be “Why did they fail?” but “How did they get so far?”

Daniel J. Weiss is a Senior Fellow and Director of Climate Strategy at American

Progress. Special thanks to Susan Lyon, Ben Kaldunski, and Laurel Hunt.

Endnotes

[1]. This includes all of the major pollution control laws and the Endangered Species

Act. These laws established public health safeguards and pollution reduction

requirements for industry. This assessment does not include nonregulatory laws such as

public lands protection laws. Nor does it include laws that have some pro-environment

provisions as part of a broader bill, such as the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

// Center for American Progress

number of environmental laws enacted is six, and the correct maximum unemployment

is 7.7 percent.

AUTHORS Daniel J. Weiss

Senior Fellow

:{https://www.desmog.com/:(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}::{s3ep3:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}::{-psychological-warfare-astroturfing-and-another-tobacco-oil-connection/:(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:

Featuring: Bob Brulle, environmental sociology researcher at Brown University; Christine Arena, former Edelman PR executive; and clips from Daniel Edelman, founder of Edelman PR.

WWI news clip about Nazi propaganda: These German pictures, destined for certain neutral countries, were intended to spread Nazi propagada, but Dr. Goebbels tripped up badly, very badly…

Amy Westervelt: Just a few months after their meetings with Ivy Ledbetter Lee, the Third Reich’s propaganda machine kicked into high gear. Within a year they were at war, and using techniques they’d learned from Lee and others to cover up atrocities and to sell the German public – not only on the war effort but also the superiority of the Aryan race. In the final months of World War II, that propaganda took a very Ivy Lee-style turn into completely made up news stories about German wins in battles that had never even happened.. In those months, a young Jewish American reporter was charged with analyzing and combatting those claims. That man’s name was Daniel Edelman. Here he is, remembering those days.

Daniel Edelman: Doing the psychological warfare thing was fascinating because we were offsetting the claims made by the Germans. It was all lies…. And we had to disclaim them.

Amy Westervelt: Edelman would ultimately spend four years working in psychological warfare. He became an expert on propaganda, and how to combat it. And he put that expertise to work for American industries, from beauty products and Sarah Lee to cigarettes and Big Oil. He added several new tactics to Big Oil’s propaganda machine, including a unique blend of lobbying and media relations, that he called “marketing public relations, and a fun new thing called “astroturfing” that involves creating fake “grassroots” groups.That’s the story we’re going to get into today. I’m Amy Westervelt and this is Drilled, Season 3: The Mad Men of Climate Denial.

Daniel Edelman was born in 1920 in Brooklyn. He was a diligent student and something of aboy genius, so by 16 he was already at university. He ultimately went to Columbia Journalism School,and spent the first year or so of his professional life as a journalist, mostly covering sports and human interest stories.

When the U.S. joined World War II, Edelman wanted to enlist but his poor eyesight got in the way. Within a year, so many infantrymen had died the military no longer cared about things like eyesight, it needed bodies. Edelman was drafted. But his vision still made him ineligible for combat. And his background in journalism made him a perfect fit for counter-intelligence. He was sent for training, and then on to join the Fifth Mobile Radio Broadcasting Company in London.

WWII mobile radio tape: “This is your American expeditionary station, in the field with the fifth army.

Amy Westervelt: After learning for a time in London, Edelman was tapped by a former Columbia classmate to join him in France, helping to prepare a nightly analysis of German propaganda. Edelman was soon in charge of the entire operation.

Daniel Edelman: He says it’s a good job. You work in a truck and in psychological warfare and I said fine.

Amy Westervelt: When the fighting ended, Edelman was transferred to Berlin to help shut down the German propaganda effort and state-owned media. He actually helped start the popular magazine Der Spiegel which he and a few other Americans ran for a few months before turning over to German ownership. For a while, Edelman thought he might stay in Germany and take a job as a reporter there. Eventually his family dissuaded him and he returned home. And then, Like Ivy Lee before him, and plenty of journalists since, Edelman struggled with whether he wanted to report the news or make the news, live the modest life of a journalist or take advantage of the burgeoning post-war economy in America and get into the business side of communications.

By this point he had worked in psychological warfare for years and he knew that expertise would be valuable in the public relations business. So he went for it, and took a job for his brother-in-law’s music label. Through that job he met the folks behind the Toni hair company, who eventually hired him to run their PR department, which brough Edelman to Chicago.

As the PR guy at Toni, he took the company’s ad campaign – which twin has the Toni? – on the road, with six sets of twins. The campaign featured side-by-side twins, both with perms, and dared customers to guess which had a salon perm and which had the Toni home perm.

Toni ad: Which twin had the Toni? You can’t tell? Nobody can. Not yet, anyway. But wait. Only Toni gives you this twin guarantee.

Amy Westervelt: Media tours had been part of political campaigns forever, but product companies had never bothered with them. Edelman saw that as a missed opportunity to score hundreds of local press hits and move product in communities across the country. And he was right. In addition to getting coverage in local newspapers, radio and TV, at one point during the tour the twins were arrested, in Oklahoma, for “performing salon services without a license.” Edelman turned it into a national news story that made Toni a household name.

It also paved the way for another new approach to P.R., one that included a bit of lobbying on the side.The Oklahoma arrests happened because salon owners were pissed about these home perm kits taking their business. Salon owners in states across the country were mobilizing to push for laws that would ban kits like the TOni kit. So Edelman got busy meeting with state legislators and applying some of those psy-opps moves, mocking the salon owners and their proposals until they were literally laughed out of state building after state building. A couple years later, he started his own firm, calling it Daniel J. Edelman and Associates, with Toni as his first client. But within a few years, he had signed several huge clients, including Mobil Oil, Sarah Lee, Heinz, and several tobacco companies and tobacco trade groups. His hunch was proving correct: What he’d learned about psychological warfare was extremely valuable to American industry.

If that sounds like an exaggeration, you don’t have to take my word for it. Edelman’s son Richard bragged about this history in a tribute to his father on the Edelman website.

Richard Edelman clip: My dad was a real New York City kid. Born in Brooklyn, went on to high school, Columbia College, and Columbia Journalism School. He went on to work in Europe in the U.S. army for four years in psychological warfare, and when he got out, somehow the cumulation of all these experiences led him to become the father marketing P.R.

Amy Westervelt: “Marketing public relations” was the term Edelman came up with to describe his 360-degree approach to PR – it wasn’t just media relations, it was also legislator relations, and true public relations where you were creating a direct relationship between the company and the public. One way to do that was to pretend to be part of the public yourself.

Christine Arena: I’m a 20-year communications industry professional. I’ve worked in corporate PR for a long time, on lots of different kinds of accounts. Including fossil fuel accounts, which I hated.”

Amy Westervelt: That’s Christine Arena. She was an executive vice president at Edelman’s firm, by that time just called Edelman. Arena headed up the firm’s sustainability division right at the same time that it was representing the American Petroleum Institute. She and a few other executives at the Firm made the news when they quit en masse over the companies dealings with fossil fuel clients. She can’t share any specific inside information about her time there, so she’s speaking here generally about the firm’s reputation and about the techniques deployed by the fossil fuel industry.

Christine Arena: That creation of fake, grassroots support which came to be known as astroturfing. Edelman was genius at doing that.

Amy Westervelt: Edelman and his firm worked with multiple tobacco and oil clients, all big fans of “astroturfing.”

Christine Arena: So fossil fuel industry organizations fund these fake front groups and they give these fake front groups, these names that sound there, like perfectly innocuous names like the California Drivers Alliance or the Washington Consumers for Sound Fuel Policy. And these groups there are hundreds of them are usually secretly run by lobbying organizations like those two I just mentioned are actually run by the Western States Petroleum Association, which is a top lobbyist for the oil industry. And that group, the Western States Material Petroleum Association, is in turn funded by members including BP, Shell, Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Occidental, among others. So it’s fake activism, it’s corporate money posing as activism. And and it’s designed to undo all of the progress that real activism makes.

Amy Westervelt: Working for both tobacco and fossil fuel clients,Edelman also invented litigation PR. Basically making his clients’ cases in the media. A key part of this was what Arena calls the “attack the messenger” strategy.

Christine Arena: They are relentless at the attack the messenger strategy. This has been ongoing for like 30 years. So the most effective attack the messenger strategy to me is like the use of labeling. So, for example, if climate scientists refer to facts and data rather than ideology, then they’re labeled liberal elites. If climate scientists or activists are alarmed by the data, then they’re labeled alarmists. If climate scientists apply for grant dollars to fund their research, then they are accused of being in it for the money.

Tom DeLay: The report is made by scientists that get paid to further the politics of global warming.

Rick Santorum: If there was no climate change, we’d have a lot of scientists looking for work. The reality is a lot scientists are driven by the money.

President Donald Trump: All of this with the global warming, and da da da, a lot of it’s a hoax. It’s a hoax. I mean, it’s a money making industry, ok?

Amy Westervelt: Arena says that while tobacco used the same strategy, the fossil fuel guys were just better at it. Big Tobacco would attack the whistleblowers personally, Big Oil – they attacked the whole idea of fossil fuels being any sort of problem. Because they’d spent decades crafting the narrative that fossil fuel is an essential part of American life, it was easy to call anyone who thought otherwise un-American, effectively politicizing the issue.

Of course we know that Big Oil learned new tactics from Big Tobacco, too, namely in the form of science denial. And Daniel Edelman was right there, too. In the 1970s Edelman proposed an aggressive campaign for the RJ Reynolds tobacco company. It contained more than a few echoes of the PR giant’s time in the trenches of psychological warfare.

Salem tobacco ad: Country soft, country fresh, that’s the taste you get wherever you light up a Salem, because Salem genty’ air-softens every puff, for the smoothest, most refreshing taste of any filter cigarette.

Amy Westervelt: The proposal begins by suggesting, for example that, “The non-smoker must be made to feel that the smoker cares about him. It is our sense that the non-smoker is divided into two general groups – those who don’t really care if others smoke; and those who are growing more hostile to anyone who does smoke. We need to woo the former group to our side; we need to soften the opposition of the latter. Step 2 is pure science denial. Edelman recommends “We need to pierce the solidly-assumed notion that no additional research is necessary on the subject of cigarette smoking, Imaginative and creative ways must be found to correct this Impression.” Of course one of those creative ways is to create doubt. Edelman proposes: “We need to counter public impressions based on oversimplification by dramatizing pinpointed areas of study that are mysteries to researchers and scientists on both sides of this issue.”

That proposal won Edelman a contract, and the firm would go on to work for Big Tobacco for more than a decade. If the science approach they recommended for tobacco sounds an awful lot like the climate science denial that starts showing up a few years later, there’s a reason for it. Edelman also worked for several fossil fuel clients, and the American Petroleum Institute. That’s important becauseby the 1980s the API, Ivy Lee’s brainchild, was pushing the industry away from researching climate change and toward denyingit. Former Exxon scientist Richard Werthamer told us that in Season 1.

Richard Werthamer: The key is the American Petroluem Institute. Exxon had a huge influence, rightly so, in the API and I think the API changed its tune, and probably other majors went along with that.

Amy Westervelt: And you can hear exactly the same sort of strategy that Edelman suggested for RJ Reynolds in this speech from then-ExxonMobil CEO and American Petroleum Institute president Lee Raymond in 1996:

Lee Raymond: Proponents of the global warming theory, say that higher levels of greenhouse gases, especially CO2, are causing world temperatures to rise and that burning fossil fuels is the reason. By scientific evidence remains inconclusive as to whether human activities affect the climate.

Amy Westervelt: You heard that right? Raymond said the evidence that humans contribute to climate change is “inconclusive.” But this speech was in 1996, long past the point where Exxon’s own scientists had said climate change would cause catastrophic damage for some percentage of the planet in the not so distant future if emissions weren’t curbed.

In the late 1990s, Daniel Edelman’s son Richard took over as CEO, but Dan remained involved for the rest of his life. In various interviews, and in Edelman’s biography, Richard said he talked to his dad daily about the business. They didn’t always agree, of course. When he took the reins, Richard almost immediately decided to drop tobacco clients, for example. The writing was on the wall about tobacco by that point, and what it cost the firm in tobacco billings it more than made up for in good PR and new clients.

The firm did continue to apply the same strategies for Big Oil for several more years though, including, as Daniel Edelman’s biography puts it, “putting a human face on Big Oil for the American Petroleum Institute.”

American Petroleum Institute ad: Leading the world in oil and gas production. I vote to keep it going. With the right policies we can produce, refine and supply, more oil and natural gas.

Amy Westervelt: Edelman picked up where Ivy Lee had left off, continuing to tie the extraction of oil, coal, and gas to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, And again, it’s hard not to see the roots of Edelman’s World War II work in the approach the firm crafted for Big Oil. Suddenly anyone who wasn’t pro-oil was anti-American.

Daniel Edelman died in 2013,but the firm that bares his name continued to apply the same tactics that he’d been using effectively for decades. In 2014, Greenpeace leaked several documents that showed anaggressive campaign that Edelman had come up with for TransCanada to push theKeystone pipeline. It includes all the same tactics we’ve talked about here: aggressive opposition research, fake grassroots groups, attacking the messenger, and a big nationalistic messaging push. In 2015, the firm announced that it would no longer be working with coal companies or any company that denied climate science. By that point, they’d already lost not only executives but also clients, and the reputational risk was just too great. However, that same year, Edelman spun off its internal advertising group, Blue, which continued to work for the API.

American Petroleum Institute ad: More secure American jobs opportunity and economic growth for our children and grandchildren, that’s why this election I’m voting for American energy.

Amy Westervelt: For all the rah rah America stuff the oil industry pushes, these campaigns often work to subvert democracy. In his most recent research, environmental sociologist Bob Brulle found that the biggest indicator of fossil fuel PR spend was the likelihood of any sort of climate legislation passing.

Bob Brulle: When you look at their public relations spending, the more the more Congress starts to have hearings and write bills dealing with climate change, the more they start spending on public relations the next year. In other words, you start having hearings this year. Next year, you’re going to have a public relations onslaught from the oil companies, telling you how good they are, how they’re so responsible and good corporate citizens, and that whatever problem it is that you’re talking about, they’re right on top of it and handling it. And the hidden messages is: so therefore, there’s no need to regulate us at all.

Amy Westervelt: In some cases they move even faster. As the Washington Post just reported, the oil guys just dropped a $1million targeted ad buy the day after a couple of current Democratic candidates said they might ban fracking. And in 2008, when Demcrats won control of all branches of the government heading into the global climate negotiations in Copenhagen, they were spending preemptively. The API alone spent a whopping $75 million with Edelman.

Bob Brulle: I don’t think there’s any other way to call it other than propaganda, which is a one sided message designed to create a certain impression, that’s exactly what it was. And it’s very focused, targeted, extremely well done and apparently pretty effective.

Amy Westervelt: So we went from Ivy Lee working with Standard Oil to World War I propaganda to Lee advising Hitler and Goebbels to Daniel Edelman learning the tools of the trade by studying and countering the Third Reich’s propaganda in World War II, and bringing those tactics right back to Big Oil.

Next time we’ll meet another key architect of the propaganda apparatus, Herb Schmertz, the PR legend who took on Mobil Oil after Edelman. And guess what? Schmertz also started out in military intelligence. He wound up adding so many new bells and whistles to the propaganda machine that we’re gonna spend two episodes delving into his story. See you then.

For more, visit the DrilledNews podcast website here.

jack gerard API opposed:markey co-sponsor

H.R.2454 - American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009111th Congress (2009-2010)

BILL

Sponsor:	Rep. Waxman, Henry A. [D-CA-30] (Introduced 05/15/2009)
Committees:	House - Science and Technology; Energy and Commerce; Foreign Affairs; Financial Services; Education and Labor; Transportation and Infrastructure; Natural Resources; Agriculture; Ways and Means
Committee Reports:	H. Rept. 111-137
Latest Action:	Senate - 07/07/2009 Read the second time. Placed on Senate Legislative Calendar under General Orders. Calendar No. 97. (All Actions)
Roll Call Votes:	There have been 2 roll call votes

https://www.ucsusa.org/about/news/fossil-fuel-new-evidence-sb-1161

New Evidence of Fossil Fuel Industry Climate Science Deception Underscores Need for SB 1161 (Allen), “California Climate Science Truth and Accountability Act”

Statement by Adrienne Alvord, California and Western States Director, Union of Concerned Scientists

Published Apr 13, 2016

OAKLAND, Calif. (April 13, 2016)— A trove of documents released today by the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) reveals that the oil industry was well aware of the potential climate risks of fossil fuels decades earlier than was widely believed. The uncovered industry communications, scientific papers and oral histories demonstrate that the petroleum industry was conducting climate research as early as 1957 and knew about the potential for catastrophic climate risks by 1968 at the latest.

The documents include a 1957 study, “Radiocarbon Evidence on the Dilution of Atmospheric and Oceanic Carbon by Carbon from Fossil Fuels,” published by scientists working for Humble Oil, a precursor of ExxonMobil. The study looked at how carbon dioxide from fossil fuel combustion accumulates in the atmosphere and oceans and indicates that scientists affiliated with the fossil fuel industry were not just aware of what happens to the climate when we burn fossil fuels, but were at the leading edge of our understanding of it.

Below is a statement by Adrienne Alvord, California and Western States Director, Union of Concerned Scientists:

“It is shocking and disheartening to see that the fossil fuel industry apparently had knowledge of climate risks from the burning of fossil fuels even earlier than previously believed. Their subsequent public deception campaign in the interest of profit has led to confusion and uncertainty about the consequences of burning oil, gas and coal.

Meanwhile, concentrations of greenhouse gases have doubled over the past three decades, exacerbating the costly, damaging effects of climate change that California already is experiencing. The California Climate Science Truth and Accountability Act would help ensure that California can hold fossil fuel companies fully accountable for their decades of deception and the damages they have caused to public health, property and the environment in California. We need to ensure that fossil fuel companies won’t be let off the hook for their decades-long campaign of intentional deception about the harmful effects of their products.”

https://www.c2es.org/content/congress-climate-history/

Congress has debated climate change for nearly 30 years with varying results. Laws and congressionally approved funding have led to new programs to reduce emissions and incentives to speed the deployment of clean energy. Other efforts to address climate change more holistically, including by using market-based approaches, have not advanced.

Some major milestones on climate in Congress include:

1992: Senate approves U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. The process of designing a global agreement to tackle climate change began in the early 1990s. In 1992, President George H.W. Bush signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which committed all nations to take action and laid the foundation for future agreements. At the time, President Bush declared, “The United States fully intends to be the world’s pre-eminent leader in protecting the global environment.” The U.S. Senate gave its advice and consent to the treaty in October 1992.

1992: Renewable energy gets a boost. To help support the fledgling wind industry, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) added the renewable energy production tax credit to the 1992 Energy Policy Act, which has been critical in the rapid expansion of the wind energy industry. The tax credit has been extended in short stints – with occasional lapses – since then. An investment tax credit for solar energy installations was later added to the tax code through the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

1997: Senate pre-empts Kyoto Protocol. In June 1997, six months ahead of a U.N. climate conference in Kyoto, Japan, the Senate adopted a nonbinding resolution introduced by Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), with Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and 44 other cosponsors, stating that the United States should not enter into any international climate agreement that did not include comparable emissions commitments by developing countries or that “would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States…” The Clinton Administration proceeded to negotiate and sign the Kyoto Protocol, which set emission targets for developed countries only. But the agreement was never submitted to the Senate for advice and consent, and in 2001, President George W. Bush declared that the United States would not join it.

2003-2007: Bipartisan bills in the Senate. By the 108th Congress (2003–2004) significant bipartisan efforts to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions started to gain traction. Among other bills in 2003, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) offered The Climate Stewardship Act of 2003 to institute a cap-and-trade program to reduce emissions from electricity, manufacturing, commercial, and transportation sectors of the economy (representing 85 percent of U.S. emissions). The bill had a House companion and was reintroduced in the 109th and 110th Congresses.

2007: Congress mandates emissions reporting. As part of the Fiscal Year 2008 Consolidated Appropriations Act, signed into law in 2007, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was ordered to publish a rule requiring public reporting of greenhouse gas emissions from large sources. The Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program database provides comprehensive nationwide greenhouse gas emissions data (electric power companies were already reporting their carbon dioxide emissions under the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990). Over 40 source categories are now covered by the reporting program.

2008–2010: Cap-and-trade legislation passes the House. Shortly after being elected, President-elect Barack Obama declared a comprehensive climate and energy bill among his top legislative priorities. The U.S. House of Representatives passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 by a vote of 219 to 212 in June 2009. The legislation, written by Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.), would have established an economy-wide greenhouse gas cap-and-trade system and critical complementary measures.

Other major climate legislation was proposed during this period:

The American Clean Energy Leadership Act of 2009 would have established a renewable energy standard and addressed several other energy-related issues.
John Kerry (D-Mass.), Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) worked outside of the committee process in an attempt to broaden the base of support for climate legislation within the Senate. Kerry and Lieberman released a draft discussion of their American Power Act in May 2010 that would have established a cap-and-trade system for utilities and industry, and a fee for transportation fuels.
Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) introduced a Carbon Limits and Energy for America’s Renewal Act, which would have capped carbon dioxide emissions while allowing very limited emissions trading, and rebating the revenue from this system directly back to the public on a per capita basis.
Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) introduced the Practical Energy and Climate Plan, intended to reduce oil imports, improve and create new efficiency standards, and establish a clean energy standard.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was expected to combine elements of the climate and energy legislative proposals into a comprehensive climate bill. Citing a lack of bipartisan support in the Senate, however, Reid announced in July 2010 that upcoming energy legislation would not include a cap on greenhouse emissions. This effectively ended action on climate legislation for the 111th Congress.

2012: Shoring up flood protection. Funding the National Flood Insurance Program, established in 1968, is important for the many communities likely to face increased flooding from sea level-rise and more frequent and extreme downpours. In May 2012, Congress passed the National Flood Insurance Program Extension Act reauthorizing the program for five years, ending a series of short-term extensions. The bill was a major step toward actuarial pricing and full accounting of climate risk, ensuring that climate impact projections are factored into future calculations of flood risk. Although the word “climate” does not appear in the text, the bill directed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to use “the best available science regarding future changes in sea levels, precipitation, and intensity of hurricanes” – likely projected impacts of climate change – as it updates flood maps and sets insurance premiums.

2012: Clean Energy Standard. Following the failure of Congress to act on climate, Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) introduced the Clean Energy Standard Act to enact a tradeable energy standard to reduce emissions in the power sector.

2015: Extension/phasedown of renewable energy tax credits. After more than 20 years of regular extensions of the production tax credit for wind power and investment tax credit for solar power, Congress agreed in late 2015 on a multi-year extension and ultimate phase-out of the incentives. The tax credits have been critical in making renewable energy cost-competitive and continue to help reduce carbon emissions from power sector in the absence of federal regulations.

2016: Formation of the Climate Solutions Caucus. In February 2016, Reps. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.) and Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) launched the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus in the House of Representatives. The caucus describes its mission as educating members on “economically-viable options to reduce climate risk and protect our nation’s economy, security, infrastructure, agriculture, water supply and public safety.” The caucus has been adding dozens of members in Republican-Democratic pairs.

2018: Tax credits and carbon pricing. In February 2018, Congress enacted a two-year budget deal which extended and expanded key financial incentives for investments in several advanced low-carbon technologies. The budget deal included a bipartisan proposal to reform and extend the Sections 45Q tax credit to boost carbon capture. In addition, the first Republican-led carbon pricing proposal and bipartisan carbon pricing proposals were introduced in nearly eight years.

2019: Renewed interest in Climate Change. Climate change has become a priority since Democrats regained control of the House of Representatives. While most activities have been led by Democrats, Republicans have become more responsive to climate issues and some bipartisan efforts have emerged. Some significant developments include:

The introduction of a Green New Deal resolution in the House and the Senate.
The formation of a Select Committee on the Climate Crisis in the House, which is tasked with coming up with policy recommendations to address climate change.
The formation of a bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus in the Senate.
The continued introduction of market-based climate measures (e.g., carbon taxes and clean energy standards).

no lnx in orig?

https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060039422

CLIMATE

7 years later, failed Waxman-Markey bill still makes waves

Amanda Reilly and Kevin Bogardus, E&E News reporters

Published: Monday, June 27, 2016

It's been seven years since the House passed major legislation to create a cap-and-trade system for heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions, and though that legislative attempt ultimately failed, the bill's sponsors still say it sowed the seeds for other climate change efforts.

As is well-known, the Waxman-Markey bill was not taken up by the full Senate and never became law. But looking back over the last seven years, the bill's sponsors and their former congressional aides reminisced with E&E Daily in interviews that the unsuccessful fight was worthwhile and that it has had important repercussions.

"It is always worthwhile to fight for what you believe in," former Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman of California said in his office in Washington, D.C., "and if you don't succeed at first, you keep trying."

Waxman retired at the end of the 113th Congress, and early last year he joined his son's public affairs and government relations firm, Waxman Strategies. The bill's other sponsor, Democratic Sen. Ed Markey, has been the junior senator from Massachusetts since 2013.

The two former House lawmakers introduced their bill, formally known as the "American Clean Energy and Security Act," on May 15, 2009. The 1,400-page bill would have established emissions caps through 2050 for several greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, and instituted a system for trading emissions allowances.

Waxman-Markey squeaked by the House seven years ago yesterday on June 26, 2009, by a vote of 219-212.

Phil Barnett, who was the Democratic staff director at the House Energy and Commerce Committee under Waxman at the time, said working on the bill was "demanding" and "challenging."

"We worked intensively on it for six months ... seven days a week, long hours. The bill was a top priority for Chairman Waxman," said Barnett, now a consultant, adding, "The entire staff poured their hearts and souls into the effort because they thought it would do something to solve the climate problem as well as create economic opportunities and keep costs low."

Looking back, Markey pointed to work on the health care law, another priority for President Obama, for stymying the cap-and-trade bill's momentum in the Senate.

"We finished Waxman-Markey in the last week of June of 2009. So we had finished our work," Markey said. "We were ready to go. And the politics of it then got much more complicated than anyone thought they would have."

The political dynamics around health care reform became complex with the death of Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy in August 2009. When Republican Scott Brown won Kennedy's seat in an upset victory in a special election in January 2010, the politics of passing major legislation became more difficult because Brown gave Republicans a 41st seat in the Senate, thereby robbing Democrats of a filibuster-proof majority.

Then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) never brought the climate legislation, which was championed in the upper chamber by then-Sens. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, to a vote on the floor. Many people close to the legislation have since blamed a number of factors, including Republican opposition and concessions to special interests.

"It was a disappointment that we couldn't get a bill all the way through, but we highlighted the issue," Waxman said. "We gave it our best effort. We tried to accomplish that goal. But I know from my own history as a member of Congress, I have to work sometimes decades before some of the proposals I made eventually became law."

He cited, for example, the 15 years it took for Congress to pass the 2009 Tobacco Control Act, which gave the Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate tobacco products.

Genesis of executive branch efforts

The collapse of the Waxman-Markey bill in the Senate in 2010 spurred the Obama administration to aggressively use the executive branch to issue regulations aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. U.S. EPA issued its finalClean Power Plan for reducing carbon dioxide emissions from power plants last August and helped negotiate the international climate change deal in Paris last December.

In the first term, "the administration really focused on trying to get a big legislative fix to the climate change problem. As you know, that effort fell short," John Podesta, who was a top adviser to Obama and helped drive White House climate policy from 2014 to 2015, said at a recent conference in California. "In the second term, there was more focus on organizing and coordinating the agencies and the White House offices on both the domestic and international side of the equation."

Podesta, who is now campaign chairman for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, said that, if elected, the former secretary of State would likely focus on executive actions instead of attempting to pass a "grand climate fix" through Congress, even if the Senate flips to Democratic control.

Obama's experience was "illustrative," Podesta said.

"A successful climate agenda requires a senior, serious point person in the White House," he said, "who can drive the agencies to do all they can across the whole suite of federal authorities."

But for the Obama administration, starting with a grand climate fix was "absolutely the right thing to do," Waxman said.

And Markey credited the legislation for setting the stage for the Obama administration's second-term actions by helping to create necessary alliances.

"Much of what the president has done since then, and even if you look at the Clean Power Plan, it's based largely on what was inside of the Waxman-Markey bill that we passed," Markey said. "So we had worked out the partnerships, the coalitions, that were still there when the president decided to develop the Clean Power Plan. So I think it was actually a very helpful political process to have gone through."

Michael Goo, another former top congressional aide who worked on the bill, agreed with the Massachusetts senator, saying, "Waxman-Markey is still the yardstick by which to measure climate programs."

"It was economywide, it set reduction pathways based on what the science was telling us, and it showed us how, by working together with industry, we could craft an effective climate program consistent with a growing economy," said Goo, now with AJW Inc. "And I think, sooner or later, we will return to something like it. "

Clinton vs. Trump

Markey called a potential Hillary Clinton administration paramount to the United States "continuing to be the world leader" on climate change.

Obama promised the globe in the time before the Paris climate negotiations that the United States would reduce its greenhouse gas emissions between 26 and 28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025. In Paris last December, more than 190 nations agreed to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius and to pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5 C. The agreement also commits countries to periodically revisiting their pledged domestic emissions reductions.

Both Waxman and Markey are optimistic that Clinton will become the next president of the United States.

"I think she would be wise to follow the example of President Obama in trying to put this as a high priority to work with the rest of the world to reduce the greenhouse gases that cause climate change," Waxman said. "I believe she's committed to it."

Markey is harshly critical of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's inconsistent views on climate change. In 2009, before international climate talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, Trump signed an open letter calling global warming a problem; he's since claimed that it is a hoax perpetuated by the Chinese to hurt American business.

Trump has more recently vowed to undo the Paris climate pledge, which Obama officials are hopeful will go into force before the beginning of the next administration. Once entered into force, which happens when at least 55 countries representing at least 55 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions formally adopt it, the withdrawal process for a nation takes four years.

Markey compared Trump's claim that climate change is a hoax to the businessman's former claim that Obama was born in Kenya and not the United States.

If Trump is elected, Markey said, "every single promise we made to the rest of the world [on climate change] will be broken."

A campaign issue?

Markey also predicted that climate change would become a more hotly debated issue this presidential election compared with the 2008 race, when both parties' candidates expressed support for addressing greenhouse gas emissions, and the 2012 race between Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) when climate change was largely a nonissue.

"It's going to become a larger and larger issue that goes right to [Trump's] credibility as a leader in our country," Markey said. "So the more he says it, the better for us because suburban swing Republicans and independent voters believe the science of climate change."

Others have said the same.

"The Clinton campaign is going to push these issues, and their allies in the clean energy business sector are going to push these issues forcefully, especially in swing states," said Paul Bledsoe, a former climate adviser for the Bill Clinton administration and an energy consultant. "I think they see it as a profound political vulnerability for Trump and the Republicans generally."

Still, a recent Gallup poll found that, of 17 policy issues, the issue gap for climate change is greatest among voters.The poll found that 72 percent of Democrats say that the issue of climate change is "extremely" or "very" important in how they vote for a presidential candidate. Just 25 percent of Republicans say that the issue is important.

Waxman lamented the hyper-partisan nature of Congress and that "compromise" has become a "dirty word" in D.C. He said he's surprised that supporters of cap and trade were unable to harness the business community in attracting more Republican support for the legislation.

"It has been a difficult time that we're going through in getting a more reasonable way to compromise," he said, "because so many of the Republicans that have been elected to office in the last four, six years think that their role is to say no to anything that the Democratic president, Democrats want."

Greg Dotson, who was the chief environmental staffer on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee at the time of Waxman-Markey, said that Republican support did not materialize despite support from companies in the oil and chemical sector.

"The assumption and hope was that if you got businesses on, you got Republicans on," said Dotson, who is now the vice president for energy policy at the Center for American Progress. "So we did a lot of work to address business concerns, and we got a lot of business support, and that did not translate to broad Republican support.

"For an incoming president," Dotson added, "that's a pretty scary precedent."

At a recent hearing in the Environment and Public Works Committee, Markey said it was ironic that coal-industry allies who are complaining about EPA greenhouse gas regulations' impact on jobs didn't support the cap-and-trade legislation.

He complained that the coal industry rejected an offer of billions of dollars for carbon capture and storage technology via the Waxman-Markey bill. Markey argued that the bill attempted to help coal companies stay alive in a way that works "for all the interests."

"We were trying to give them a bridge to the future," he said. "Do you think they wish they could go back to 2009 and grab that money?"

Waxman said that he was hopeful that the dynamic would change in Congress to allow for more collaboration between the parties. He predicted a disaster for Republicans at the polls in November.

"I think it's going to change because I think they're going to go down the tubes in this next election, and that's going to be a lesson to them," Waxman said.

He added: "But I don't know. I'm giving you my wishful thinking."

https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2020/01/23/koch-spends-more-2019-stop-action-climate

don w

This week Koch Industries, the parent of the conglomerate owned by Charles Koch, reported it spent almost $11 million on lobbying the U.S. Congress in 2019, up ten percent from its spending in 2018.

Koch lobbied against Democratic initiatives on a “Green New Deal,” and against other renewable energy legislation and donor transparency, while continuing to lobby for eliminating the tax credit for electric cars, a trade agreement with Mexico and Canada, and limits on the President’s ability to levy tariffs, duties and other trade measures.

While lobbying reports to the Congress do not show how much time or money is spent on different issues, it is clear from the number of mentions on Koch’s lobbying report that taking the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord continued to be a priority.

The Climate Action Now Act, H.R. 9, which passed the U.S. House by Democrats, would prevent federal funds from being used to leave the climate treaty. Koch opposes the bill. In November of last year, Trump initiated the process to remove the U.S. from the accord.

Koch also fought against H.R. 330, the Climate Solutions Act of 2019, which has not yet passed the House, that would require the U.S. to “increase the percentage of electricity sold in the United States that is generated from renewable sources” to 100 percent by 2035.

With the Fairness for Drivers Act of 2019, introduced in the U.S. Senate as S. 343 Koch continues to oppose electric plug-in vehicles or vehicles using renewable resources, such as fuel cells. The bill, which will see no action in the House as long as it is controlled by Democrats, would eliminate the tax credit for electric plug-in vehicles, as well as impose a tax on vehicles using renewable energy.

On the flip side, Koch opposed H.R. 2256, the Driving America Forward Act, which would expand tax credits for plug-in electric vehicles and fuel cell vehicles. The bill has 138 co-sponsors, not surprisingly all Democrats, and none receiving any money from Koch Industries’ political action committee, KochPAC.

On the other hand, all four of the House Democrats that have received contributions from KochPAC for the last three election cycles have not co-sponsored the bill: Collin Peterson (MN), Henry Cuellar (TX), Jim Costa (CA), and Kurt Schrader (OR).

As already reported by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), Koch also spent money trying to pass H.R. 531, which would repeal the Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE, fuel efficiency standards for cars and light trucks first set by Congress in 1975. The bill was introduced in the House, where it is blocked by Democrats, by Rep. Roger Williams (R-Texas). Williams has received $16,000 since 2014 from KochPAC and close to $1 million from the oil and gas industry during his career in Congress, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Koch continues to oppose a carbon pricing tax as well, last year in the form of opposition to H.R. 763, the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act of 2019. Koch’s lobbying against the bill was reinforced by a group sign-on campaign led by Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, which has received money from front groups created by Koch and foundations controlled by Charles Koch.

Saying that a carbon tax “increases the power, cost, and intrusiveness of the government in our lives,” the letter was signed by 75 groups, many of which receive funding from Koch or the Koch-preferred funding vehicle, DonorsTrust, such as the Capital Research Center, 60 Plus Association, American Legislative Exchange Council, and state affiliates of the right-wing State Policy Network (SPN).

In 2019, as in decades past, Koch supported anything that maintains a reliance by the U.S. on oil and gas, and fought against any renewable energy or energy efficiency measure that would threaten its profits as the country’s tenth largest oil refiner, as well as one of the largest owners of oil and gas reserves and pipelines.

https://www.c2es.org/content/congress-climate-history/

Some major milestones on climate in Congress include:

1997: Senate pre-empts Kyoto Protocol. In June 1997, six months ahead of a U.N. climate conference in Kyoto, Japan, the Senate adopted a nonbinding resolution introduced by Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-WV), with Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and 44 other cosponsors, stating that the United States should not enter into any international climate agreement that did not include comparable emissions commitments by developing countries or that “would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States…” The Clinton Administration proceeded to negotiate and sign the Kyoto Protocol, which set emission targets for developed countries only. But the agreement was never submitted to the Senate for advice and consent, and in 2001, President George W. Bush declared that the United States would not join it.

2003-2007: Bipartisan bills in the Senate. By the 108th Congress (2003-2004) significant bipartisan efforts to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions started to gain traction. Among other bills in 2003, Sen.John McCain (R-AZ) and Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) offered The Climate Stewardship Act of 2003 to institute a cap-and-trade program to reduce emissions from electricity, manufacturing, commercial, and transportation sectors of the economy (representing 85 percent of U.S. emissions). The bill had a House companion and was reintroduced in the 109th and 110th Congresses.

2007: [b2?!] Congress mandates emissions reporting. As part of the Fiscal Year 2008 Consolidated Appropriations Act, signed into law in 2007, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was ordered to publish a rule requiring public reporting of greenhouse gas emissions from large sources. The Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program database provides comprehensive nationwide greenhouse gas emissions data (electric power companies were already reporting their carbon dioxide emissions under the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990). Over 40 source categories are now covered by the reporting program.

2008-2010: Cap-and-trade legislation passes the House. Shortly after being elected, President-elect Barack Obama declared a comprehensive climate and energy bill among his top legislative priorities. The U.S. House of Representatives passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 by a vote of 219 to 212 in June 2009. The legislation, written by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Rep. Edward Markey(D-MA), would have established an economy-wide greenhouse gas cap-and-trade system and critical complementary measures. The Senate failed to pass its own comprehensive climate and energy bill, and the measure died.

Other major climate legislation was proposed during this period:

The American Clean Energy Leadership Act of 2009 would have established a renewable energy standardand addressed several other energy-related issues.
John Kerry (D-MA), Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC)worked outside of the committee process in an attempt to broaden the base of support for climate legislation within the Senate. Kerry and Lieberman released a draft discussion of their American Power Act in May 2010 that would have established a cap-and-trade system for utilities and industry, and a fee for transportation fuels.
Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Susan Collins (R-ME) introduced a Carbon Limits and Energy for America’s Renewal Act, which would have capped carbon dioxide emissions while allowing very limited emissions trading, and rebating the revenue from this system directly back to the public on a per capita basis.
Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) introduced the Clean Energy Standard Act to enact a tradeable energy standard to reduce emissions in the power sector.
Richard Lugar (R-IN) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) introduced the Practical Energy and Climate Plan, intended to reduce oil imports, improve and create new efficiency standards, and establish a clean energy standard.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) was expected to combine elements of the climate and energy legislative proposals into a comprehensive climate bill. Citing a lack of bipartisan support in the Senate, however, Reid announced in July 2010 that upcoming energy legislation would not include a cap on greenhouse emissions. This effectively ended action on climate legislation for the 111th Congress.

2016: Formation of the Climate Solutions Caucus. In February 2016, Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-FL) and Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL) launched the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus in the House of Representatives. The caucus describes its mission as educating members on “economically-viable options to reduce climate risk and protect our nation’s economy, security, infrastructure, agriculture, water supply and public safety.” The caucus has been adding dozens of members in Republican-Democratic pairs.

American Power Act: Senators Kerry and Lieberman Release ...

https://fedsoc.org › publications › detail › american-power-act-senators-ker...

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:{Jul 8, 2010 - :{American:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: Power :{Act:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:: Senators :{Kerry:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: and Lieberman Release “Discussion Draft” of New :{Climate:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: Change :{Bill:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: ... of consensus on Capitol Hill that nuclear energy must play a key role in :{America's:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: push to reduce GHG emissions.:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

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Kerry-Lieberman climate bill: The details | Grist

https://grist.org › article › kerry-lieberman-climate-bill-the-details › full

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ew 519

Jessica Corbett

Progressives are urging federal lawmakers to pursue a "real solution" to the climate crisis while House Democrats gear up for a vote this week on a bill to block President Donald Trump from ditching the Paris agreement.

"This action from the House is better than no action at all, but not much better," Food & Water Watch executive director Wenonah Hauter said in a statement Wednesday. "Given all that's known about the severity of the climate crisis we face, and the urgent, aggressive action required to stem it, this legislation is merely symbolic."

The legislation in question, the Climate Action Now Act (H.R. 9), was introduced in late March by Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.).

In June of 2017, Trump vowed to withdraw from the Paris agreement — but he can't officially take action until November of next year.

H.R. 9 would prevent the president from bailing on the accord — which is backed by every other country on the planet — and require his administration to develop a public plan detailing how the U.S. "will achieve an economy-wide target of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 26 to 28 percent below its 2005 level by 2025."

Although a primary priority of the bill is keeping the country signed on to the agreement that coordinates global efforts to combat the climate crisis, E&E News reported Wednesday that "during a closed-door caucus meeting yesterday ahead of floor action today on H.R. 9, leaders told the rank and file to focus on the economic benefits of climate action and not 'some international standards.'"

"It's all about unleashing the clean economy here in America," said Castor, who chairs the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. "That agreement would allow countries to create their own goals — America did and it has already created a wave of green jobs."

The bill's co-sponsors include Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who created the climate committee late last year, after Democrats took control the House in the midterms. Some progressives criticized the committee as a "weak" response to mounting demands for ambitious action on the scale of scientists' warnings about looming climate catastrophe — and they leveled similar criticism at H.R. 9 this week.

"Simply put, it's the junior varsity bill," RL Miller, chairman of the California Democratic Party's environmental caucus and co-founder of the political action committee Climate Hawks Vote, told Bloomberg. "It's nice but extremely insufficient."

Bloomberg reported Wednesday that "Pelosi is trying to head off her party's restive progressive caucus by invoking the legacy of President Barack Obama to build support for a climate change bill that falls well short of the ambitions of the Green New Deal," a resolution sponsored in the House by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).

Ocasio-Cortez told the outlet "there is no harm in passing" H.R. 9, but lawmakers can't stop there. "The idea that we can just reintroduce 2009 policies is not reflective of action that is necessary for now in the world of today," she said, reiterating the need for a Green New Deal.

The resolution that Ocasio-Cortez unveiled in February with Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) calls for transitioning the American energy system away from fossil fuels to 100 percent renewable sources over a decade, creating millions of green jobs, and providing for vulnerable communities impacted by the climate crisis.

The Green New Deal, backed by a youth-led grassroots movement, goes beyond the goals of the Paris agreement and more closely aligns with the demands of scientists and climate campaigners.

"The latest science is clear: In order to adequately address deepening climate chaos, we must transition completely to clean, renewable energy generation in little more than a decade," said Food & Water Watch's Hauter. "The terms of the Paris accord aren't low-hanging fruit, they're fruit that has fallen to the ground and begun to rot."

The House kicked off debate on H.R. 9 Wednesday, and is expected to pass the bill as early as Thursday. However, the Republican-controlled Senate is unlikely to send the legislation to Trump's desk — and even if it does, the White House already issued a veto threat.

Despite the bill's legislative barriers and the Paris agreement's limitations, as Alden Meyer wrote for the Union of Concerned Scientists Tuesday, the House's upcoming vote "will provide some hope to international observers that the United States may soon return to the fold of countries committed to climate action."

But symbolic gestures aren't enough for Hauter, who called on lawmakers to actually address the problem.

"Any meaningful response from Congress to the climate crisis we face must include a quick halt to new fossil fuel development, including bans on oil and gas exports, and drilling and fracking on federal lands," she said. "Anything less cannot be considered part of a real solution."

...

4/16

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/03/27/what-climate-leadership-looks-democrats-bill-would-stop-trump-ditching-paris-accord

House Democrats Wednesday introduced legislation to bar President Donald Trump from ditching the Paris climate accord and force the White House to submit a plan to slash carbon emissions, drawing praise from environmental groups.

"Donald Trump's attempt to withdraw the United States from this landmark agreement is one of his most egregious steps to weaken our country's international standing."

—Michael Brune, Sierra Club

"The Climate Action Now Act sends a powerful message to the rest of the world that when it comes to climate change and the Paris agreement, President Trump is out of step with the strong majority of Americans who want the U.S. to be a global leader, not a rogue nation," Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a statement.

The bill (pdf), also known as H.R. 9, comes nearly two years after Trump sparked global outrage by declaring his intent to withdraw from the Paris deal. Under the terms of the agreement, the earliest possible withdrawal date is November 4, 2020.

If passed, the Democrats' legislation would block Trump from using federal funds to pull the U.S. from the Paris deal and require the president to develop a plan to meet the accord's emissions targets.

The bill was unveiled at a press conference Wednesday byHouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), and other House Democrats...

https://www.ecowatch.com/biggest-attack-marine-mammals-2509135255.html

Congress: Biggest Attack on Marine Mammals in Decades

By Michael Jasny

On Thursday, the House Natural Resources Committee passed a bill, called the "SECURE American Energy Act" (H.R. 4239), that can only be described as an oil industry wish-list. The bill's purpose is to mow down environmental concerns that stand in the way of the complete exploitation of fossil fuels in this country. For the oceans, this would mean an end to national monument designation and to some of those pesky safety regulations that were put in place after the Deepwater spill, among other things. And although it hasn't received much attention—yet—one late addition to the bill targets marine mammals in a very big way.

H.R. 4239 would eviscerate one of the core provisions of the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), the law that for more than 45 years has been the bulwark of conservation for many of our most iconic ocean species. The Protection Act works by placing safeguards on human activities, like offshore oil exploration, that harm whales, dolphins and other marine mammals. Simply put, H.R. 4239 would gut a whole lot of those safeguards.

What would this mean for marine mammal protection? For starters:

H.R. 4239 would allow industry to harm huge numbers of marine mammals, by killing the safeguard limiting its impacts to "small numbers."

It would eliminate the requirement that activities have the "least practicable impact" on marine mammals, allowing industry to proceed without attempting to minimize harm.

It would prevent the wildlife agencies from requiring industry to monitor the long-term consequences of its actions.

It would establish an impossibly short timeline for the wildlife agencies to review industry activities for their marine mammal impacts, and automatically permit those activities if the agencies fail to meet it.

And, having turned much of our marine mammal law into a dead letter, it would exempt industry from having to comply with Endangered Species Act protections for marine mammals as well.

Destroying the Marine Mammal Protection Act would pave the way for seismic blasting—the first big step in oil and gas development—off the East Coast. As my colleagues and I have written, the industry's blasting is known to seriously compromise marine life from zooplankton to fish to the great baleen whales, and scientists have warned of "significant, long-lasting and widespread impacts" on entire species and populations if the oil industry gets the green light. Blasting the Atlantic is broadly opposed by more than 120 coastal communities from southern New Jersey to Florida, by more than 40,000 coastal businesses, by fishing associations, Chambers of Commerce, and more. But the oil industry doesn't care what the coast thinks.

Nor, of course, does it care about the love that people in this country have for whales and other marine mammals. In a recent poll, some 76 percent of Americans said they want to protect marine mammals from threats, including from offshore oil and gas exploration, and 73 percent said they support the Marine Mammal Protection Act. When the Committee released its bill, there was no mention of its bid to gut the Act in its press release, and that's not surprising. If I were them, I wouldn't want to let folks know what I was doing here either.

The "SECURE American Energy Act" (H.R. 4239) may come to a vote on the House floor this week. Please demand that your representatives strongly oppose this legislation and its attack on marine mammals. You can sign our petition here; and you can go here to find the office number of your Congressional representative and give them a call.

tool

http://www.outdooralliance.org/legislative-tracking/

random update related issues: On September 27, 2017, the EPW committee held a hearing on “Forest Management to Mitigate Wildfires: Legislative Solutions.” The hearing examined three pieces of legislation: S. 605, the Litigation Relief for Forest Management Projects Act; S.1417, the Sage-Grouse and Mule Deer Habitat Conservation and Restoration Act of 201; and S.1731, the Forest Management Improvement Act of 2017.

https://www.ecowatch.com/off-act-congresswomen-2502316531.html

Congresswomen and Environmental Groups Urge Congress to Pass the OFF Act to Combat Climate Change

Reps. Tulsi Gabbard (HI-02), Barbara Lee (CA-13) and Nanette Diaz Barragán (CA-44) joined Food & Water Watch, first responders, non-profit organizations and local government officials to urge Congress to pass H.R. 3671, the OFF Fossil Fuels for a Better Future Act (OFF Act) to transition the U.S. to a 100 percent clean energy economy by 2035.

"Our country cannot passively standby while we watch the climate crisis devastate our planet and the livelihoods of working families across the country and the world," said Gabbard, who introduced the bill. "It is our obligation to protect the most vulnerable in our society, to protect our planet, to grow the economy and rebuild America's infrastructure with a stable, domestic clean energy economy."

Gabbard's bill prioritizes the health and wellbeing of the country and the future of the planet by tackling the climate change crisis head on and building on the progress of states like Hawaii.

The OFF Act sets an ambitious timeline to end America's reliance on fossil fuels and avert the catastrophic effects of climate change that have exacerbated natural disasters like the recent hurricanes that devastated Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands and deadly wildfires in California.

Without urgent action, climate change will continue to intensify and accelerate the pace of extreme weatherevents that devastate coastal and low-lying communities causing widespread unemployment, wage stagnation and deadly health problems, which disproportionately affect low-income, minority, Native Hawaiian and Native American families.

This legislation protects the country's most vulnerable populations from the harmful effects of carbon emissions and toxic chemicals that pollute America's air, land and waterways by strengthening civil rights protections, creating clean energy jobs, and prioritizing the safety and security of the planet above profits for major corporations and the fossil fuels industry.

"We cannot afford any more delays or half-measures in this climate crisis. It's time for bold action to address this emergency and save our planet, before it's too late," said Lee. "This bill is a critical roadmap for climate justice in Congress at the moment we need it the most."

Passing the OFF Act will increase America's global competitiveness by creating domestic clean technologies, jobs and training programs. In addition, this legislation will improve the health and wellbeing of the American people and our planet from toxic pollutants, asthma and respiratory illnesses, and environmental degradation.

"Our dependence on fossil fuels has created a public health crisis. In my district, children exposed to smoke and chemicals from oil and gas drilling operations are wearing asthma inhalers around their necks. It's heartbreaking to see," said Barragán. "This bill is about moving America forward and embracing the energy sources of the future. Getting off fossil fuels and moving to 100 percent renewable energy will help end this public health crisis and can create millions of good jobs."

The OFF Act has been cosponsored by 14 Members of Congress and has been endorsed by nearly four hundred clean energy, climate change and environmental justice organizations.

"The science is clear," said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch. "In order to avoid the most catastrophic effects of deepening climate chaos, we must break our foolish dependence on fossil fuels, and we must do it now. Fortunately, we have a solution. The OFF Act is the key to a livable future for all of us, and we are mobilizing from coast to coast to make it the law of the land."

https://www.ecowatch.com/off-act-tulsi-gabbard-2479880368.html

9/17

Rep.Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) introduced the Off Fossil Fuels for a Better Future Act (OFF Act) last week. This visionary bill comes as the nation bears witness to the devastation being brought by the climate change-super charged storm Harvey to Texas and Louisiana and braces for Irma's impacts. Storms like this and other extreme weather events will become all the more frequent and intense unless bold action is taken. Gabbard's bill—the strongest yet introduced in Congress—will put us on a path towards avoiding increased climate chaos: It will place a moratorium on new fossil fuel projects and move the country to 100 percent renewable energy by 2035, with a focus on a rapid transition in the next ten years. The bill is co-sponsored by Representatives Nanette Barragan (D-CA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Ted Lieu (D-CA), Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Keith Ellison (D-MN) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL).

2015 schatz whitehouse carbon tax floated at aei

Senator Barbara Boxer (CA) wrote an op-ed discussing her new bill, the Climate Change Adapt America Bond Act, to help fight climate change through issuing bonds. The bill is based on the World War II war bonds program and would give the Treasury Department the authority to issue up to $200 million each year in Climate Change Bonds which Americans can buy. She wrote another op-ed with Representative Doris Matsui (CA-6) supporting larger investments throughout the country in clean energy to strengthen the economy and combat climate change.

hr 8 veto threat

https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/legislative/sap/114/saphr8r_20151130.pdf

// sen https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/s2012 fred likes sen

https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/8

congr makes gas and coal export ez?

9/15

http://ecowatch.com/2015/09/22/climate-change-bill/

Senate Democrats Unveil Energy Bill to Signal ‘Full-Throated Support’ of Obama’s ‘Aggressive’ Climate Plan

**ecowatch.com**/2015/09/22/climate-change-bill/

Cole Mellino

A group of Senate Democrats unveiled an energy bill today, which follows a proposal that came out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in July. The bill aims to end some subsidies for fossil fuels and close some oil and gas tax loopholes, incentivize renewable energy such as solar and wind through grant programs and tax incentives, and encourage carbon capture and sequestration, nuclear and biofuels, according to the nonprofit Friends of the Earth.

The *New York Times* reports, though the bill “has no chance of passage in the Republican-controlled Congress,” it’s “intended to signal [Democrat’s] full-throated support of President Obama’s aggressive climate change agenda to 2016 voters and to the rest of the world.”The bill, announced by Senate Democratic party leaders and the energy committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Maria Cantwell, “laid out the party’s vision for cutting emissions at least 34 percent by 2025,” according to Reuters. That’s a cut even larger than the target set by the Obama administration.

“Congress must put forward a vision for how we can transition to a clean energy economy,” said Friends of the Earth Climate and Energy Director Ben Schreiber. “Our country must lead the world in the fight against climate change. Unfortunately, the time has passed for half-measures. Extending subsidies for renewables and ending Big Oil giveaways are important steps, but we cannot afford to throw our tax dollars after false solutions.”

“If Congress is interested in a responsible energy plan for American families that cuts carbon pollution, invests in the booming clean energy economy and finally tackles the challenge posed by global climate disruption, they should start with this bill,” said Sierra Club legislative director Melinda Pierce.

“This legislation offers a bold, ambitious vision for growing our clean energy economy and tackling the climate crisis, and the Sierra Club commends Senator Cantwell and Senate Democratic leadership for their dedication to bringing this legislation to the American people. While there is much left to do, this bill constitutes a powerful step toward an America powered by safer energy choices that will create jobs, keep our air and water clean and take action to help curb the climate crisis.”

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Climate Deniers Attack ‘Rock Star’ Pope as ‘Nature-Worshipping Pagan’ Amid U.S. Visit

http://grist.org/politics/the-problem-wasnt-the-green-groups-what-skocpol-gets-wrong-about-the-climate-bill-fight/joe romm

The problem wasn’t the green groups: What Skocpol gets wrong about the climate bill fight

By Joseph Romm

Cross-posted from Climate Progress

19 Jan 2013

see pooley climate wars

and http://www.scholarsstrategynetwork.org/sites/default/files/rff_final_report_bartosiewicz_miley.pdf

THE TOO POLITE REVOLUTION

Why the Recent Campaign to Pass Comprehensive Climate Legislation in the United States Failed

Petra Bartosiewicz & Marissa Miley January 2013

:{Prepared for the Symposium on

THE POLITICS OF AMERICA’S FIGHT

AGAINST GLOBAL WARMING

Co-sponsored by the

Columbia School of Journalism and the Scholars Strategy Network February 14, 2013 4-6 pm

Tsai Auditorium, Harvard University }:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/28/america-failing-climate-change_n_4868855.html?ir=Green&utm_campaign=022814&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Alert-green&utm_content=Title

our last effect climate bill was clean air act, passed in 1963, not intended to be? till epa ghg linked

The United States is the second-worst polluter in the world, after China, and its only "flagship" climate change law is more than 50 years old, according to the Globe Climate Legislation Study released Thursday. Meanwhile, 60 of the 66 other top-polluting nations have passed flagship climate change laws since 2000.

The study, coauthored by Globe International and the London School of Economics, defines flagship climate change laws as those that include more than one approach, such as pricing carbon, curbing energy demand or spurring energy efficiency. According to the report, the United Kingdom, Mexico, South Korea and the European Union lead with climate change legislation.

http://dirtyenergymoney.com/votes

budget bill 1/14

The $1.1 trillion catch-all spending bill negotiated by Congressional leaders and published on Monday night shaves away at several of the Obama administration's climate priorities, propping up fossil fuels at the expense of clean energy programs.

But the administration avoided devastating cuts to its agenda in the "omnibus" appropriations bill, a compromise between the Democrats who control the Senate and the Republicans who dominate the House of Representatives. The bill does not go as far toward hamstringing the administration as the forces opposed to climate action wanted. And the administration retains considerable leeway in its own campaign to exert as much influence over climate policy as it can without Congressional legislation.

According to a memo from Rep. Hal Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, the overall intention of the bill's $10.2 billion for energy spending, was "to support energy programs that encourage U.S. economic competitiveness and help advance the nation's goal of an all-of-the-above solution to energy independence." That language, with no mention of climate change objectives, signaled the success of House Republicans in steering the energy budget more toward fossil fuels than the administration would have preferred.

The Department of Energy's main green technology effort, its Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy program, gets $1.9 billion in the current fiscal year—$182 million more than in 2013 but nearly a third less than what President Obama had sought. Among other things, the program pays for innovations in biofuels, clean cars, and manufacturing, and for home weatherization grants. The administration will not be able to do nearly as much as it wanted in several areas, but it escaped the more devastating reductions that the House had recommended several months ago.

The bill will direct more of the DOE's research money into coal, oil and natural gas, according to summaries posted by the House and Senate appropriations committees.

Here, verbatim, is how the Rogers memo described the Energy Department's marching orders:

►$562 million for research and development to advance coal, natural gas, oil, and other fossil energy technologies, an increase of $28 million (5.3%) above the fiscal year 2013 enacted level and $141 million (34%) above the President's request, to help the country make better use of our domestic resources and reduce energy costs;

►$889 million for nuclear energy research and development, an increase of $36 million (5%) above the fiscal year 2013 enacted level and $154 million (21%) above the President’s request, to further the next generation of nuclear power while ensuring the safety and longevity of our current plants;

►$1.9 billion for energy efficiency and renewable energy programs—placing priority on advanced manufacturing and weatherization assistance. This funding will make responsible investments in effective and proven programs, while holding the line on irresponsible increases in other areas. This total is $874 million—or 32%—below the President’s request.

In a favor to coal interests, Congress restricted enforcement by the Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation of a new policy blocking loans for building coal-fired power plants around the world. The Obama administration has joined other international development organizations in trying to cut back on this kind of lending.

If Obama is intent on using executive actions to advance his climate agenda, it appeared that some members of Congress are just as determined to use the power of the purse to stymie some of his plans.

But in the greater context of a far-reaching spending compromise that avoided the kind of deadlock that shut the government down when the fiscal year began on Oct. 1, the restrictions imposed by the bill were relatively few and somewhat innocuous. There was nothing like an order to approve the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, for instance, or to open up oil drilling in the Arctic refuge.

"As with any compromise, not everyone will like everything in this bill," Rogers said in a joint statement with Sen. Barbara Mikulski, the Democrat who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee. "But in a divided government a critical bill such as this simply cannot reflect the wants of only one party."

Some of the restrictions on climate-related policies were mainly symbolic, such as prohibiting the administration from requiring old-fashioned incandescent light bulbs from being phased out and replaced by modern, efficient bulbs.

There's also a prohibition on requiring any emissions permits under Title V of the Clean Air Act to control greenhouse gas emissions from the "biological processes" of livestock, as the bill somewhat delicately puts it. The Environmental Protection Agency has made it clear that its priorities lie elsewhere, especially in its proposed regulations on carbon dioxide emissions from coal plants, and pro-coal lawmakers did not block those rules.

The bill also demands that the administration provide, within 120 days of submitting its budget request for the next fiscal year, a comprehensive report with a complete tally of all spending related in any way to climate change—agency by agency, program by program, and line by line, in 2013 and 2014.

That could be a sign that Congress wants to eliminate any programs it deems to be duplicative, overlapping or unnecessary. Or, looked at another way, it could mean that Congress truly wants to get back to what legislators call "regular order," a process in which committees actually draft and mark up detailed appropriations bills over the course of each spring and summer, and get them to the president's desk for signature by September, avoiding the helter-skelter approach that produced this omnibus legislation.

See all Carbon Copy posts >>

markey American Renewable Energy and Efficiency Act oct 2013

http://www.markey.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=346975

This bipartisan energy-efficiency bill might actually be able to pass Congress

By Lisa Hymas

U.S. SenateA Democrat and a Republican, working together. Weird.

Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) have come up with an energy-efficiency bill that they think has a real chance of passing the U.S. Senate. And then the U.S. House. In this Congress. Really!

From Politico:

The legislation, known as the Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act, focuses on improving energy efficiency in commercial buildings, the manufacturing sector and the federal government.

Among other things, the bill strengthens building codes to make new homes and buildings more efficient, creates a new Energy Department program called SupplySTAR to improve the efficiency of companies’ supply chains and requires the federal government — the country’s largest energy user — to adopt strategies to conserve the electricity used for computers.

It's a scaled-back version of a bill they introduced last year. To preempt conservative objections, it drops a provision that would have expanded a Department of Energy loan program. After Solyndra, "Department of Energy loan program" is not a phrase Republicans are warm to.

A bipartisan duo -- Reps. David McKinley (R-W.Va.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) -- will be pushing a similar bill in the House.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/U.S._congressional_action_on_climate_change

The problem wasn��t the green groups: What Skocpol gets wrong about the climate bill fight

By Joseph Romm

Cross-posted from Climate Progress

A lengthy new study opinion piece aims to pin the blame for the failure of the climate bill on the environmental community. It has already resulted in head-exploding headlines like this one in *The Guardian*:

This article's factual accuracy is disputed. Please see the relevant discussion on the talk page. (November 2010) |

In the August 2010 The New Yorker, Jane Mayer writes that "As their fortunes grew, Charles and David H. Koch (of the privately held company Koch Industries) became the primary underwriters of hard-line libertarian politics in America."^{[37][relevant? – discuss]} Also, in the Wichita Eagle, she wrote an article about the political spending of David and Charles G. Koch.^{[38][unreliable} ^source?] The articles state the Koch brothers are major funders of the U.S. Tea Party movement, giving money to organizations disabling mitigation of global warming legislation, and underwriting a vast network of foundations, think tanks, and groups mounting opposition campaigns against Obama Administration policies. The movement is associated with active climate change denial through Koch family's Koch Industries funding.^[39][not ^in ^citation ^given] The editorial cites Charles Lewis, the founder of the Center for Public Integrity as saying, "The Kochs are on a whole different level. There’s no one else who has spent this much money. The sheer dimension of it is what sets them apart. They have a pattern of lawbreaking, political manipulation, and obfuscation. I’ve been in Washington since Watergate, and I��ve never seen anything like it. They are the Standard Oil of our times."

[edit] Obama Administration

President Barack Obama said in September 2009 that if the international community would not act swiftly to deal with climate change that "we risk consigning future generations to an irreversible catastrophe...The security and stability of each nation and all peoples—our prosperity, our health, and our safety—are in jeopardy, and the time we have to reverse this tide is running out." ^[40]

This section requires expansion.

[edit] State and local governments

195 US cities representing more than 50 million Americans - have committed to reducing carbon emissions to 7% below 1990 levels. In 2005, California (the world's sixth largest economy) committed to reducing emissions to 2000 levels by 2010, 1990 levels by 2020, and 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. Measures to meet these targets include tighter automotive emissions standards, and requirements for renewable energy as a proportion of electricity production. The Union of Concerned Scientists has calculated that by 2020, drivers would save $26 billion per year if California’s automotive standards were implemented nationally. [1]

On August 31, 2006, the California leaders of both political parties agreed to terms in the California Global Warming Solutions Act. When this legislation goes into effect it will limit the state’s global warming emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and institute a mandatory emissions reporting system to monitor compliance. The legislation will also allow for market mechanisms to provide incentives to businesses to reduce emissions while safeguarding local communities. ^[2] The bill was signed into law on September 27, 2006, by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who declared, "We simply must do everything we can in our power to slow down global warming before it is too late... The science is clear. The global warming debate is over."

Gov. Schwarzenegger also announced he would seek to work with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Great Britain, and various other international efforts to address global warming, independently of the federal government.^[41]

On September 8, 2006, Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano signed an executive order calling on the state to create initiatives to cut greenhouse gas emissions to the 2000 level by the year 2020 and to 50 percent below the 2000 level by 2040.^[3]

[edit] Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative

Main article: Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative

Ten Northeastern US states are involved in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative,^[42] It is believed that the state-level program will apply pressure on the federal government to support Kyoto Protocol.^[citation ^needed]

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is a cap and trade system for CO₂ emissions from power plants in the member states. Emission permit auctioning began in September 2008, and the first three-year compliance period began on January 1, 2009.^[43] Proceeds will be used to promote energy conservation and renewable energy.^[44]The system affects fossil fuel power plants with 25 MW or greater generating capacity ("compliance entities").^[43]

Participating states: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maryland, Rhode Island
Observer states and regions: Pennsylvania, District of Columbia, Quebec, New Brunswick, Ontario.^[45]

[edit] Political position of major parties and political movements

[edit] Conservative viewpoints

The corporations which produce fossil fuels have for years engaged in public relations work promoting their products and attempting to raise doubts about the need or sensibility of alternatives. They have funded institutions and websites which produce reports which support their viewpoint. According to the Center for American Progress Action Fund since 2009 they have spent $500 million lobbying against climate change legislation and opposing or supporting candidates with respect to their interests. They are supported in their effort by conservative talk show hosts and opinion leaders.^[46]

According to FreedomWorks:

Any effort to make electricity and fuel more expensive or to cap or regulate CO2 will only exacerbate an already critical situation and cause tremendous economic damage^[46]

[edit] Republican Party

19 of the 20 Republican senate candidates in the 2010 midterm elections according to a survey by National Journal have taken positions opposed to legislation which would mitigate global warming. The exception is Mark Steven Kirk, the senate candidate in Illinois, who as a member of the House was one of the few representatives who supported "Cap and Trade". One of the other Republican House members who voted for Cap and Trade, Michael N. Castle of Delaware, was defeated in the Senate primary by a Tea Party candidate.^[46] According to the Miami Herald coverage of these elections, "some Republican candidates also are denying that man-made climate change is real".^[47] A New York Times analysis of the election results found that "Voters ousted a wide swath of cap-and-trade supporters from Virginia to New Mexico, leaving behind a House highly polarized on energy." However, the candidates' position on cap-and-trade alone was not found to be a determining factor for these results.^[48]

[edit] Tea Party movement

Main article: Tea Party movement

The 2010 midterm elections demonstrated considerable skepticism within the Tea Party movement with respect to the dangers and even the reality of global warming. A New York Times/CBS News Poll during the election revealed that only a small percentage of Tea Party supporters considered global warming a serious problem, much less than the portion of the general public that does. Opposition is particularly strong to Cap and Trade with Tea Party supporters vilifying Democratic office holders who supported efforts to mitigate climate change by emissions trading which would encourage use of fuels which emitted less carbon dioxide.^[46]

[edit] See also

[edit] Resources

"The Climate War" (2010) by Eric Pooley deputy editor of Bloomberg Businessweek ISBN 978-1401323264

[edit] References

^ Kluger, Jeffrey (2001-04-01). "A Climate Of Despair". Time Magazine. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,104596,00.html. Retrieved 2010-01-30.
^ Corn, David (2001-06-19). "George W. Bush: The Un-science Guy". AlterNet (www.alternet.org). http://www.alternet.org/story/11054/. Retrieved 2010-01-24.
^ Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall (October 2003). "An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security" (PDF). http://www.environmentaldefense.org/documents/3566_AbruptClimateChange.pdf. Retrieved 2007-09-08.
^ http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Global_warming&diff=122610581&oldid=122607192
^ http://www.nwf.org/globalwarming/senateVoteJune05.cfm
^ A breakdown of the Senate vote on the Climate Stewardship Act | Grist | Muckraker | 05 Nov 2003
^ Pelosi creates global warming committee, Associated Press, 1/18/07.
^ http://www.washtimes.com/national/20070131-121250-1632r_page2.htm
^ Climate Change Bills of the 110th Congress Environmental Defense, May 29, 2007.
^ Broder, John (2009-06-26). "House Passes Bill to Address Threat of Climate Change". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/27/us/politics/27climate.html?_r=1&hp. Retrieved 2009-06-27.
^ House Passes Climate Bill, JUNE 27, 2009; http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124610499176664899.html
^ Vidal, John (2005-06-08). "Revealed: how oil giant influenced Bush". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2005/jun/08/usnews.climatechange. Retrieved 2010-01-24.
^ Dickinson, Tim (2007-06-08). "The Secret Campaign of President Bush's Administration To Deny Global Warming". Rolling Stone. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/15148655/the_secret_campaign_of_president_george_bushs_administration_to_deny_global. Retrieved 2010-01-24.
^ The Washington Post, June 21, 2007 "http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/06/21/BL2007062101075_2.html?nav=hcmodule , citing the Rolling Stone investigative report published 2007/6/13
^ Associated Press, Oct. 24, 2007, http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/G/GLOBAL_WARMING_HEALTH?SITE=NVREN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT; also archived at http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/24/4772/
^ ^a(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_global_warming%28United_States%29#cite_ref-autogenerated1_15-0) ^b(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_global_warming%28United_States%29#cite_ref-autogenerated1_15-1) Reuters, January 30, 2007, free archived version at http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0130-10.htm, last visited Jan. 30, '07
^ Written testimony of Dr. Grifo before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform of the U.S. House of Representatives on January 30, 2007, archived at http://oversight.house.gov/Documents/20070130113153-55829.pdf
^ written testimony of Rick Piltz before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform of the U.S. House of Representatives on January 30, 2007, archived at http://oversight.house.gov/Documents/20070130113813-92288.pdf last visited Jan. 30, 07
^ Campbell, D. (June 20, 2003) "White House cuts global warming from report" Guardian Unlimited
^ Donaghy, T., et al. (2007) "Atmosphere of Pressure:" a report of the Government Accountability Project (Cambridge, Mass.: UCS Publications)
^ Rule, E. (2005) "Possible media attention" Email to NOAA staff, July 27. Obtained via FOIA request on July 31, 2006. and Teet, J. (2005) "DOC Interview Policy" Email to NOAA staff, September 29. Originally published by Alexandrovna, L. (2005) "Commerce Department tells National Weather Service media contacts must be pre-approved" The Raw Story, October 4. Accessed December 22, 2006
^ Zabarenko, D. (2007) "'Don't discuss polar bears:' memo to scientists" Reuters
^ Revkin, Andrew C. (January 29, 2006). "Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to Silence Him". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/science/earth/29climate.html?ei=5088&en=28e236da0977ee7f&ex=1296190800&pagewanted=all. Retrieved 2007-04-14.
^ Eilperin, Julie (2006-04-06). "Climate Researchers Feeling Heat From White House". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/05/AR2006040502150_pf.html. Retrieved 2010-01-24.
^ "Climate chaos: Bush's climate of fear". BBC Panorama. June 1, 2006. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/5005994.stm. Retrieved 2007-04-14.
^ "Groups Say Scientists Pressured On Warming". CBS News and Associated Press. January 30, 2007. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/30/politics/main2413400.shtml. Retrieved 2007-04-14.
^ Donaghy, Timothy; Jennifer Freeman, Francesca Grifo, Karly Kaufman, Tarek Maassarani, Lexi Shultz (February 2007). "Appendix A: UCS Climate Scientist Survey Text and Responses (Federal)" (PDF). *Atmosphere of Pressure �� Political Interference in Federal Climate Science*. Union of Concerned Scientists & Government Accountability Project. http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/scientific_integrity/Full-survey-instrument-with-responses.pdf. Retrieved 2007-04-14.
^ Taranto, James (February 1, 2007). "They Call This Science?". OpinionJournal.com. http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110009609. Retrieved 2007-04-14.
^ Hamilton, Tyler (2007-01-01). "Fresh alarm over global warming". The Toronto Star. http://www.thestar.com/article/166819. Retrieved 2010-01-30.
^ Riley Dunlap, "Why climate-change skepticism is so prevalent in the USA: the success of conservative think tanks in promoting skepticism via the media," Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions, IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 6 (2009) 532010 doi:10.1088/1755-1307/6/3/532010
^ William Freudenburg, "The effects of journalistic imbalance on scientific imbalance: special interests, scientific consensus and global climate disruption," Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions, IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 6 (2009) 532011 doi:10.1088/1755-1307/6/3/532011
^ Mike Steketee. Some sceptics make it a habit to be wrong The Australian, November 20, 2010.
^ Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway (2010). Merchants of Doubt, Bloomsbury Press, p. 6.
^ Clive Hamilton (2010). Requiem for a Species , pp. 98-103.
^ Pidot, Justin R. (2006). "Global Warming in the Courts - An Overview of Current Litigation and Common Legal Issues" (PDF). Georgetown University Law Center. Archived from the original on 2007-06-04. http://web.archive.org/web/20070604183808/http://www.law.stanford.edu/program/centers/enrlp/pdf/GlobalWarmingLit_CourtsReport.pdf. Retrieved 2007-04-13.
^ "How the White House Worked to Scuttle California’s Climate Law", San Francisco Chronicle, September 25, 2007 http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/25/4099/
^ Jane Mayer. "Covert Operations: The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama". The New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer. Retrieved 2010-09-07.
^ Brownlee, Phillip (2010-08-30). "Koch article a talker". The Wichita Eagle. http://blogs.kansas.com/weblog/2010/08/koch-article-a-talker/. Retrieved 2010-08-30.
^ Mayer, Jane (August 30, 2010). "Covert Operations: The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama". The New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer.
^ Phelps, Jordyn. "President Obama Says Global Warming is Putting Our Safety in Jeopardy". ABC News. http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/09/president-obama-says-global-warming-is-putting-our-safety-in-jeopardy-.html. Retrieved 2010-03-14.
^ Blair, Schwarzenegger announce global warming research pact, Associated Press, 7/31/06.
^ Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative
^ ^a(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_global_warming%28United_States%29#cite_ref-rggi1_42-0) ^b(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_global_warming%28United_States%29#cite_ref-rggi1_42-1) "Overview of RGGI CO2 Budget Trading Program". Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, Inc.. 2007-10. http://www.rggi.org/docs/program_summary_10_07.pdf. Retrieved 2010-01-24.
^ "RGGI States Announce Preliminary Release of Auction Application Materials". Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, Inc.. 2008-07-11. http://www.rggi.org/docs/20080711news_release.pdf. Retrieved 2010-01-24.
^ Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) - Participating States, Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, Inc.
^ ^a(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_global_warming%28United_States%29#cite_ref-NYT_45-0) ^b(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_global_warming%28United_States%29#cite_ref-NYT_45-1) ^c(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_global_warming%28United_States%29#cite_ref-NYT_45-2) ^d(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_global_warming%28United_States%29#cite_ref-NYT_45-3) "Climate Change Doubt Is Tea Party Article of Faith" article by John M. Broder in [[The New York Times]] October 20, 2010, access October 21, 2010
^ http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/10/29/1898182/gop-senate-candidates-among-global.html
^ http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2010/11/03/03climatewire-house-goes-republican-enviros-brace-for-clim-93751.html

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Global warming and climate change

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Public policy of the United States

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_global_warming_(United_States)"

Categories: Climate change in the United States | Politics of the United States | Climate change policy

There is an international interest in issues surrounding global warming (the current climate change) in the United States due to the U.S. position in world affairs and the U.S.'s high level of greenhouse gas emissions per capita.

Contents[hide]

[edit] Kyoto Protocol

Main article: Kyoto Protocol

The United States, along with Kazakhstan, have not ratified the Kyoto Protocol.^[citation ^needed]

[edit] Policy

Main article: Politics of global warming (United States)

The politics of global warming is played out at a state and federal level in the United States. Attempts to draw up climate change policy are being made at a state level to a greater extent than at a federal level.

[edit] Bush Administration

In March 2001, the Bush Administration announced that it would not implement the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty signed in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan that would require nations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, claiming that ratifying the treaty would create economic setbacks in the U.S. and does not put enough pressure to limit emissions from developing nations.^[1] In February 2002, Bush announced his alternative to the Kyoto Protocol, by bringing forth a plan to reduce the intensity of greenhouse gasses by 18 percent over 10 years. The intensity of greenhouse gasses specifically is the ratio of greenhouse gas emissions and economic output, meaning that under this plan, emissions would still continue to grow, but at a slower pace. Bush stated that this plan would prevent the release of 500 million metric tons of greenhouse gases, which is about the equivalent of 70 million cars from the road. This target would achieve this goal by providing tax credits to businesses that use renewable energy sources.^[2]

[edit] Our Changing Planet

Since 1989, the U.S. Global Change Research Program has issued Our Changing Planet, an annual report summarizing "recent achievements, near term plans, and progress in implementing long term goals." (http://globalchange.gov/publications/our-changing-planet-ocp) The most recent report, for fiscal year 2010, was issued on October 28, 2009.

Measurement and modeling of climate systems have both improved dramatically in the last three decades, with measurements providing the hard data to calibrate the simulations, which in turn lead to improved understanding of the various systems and feedbacks and indicate areas where more and more detailed observations are needed. Recent developments in ensemble methods have improved understanding of and reduced uncertainty in hydrologic forcing by incoming radiation, particularly in areas with a complex topology. Multiple complementary model-validated proxy reconstructions indicate that recent warmth in the northern hemisphere is anomalous over at least the last 1300 years; using tree ring data, this conclusion can be extended somewhat less certainly to at least 1700 years. Improved measurement and analysis techniques have reconciled certain discrepancies between observed and projected trends in tropical surface and tropospheric temperatures: corrected buoy and satellite surface temperatures are slightly cooler and corrected satellite and radiosonde measurements of the tropical troposphere are slightly warmer.

Various forcing factors, including greenhouse gases, land cover change, volcanoes, air pollution and aerosols, and solar variability, have far ranging effects throughout the coupled ocean-atmosphere-land climate system. In the short term, impacts from ozone, black carbon, organic carbon, and sulfate on radiative forcing are predicted to nearly cancel, but long term projection of changing emissions patterns indicate that the warming impact of black carbon will outweigh the cooling impact of sulphates. By 2100, the projected global average increase to radiative forcing is approximately 1 W/m².

Human activities influence climate and related systems through, among other mechanisms, land usage, water management, and earlier and more significant melting of snow cover due to greenhouse effect warming. In the southwestern United States, 60% of climate-related trends in river flow, winter air temperature, and snowpack between 1950 and 1999 were human induced. In this region, conversion of abandoned farmland to pine forests is projected to have a slight surface cooling effect, with evapotranspiration outweighing decreased albedo.

[edit] Greenhouse gas emissions by the United States

Per capita anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions by country for the year 2000 including land-use change.

Main article: Greenhouse gas emissions by the United States

Until recently the United States for the country as a whole was the largest emitter of carbon dioxide but as of 2006 China has become the largest emitter. However per capita emission figures of China are still about one quarter of those of the US population.^[3] On a per capita basis the U.S. is ranked the seventh highest emitter of greenhouse gases and fourteenth when land use changes are taken into account.

The Environmental Protection Agency's Personal Emissions Calculator^[4] is a tool for measuring the impact that individual choices (often money saving) can have.

[edit] United States federal register of greenhouse gas emissions

Main article: United States federal register of greenhouse gas emissions

[edit] Emissions trading

Main article: Emissions trading

In 2003, New York State proposed and attained commitments from nine Northeast states to form a cap and trade carbon dioxide emissions program for power generators, called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). This program launched on January 1, 2009 with the aim to reduce the carbon "budget" of each state's electricity generation sector to 10 percent below their 2009 allowances by 2018.^[5]

Also in 2003, U.S. corporations were able to trade CO₂ emission allowances on the Chicago Climate Exchange under a voluntary scheme. In August 2007, the Exchange announced a mechanism to create emission offsets for projects within the United States that cleanly destroy ozone-depleting substances.^[6]

In 2007, the California Legislature passed the California Global Warming Solutions Act, AB-32, which was signed into law by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Thus far, flexible mechanisms in the form of project based offsets have been suggested for five main project types. A carbon project would create offsets by showing that it has reduced carbon dioxide and equivalent gases. The project types include: manure management, forestry, building energy, SF6, and landfill gas capture.

Since February 2007, seven U.S. states and four Canadian provinces have joined together to create the Western Climate Initiative, a regional greenhouse gas emissions trading system.^[7]

On November 17, 2008 President-elect Barack Obama clarified, in a talk recorded for , that the US will enter a cap and trade system to limit global warming (the current climate change).^[8]

The 2010 United States federal budget proposes to support clean energy development with a 10-year investment of US $15 billion per year, generated from the sale of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions credits. Under the proposed cap-and-trade program, all GHG emissions credits would be auctioned off, generating an estimated $78.7 billion in additional revenue in FY 2012, steadily increasing to $83 billion by FY 2019.^[9]

American Clean Energy and Security Act, a cap and trade bill was passed on June 26, 2009 in the House of Representatives.

[edit] Regional initiatives

Across the country, regional organizations, states, and cities are achieving real emissions reductions and gaining valuable policy experience as they take action on climate change. These actions include increasing renewable energy generation, selling agricultural carbon sequestration credits, and encouraging efficient energy use.^[10] The U.S. Climate Change Science Program is a joint program of over twenty U.S. cabinet departments and federal agencies, all working together to investigate climate change. In June 2008, a report issued by the program stated that weather would become more extreme, due to climate change.^[11][12]

States and municipalities often function as "policy laboratories", developing initiatives that serve as models for federal action. This has been especially true with environmental regulation��most federal environmental laws have been based on state models. In addition, state actions can have a significant impact on emissions, because many individual states emit high levels of greenhouse gases. Texas, for example, emits more than France, while California's emissions exceed those of Brazil.^[13]State actions are also important because states have primary jurisdiction over many areas—such as electric generation, agriculture, and land use--that are critical to addressing climate change.

It is important to understand that states have limited resources to devote to the climate issue, and their strict budget requirements can put long-term climate policies in jeopardy. States also lack certain powers that would be crucial to a comprehensive climate change policy, such as the authority to enter into international agreements. Finally, when states take individual approaches on the issue, a "patchwork quilt" of policies can result across the nation. This patchwork of policies may be inefficient for complying business and may result in some states duplicating the work done in other states. While some states are delivering real reductions of GHG emissions only in a few cases do the reduction targets commensurate with what will be needed on a global scale.

Comprehensive climate plans combined with enforecable GHG emissions targets provide the highest certainty of significant emission reductions. Twenty-eight states have climate action plans and nine have state-wide emission targets. The states of California and New Mexico have committed most recently to emission reductions targets, joining New Jersey, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Washington and Oregon.

States that have declared GHG mitigation strategies or hold action plans

Regional initiatives can be more efficient than programs at the state level, as they encompass a broader geographical area, eliminate duplication of work, and create more uniform regulatory environments. Over the past few years, a number of regional initiatives have begun developing systems to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, increase renewable energy generation, track renewable energy credits, and research and establish baselines for carbon sequestration.

[edit] Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative

In December 2005, the governors of seven Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states agreed to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a cap-and-trade system covering carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from regional power plants. Currently (at the time of this edit), Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, and Vermont have signed, and Maryland Governor Robert Ehrlich signed legislation in March 2006 that commits Maryland to join RGGI by 2007. To facilitate compliance with reduction targets, RGGI will provide flexibility mechanisms that include credits for emissions reductions achieved outside of the electricity sector. The successful implementation of the RGGI model will set the stage for other states to join or form their own regional cap and trade systems and may encourage the program to expand to other greenhouse gases and other sectors.^[14] RGGI states, along with Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, are also developing a GHG registry called the Eastern Climate Registry.

[edit] The Western Governors' Association

The Western Governors' Association (WGA) Clean and Diversified Energy Initiative, including 18 western states, has begun investigating strategies to increase efficiency and renewable energy sources in their electricity systems. Governors Richardson (NM), Schwarzenegger (CA), Freudenthal (WY) & Hoeven (ND) serve as lead Governors on this initiative. To meet its goals, the Initiative's advisory committee (CDEAC) appointed eight technical task forces to develop recommendations based on reviews of specific clean energy and efficiency options. The CDEAC made final recommendations to the Western Governors' Association on June 11, 2006. [1] Additionally, the WGA and the California Energy Commission are creating the Western Renewable Energy Generation Information State (WREGIS). WREGIS is a voluntary system for renewable energy credits and tracks renewable energy credits (RECs) across 11 western states in order to facilitate trading to meet renewable energy portfolio standards.

[edit] Other regional initiatives

The governors of Arizona and New Mexico signed an agreement to create the Southwest Climate Change Initiative in February 2006. The two states collaborated to assess greenhouse gas emissions and address the impacts of climate change in the Southwest [2] and on September 8, 2006, Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano issued an executive order to implement recommendations included in the Climate Change Advisory Group's Climate Action Plan. [3] The West Coast states—Washington, Oregon, and California—are cooperating on a strategy to reduce GHG emissions, known as the Western Coast Governors' Global Warming Initiative. Finally, on February 26, 2007, these five Western states (Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, and New Mexico) agreed to combine their efforts to develop regional targets for reducing greenhouse emissions, creating the Western Regional Climate Action Initiative. [4]

In 2001 six New England states committed to the New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers (NEG-ECP) climate action plan, including short and long-term GHG emission reduction goals. Powering the Plains, launched in 2002, is a regional effort involving participants from the Dakotas, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and the Canadian Province of Manitoba. This initiative aims to develop strategies, policies, and demonstration projects for alternative energy sources and technology and climate-friendly agricultural development. [5]

[edit] ICLEI

In 1993, at the invitation of ICLEI, municipal leaders met at the United Nations in New York and adopted a declaration that called for the establishment of a worldwide movement of local governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve air quality, and enhance urban sustainability. The result was the Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) Campaign. Since its inception, the CCP Campaign has grown to involve more than 650 local governments worldwide that are integrating climate change mitigation into their decision-making processes. [6]

[edit] U.S. Mayors' Climate Protection Agreement

On February 16, 2005, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels launched an initiative to advance the goals of the Kyoto Protocol through leadership and action by at least 141 American cities, and as of October, 2006, 319 mayors representing over 51.4 million Americans had accepted the challenge. [7] Under the terms of the Mayors Climate Protection Center, cities must commit to three actions in striving to meet the Kyoto Protocol in their own communities. [8] These actions include:

Strive to meet or beat the Kyoto Protocol targets in their own communities, through actions ranging from anti-sprawl land-use policies to urban forest restoration projects to public information campaigns;
Urge their state governments, and the federal government, to enact policies and programs to meet or beat the greenhouse gas emission reduction target suggested for the United States in the Kyoto Protocol—7% reduction from 1990 levels by 2012; and
Urge the U.S. Congress to pass the bipartisan greenhouse gas reduction legislation, which would establish a national emission trading system.

[edit] California

California has long been seen as the state-level pioneer in environmental issues related to global warming and has shown some impressive leadership in the last four years. On July 22, 2002, Governor Gray Davis approved AB 1493, a bill directing the California Air Resources Board to develop standards to achieve the maximum feasible and cost-effective reduction of greenhouse gases from motor vehicles. Now the California Vehicle Global Warming law, it requires automakers to reduce emissions by 30% by 2016. Although it has been challenged in the courts by the automakers, support for the law is growing as other states have adopted similar legislation. On September 7, 2002 Governor Davis approved a bill requiring the California Climate Action Registry to adopt procedures and protocols for project reporting and carbon sequestration in forests. (SB 812. Approved by Governor Davis on September 7, 2002) California has convened an interagency task force, housed at the California Energy Commission, to develop these procedures and protocols. Staff are currently seeking input on a host of technical questions.

On June 2005 Gov. Schwarzenegger signed an executive order [9] calling for the following reductions in state greenhouse gas emissions: 11 percent by 2010, 25 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050. Most recently, on August 30, 2006, Schwarzenegger and the California Legislature reached an agreement on AB32, the Global Warming Solutions Act, and on September 27, 2006, signed it into law at an official ceremony. The Act caps California's greenhouse gas emissions at 1990 levels by 2020. This agreement represents the first enforceable state-wide program in the U.S. to cap all GHG emissions from major industries that includes penalties for non-compliance. This requires the State Air Resources Board to establish a program for statewide greenhouse gas emissions reporting and to monitor and enforce compliance with this program. The bill authorizes the state board to adopt market-based compliance mechanisms including cap-and-trade, and allows a one-year extension of the targets under extraordinary circumstances. [10] Additionally, on September 26 Governor Schwarzenegger signed SB 107, which requires California's three major biggest utilities �� Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas & Electric – to produce at least 20% of their electricity using renewable sources by 2010. This shortens the time span originally enacted by Gov. Davis in September 2002 to increase utility renewable energy sales 1% annually to 20% by 2017.

[edit] Connecticut

The state of Connecticut passed a number of bills on global warming in the early to mid 1990s, including—in 1990—the first state global warming law to require specific actions for reducing CO₂. Connecticut is one of the states that agreed, under the auspices of the New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers (NEG/ECP), to a voluntary short-term goal of reducing regional greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2010 and by 10 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. The NEG/ECP long-term goal is to reduce emissions to a level that eliminates any dangerous threats to the climate—a goal scientists suggest will require reductions 75 to 85 percent below current levels [11]. These goals were announced in August 2001. The state has also acted to require incremental additions in renewable electric generation by 2009. [12]

[edit] Campus-level action

Many colleges and universities have taken steps in recent years to offset or curb their greenhouse gas emissions in relation to campus activities. On October 5, 2006, New York University announced that it plans to purchase 118 million kilowatt hours of wind power, more wind power than any college or university in the country. dead linkLater in the same month, the small campus of College of the Atlantic in Maine became the first to vow to offset all of its greenhouse gas emissions by cutting GHG emissions and investing in emissions-cutting projects elsewhere.^[15] In May 2007, the trustees of Middlebury College voted in support of a student-written proposal [13] to reduce campus emissions as much as possible, and then offset the rest such that the campus is carbon neutral by 2016. [14] As of November 2007, 434 campuses have institutionalized their commitment to climate neutrality by signing the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment. [15] On November 2-5th, 2007, thousands of young adults converged in Washington D.C. for Power Shift 2007, the first national youth summit to address the climate crisis. [16] The Power Shift 2007conference was a project of the Energy Action Coalition [17].^[16]

[edit] Public perceptions

In Europe, the notion of human influence on climate gained wide acceptance more rapidly than in many other parts of the world, most notably the United States.^[17][18]There is growing awareness in the US, such as with 350.org (based in the US) and the International Day of Climate Action.^[19]

The table below shows how public perceptions about the existence and importance of global warming have changed in the U.S. and elsewhere.^{[20][21][22][23]}

Statement	Agreement (World)	Agreement (US)
Global warming is probably occurring.		85% (2006) 80% (1998)
Human activity is a significant cause of climate change.	79% (2007)	71% (2007)
Climate change is a serious problem.	90% (2006) 78% (2003)	76% (2006)
It's necessary to take major steps starting very soon.	65% (2007)	59% (2007)

Historical support for environmental protection has been relatively non-partisan. Republican Theodore Roosevelt established national parks whereas Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt established the Soil Conservation Service. This non-partisanship began to change during the 1980s when the Reagan administration stated that environmental protection was an economic burden. Views over global warming began to seriously diverge among Democrats and Republicans during Kyoto in 1998. Gaps in opinions among the general public are often amplified among the political elites, such as members of Congress, who tend to be more polarized.^[24]

[edit] See also

[

](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Devils_Punchbowl_Waterfall,_New_Zealand.jpg)

Environment portal

U.S. Climate Change Science Program
Climate change in the European Union
Coal in the United States
Energy conservation in the United States
Environmental issues in the United States
Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate
Regional Clean Air Incentives Market (RECLAIM, an emission trading scheme in California)
Renewable energy in the United States
List of countries by greenhouse gas emissions per capita

[edit] References

^ Alex Kirby, US blow to Kyoto hopes, 2001-03-28, BBC News (online).
^ Bush unveils voluntary plan to reduce global warming, CNN.com, 2002-02-14.
^ Audra Ang (June 20, 2007). "Group: China tops world in CO~2 emissions". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2007-06-20-124188869_x.htm. Retrieved 2008-10-01.
^ "Personal Emissions Calculator - Climate Change - What You Can Do". United States Environmental Protection Agency. http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/wycd/calculator/ind_calculator.html. Retrieved 2007-07-07.
^ Memorandum of Understanding - Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative
^ Beyond the Kyoto six Carbon Finance 7 March 2008
^ WCI Design Documents
^ 17 novembre 2008. "YouTube - A New Chapter on Climate Change". It.youtube.com. http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=hvG2XptIEJk. Retrieved 2009-04-03.
^ "President's Budget Draws Clean Energy Funds from Climate Measure". Renewable Energy World. http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2009/03/presidents-budget-draws-clean-energy-funds-from-climate-measure?cmpid=WNL-Friday-March6-2009. Retrieved 2009-04-03.
^ Engel, Kirsten and Barak Orbach (2008). *Micro-Motives for State and Local Climate Change Initiatives*. Harvard Law & Policy Review, Vol. 2, pp. 119-137. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1014749. Retrieved 2008-05-18.
^ Schmid, Randolph E. (June 19, 2008). "Extreme weather to increase with climate change". Associated Press. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080619/ap_on_go_ot/sci_weather_extremes;_ylt=ApgxLfjbrNsYCTb0l7Xyx6ZI2ocA.
^ "U.S. experts: Forecast is more extreme weather". MSNBC. June 19, 2008. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25268181/.
^ Pew Center Climate change reports.
^ "Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) CO~2 Budget Trading Program - Welcome". www.rggi.org. http://www.rggi.org/home. Retrieved 2010-01-30.
^ Eilperin, Juliet (2006-10-10). "Maine College Makes Green Pledge". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/09/AR2006100901096.html. Retrieved 2010-01-30.
^ Kamenetz, Anya. (2007) Climate Change Power Shift. The Nation.
^ Crampton, Thomas (4 January 2007). "More in Europe worry about climate than in U.S., poll shows". International Herald Tribune. http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/04/news/poll.php. Retrieved 2007-04-14.
^ "Little Consensus on Global Warming – Partisanship Drives Opinion – Summary of Findings". Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. 12 July 2006. http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=280. Retrieved 2007-04-14.
^ http://www.350.org
^ Weart, Spencer (2006). "The Public and Climate Change". In Weart, Spencer. *The Discovery of Global Warming*. American Institute of Physics. http://www.aip.org/history/climate/Public.htm. Retrieved 2007-04-14
^ Langer, Gary (March 26, 2006). "Poll: Public Concern on Warming Gains Intensity". ABC News. http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/GlobalWarming/story?id=1750492&page=1. Retrieved 2007-04-12.
^ GlobeScan and the Program on International Policy Attitudes at University of Maryland (September 25, 2007). "Man causing climate change - poll". BBC World Service. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/7010522.stm. Retrieved 2007-09-25.
^ Program on International Policy Attitudes (April 5, 2006). "30-Country Poll Finds Worldwide Consensus that Climate Change is a Serious Problem". Program on International Policy Attitudes. http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/btenvironmentra/187.php?nid=&id=&pnt=187. Retrieved 2007-04-20.
^ Dunlap, Riley E. (29 May 2009). "Climate-Change Views: Republican-Democratic Gaps Expand". Gallup. http://www.gallup.com/poll/107569/ClimateChange-Views-RepublicanDemocratic-Gaps-Expand.aspx. Retrieved 22 Dec 2009.

[edit] External links

Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States Edited by Tom Karl National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Asheville, North Carolina, Jerry Melillo Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Thomas Peterson National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Asheville, North Carolin, and Susan Joy HassolClimate Communication, Basalt, Colorado. Summarizes the science of climate change and impacts on the United States, for the public and policymakers. ISBN 978-0-521-14407-0
United States Environmental Protection Agency - climate change page
Fourth U.S. Climate Action Report to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
U.S. Climate Report Details Energy, Agriculture Harm
"Personal Emissions Calculator - Climate Change - What You Can Do". United States Environmental Protection Agency. http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/wycd/calculator/ind_calculator.html. Retrieved 2007-07-07.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_in_the_United_States"

Categories: Climate change in the United States

Sourcewatch

Summary	Summary
Current Status: Following the Democratic takeover of both the House and Senate in the 110th Congress, the issue of climate change became a hot topic in the U.S. Congress. While numerous bills aimed at reducing earth-warming emissions were introduced and considered, the only legislation progressing in the Senate is the America's Climate Security Act, introduced by Sens. Joe Lieberman and John Warner on October 18, 2007. Like several of the other bills introduced in 2007, the Lieberman-Warner bill would install a cap on carbon emissions. Specifically, the legislation requires a 70 percent reduction of emissions (based on 2005 levels) by 2050. The act also provides billions of dollars in transition assistance to families, and additional funding for low-carbon technology investments for electric utility, transportation, and manufacturing companies. On November 1, the bill was reported to the full Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works where it is awaiting consideration. Main article: America's Climate Security Act of 2007

Summary

Current Status: Following the Democratic takeover of both the House and Senate in the 110th Congress, the issue of climate change became a hot topic in the U.S. Congress. While numerous bills aimed at reducing earth-warming emissions were introduced and considered, the only legislation progressing in the Senate is the America's Climate Security Act, introduced by Sens. Joe Lieberman and John Warner on October 18, 2007.

Like several of the other bills introduced in 2007, the Lieberman-Warner bill would install a cap on carbon emissions. Specifically, the legislation requires a 70 percent reduction of emissions (based on 2005 levels) by 2050. The act also provides billions of dollars in transition assistance to families, and additional funding for low-carbon technology investments for electric utility, transportation, and manufacturing companies.

On November 1, the bill was reported to the full Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works where it is awaiting consideration.

Main article: America's Climate Security Act of 2007

Contents[hide]

Action in the 110th Congress

Senate

During the 110th Congress, the Senate considered many bills relating to climate change. In June 2007, the Senate passed the CLEAN Energy Act of 2007, a version of which also passed the House, and which now awaits a conference committee. The Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act, Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act, Electric Utility Cap and Trade Act, and Global Warming Reduction Act have all been introduced, but no subsequent action has been taken. Details on both the content of these bills and support and opposition regarding them can be found below.

Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act (CSIA) of 2007 (S.280)

Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), John McCain (R-Ariz.), Barack Obama (D-Ill.), Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), and Susan Collins (R-Maine) introduced the Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act (CSIA) of 2007 (S.280) on January 12, 2007. It was referred to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.^[1]

It is the Senate version of the House's Climate Stewardship Act (H.R.620) (see below). The bill would establish an emissions "cap and trade" system to go into effect in 2012, requiring a decrease in greenhouse gas emissions of 15 percent by 2020 and 65 percent by 2050. Its mandates would cover electric power production and petroleum for the industrial, commercial, and transportation sectors. The measure would also set up the Climate Change Credit Corporation to reduce the resulting costs to consumers; provide R&D funding for advanced coal, renewable electricity, energy efficiency, advanced technology vehicles, transportation fuels, carbon sequestration and storage, and nuclear reactor technologies; and require the Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere to make periodic evaluations to determine whether emissions targets are adequate.^[2]

��

Support, opposition and critiques

Environmental Defense, a non-profit group committed to "developing constructive alternatives" to solve the most serious environmental problems, commended the bill, citing it as "aggressive in the short term and responsible over the long term." Stricter than the previous version introduced during the 109th Congress, the Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act of 2007 would establish emission reduction requirements of 2004 levels by 2012, 1990 levels by 2020, and sixty percent below 1990 by 2050. Along with the cap would be a "market to trade emissions allowances, allowing the needed reductions to be achieved in the most efficient way possible." Environmental Defense praised the measure for putting a cap on pollution and allowing the free market to find the best solutions to fixing climate change, modeled after the hugely successful acid rain program established under President George H.W. Bush. The bill would also provide "transitional support for low carbon alternative fuels, including nuclear power." Environmental Defense also supported these provisions for research into nuclear power as an alternative fuel source, a rather unusual position for an environmental group, stating that despite there being "some very serious issues to work out with nuclear power," the "challenge of global warming is so urgent we can’t afford to take anything off the table." The organization was also reassured by the fact that funding would not go directly to new nuclear power plant construction, but would only fund research for innovations in nuclear power, such as in areas like waste disposal and security.^[3]

Greenpeace was considerably less supportive of the bill. The organization, while acknowledging that the bill indicated that the "center of gravity in Congress is shifting toward significant long-term reductions in global warming pollution," argued that it remained flawed. Their criticisms included^[4]:

The target emissions reductions in the bill fall considerably short of what scientists say is necessary to avoid catastrophic climate change.
The bill includes subsidies for nuclear energy, which is inherently dangerous and provides no "real solution" to global warming. In addition, subsidies to nuclear companies in the form of loan-guarantees, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), have a good chance (over 50 percent) of not being repaid.^[5]

Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act of 2007 (S.309)

On January 15, 2007, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) introduced the Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act of 2007 (S.309). It was referred to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.^[6]

The measure was intended to increase performance standards for electricity generation and motor vehicles with the option of an emissions "cap and trade" system. The emissions cap would begin in 2010 with the aim of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050. The legislation would also provide funding for R&D on geologic sequestration, among other projects; set emissions standards for new vehicles and a renewable fuels requirement for gasoline beginning in 2016; establish energy efficiency and renewable portfolio standards beginning in 2008 and low-carbon electric generation standards beginning in 2016 for electric utilities; and require periodic evaluations by the National Academy of Sciences to determine whether emissions targets are adequate.^[7]

Support, opposition and critiques

Environmental Defense called the bill one that "could jump start the needed emissions cuts" in the U.S., and commented that it would "cap and reduce tons of heat-trapping gases, and would do so at the levels and within the time frames demanded by the science." It added, however, that like all bills, it has its pluses and minuses.^[8]

The measure was supported by a variety of other environmental groups, including Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, the National Audubon Society and the Union of Concerned Scientists.^[9]

The Sierra Club emphasized that reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% below 1990 levels by 2050 would greatly help stabilize global temperatures and contain carbon dioxide atmospheric concentrations.^[10]

Electric Utility Cap and Trade Act of 2007 (S.317)

Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) introduced the Electric Utility Cap and Trade Act of 2007 (S.317) on January 17, 2007 to "to amend the Clean Air Act to establish a program to regulate the emission of greenhouse gases from electric utilities." It was referred to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.^[11]

The legislation would set an emissions "cap and trade" system for electric utilities only. The cap would begin in 2011 and require a decrease in greenhouse gas emissions from electric utilities of 8 percent by 2020 and 41 percent by 2050. The bill would also establish a Climate Science Advisory Board to inform the administration and Congress of the state of climate science, and make recommendations to achieve climate stabilization; provide R&D funding for low- and zero-emitting carbon technologies, clean coal technologies, and energy efficient technologies relevant to the utilities industry; and require periodic evaluations by the Environmental Protection Agency to determine whether emissions targets are adequate.^[12]

Support, opposition and critiques

Global Warming Reduction Act of 2007 (S.485)

The Global Warming Reduction Act of 2007 (S.485) was introduced on February 1, 2007 by Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) to "to amend the Clean Air Act to establish an economy-wide global warming pollution emission cap-and-trade program to assist the economy in transitioning to new clean energy technologies, to protect employees and affected communities, to protect companies and consumers from significant increases in energy costs, and for other purposes." The bill was referred to the Senate Committee on Finance and also gained Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) as a co-sponsor.^[13]

The legislation sets up an emissions "cap and trade" system and raises performance standards. It also requires the establishment by 2014 of passenger vehicle standards no less stringent than California's; gives consumer tax credits for advanced vehicle technologies like fuel cells and plug-in hybrids; mandates the use of 60 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2030; requires the installation of E-85 pumps at certain gas stations; and requires periodic evaluations by the National Academy of Sciences to determine whether emissions targets are adequate.^[14]

Support, opposition and critiques

CLEAN Energy Act of 2007

In June 2007, the Senate debated a comprehensive energy bill, a combination of the CLEAN Energy Act (H.R.6) as passed in the House and the Senate's own energy bill, S.1419. The Senate bill was eventually considered under the name "CLEAN Energy Act of 2007" just as in the House. The measure, sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), would be intended to "move the United States toward greater energy independence and security, to increase the production of clean renewable fuels, to protect consumers from price gouging, to increase the energy efficiency of products, buildings and vehicles, to promote research on and deploy greenhouse gas capture and storage options, and to improve the energy performance of the Federal Government."^[15] The Senate passed the legislation on June 21, 2007, with the bill then pending consideration by a conference committee since the Senate passed an amended version of the House-passed measure.

Main article: CLEAN Energy Act of 2007

Support, opposition and critiques

As the bill was being debated in the Senate, the Center for American Progress (CAP) called the bill ��a good start” to solving the nation’s climate crisis, noting that it included valuable provisions on biofuels, energy efficiency, “green” federal buildings, research on carbon capture and storage, and development of a “smart grid.” The organization stressed that several provisions which would be introduced as amendments were important to strengthening the bill. These included:

A proposal by Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) to mandate that fifteen percent of electricity provided by 2020 be renewable energy. CAP argued that twenty four states already had renewable electricity standards that required up to twenty-five percent of their electricity to come from solar, wind, geothermal, and other clean alternative energy technologies. They argued the federal requirement would have a negligible impact on electricity prices, and would significantly lower natural gas bills for residential, commercial, and industrial consumers.
An amendment to close loopholes in fuel economy standards, and oppose efforts to delay or weaken requirements.
An amendment to support a Renewable Fuels Standard of 25 percent by 2025, which would further reduce consumption of oil and global warming pollution.
An amendment, offered by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), to develop an Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Workforce Training program. These newly trained workers could enlist in the growth industries of wind and solar power, and “could include veterans, those displaced due to energy industry changes, and others looking for a ticket to the middle class.��^[16]

Ultimately, the final bill reflected some, but not all, of CAP��s goals. The Bingaman amendment was defeated by a Republican-led filibuster. Fuel-economy requirements for new light-duty vehicles were raised to 35 miles/gallon by 2020, and an existing loophole that had made standards for SUVs and trucks less stringent than cars was eliminated. Both the renewable fuels standard, which required that the use of bio-fuels rise to 36 billion gallons by 2022, and the Clinton-Sanders amendment regarding a workforce training program, were approved as part of the final bill.^[17]

The Sierra Club also had mixed views on the bill, and ultimately supported it with reservations. Noting that fuel economy standards had remained relatively constant for decades, Dan Becker, Sierra's Director of the Global Warming Program, was pleased that the bill called for increases to it. He held out hope, however, that the House could help strengthen the requirement in conference, stating "For the first time in three decades, a majority of Senators are poised to tell automakers: enough delay, enough gas guzzlers, enough pollution and enough failure. Now we look to the House to strengthen this compromise to guarantee that it accomplishes enough to be meaningful."

Becker had hoped that the bill would include the renewable electricity standard proposed by Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.). After it was filibustered, he stated "It is extremely disappointing that this bill will not include a Renewable Electricity Standard--a provision that enjoys the support of a super-majority in the Senate, and which 23 states have already adopted. We look forward to working with the leadership in the Senate to bring this issue up for a vote as soon as possible."^[18]

In addition, the bill fell short of the Sierra Club's call for an emissions reduction of 80 percent by 2050, which they argued was a necessary and achievable reduction.^[19]

Potential legislation

Bingaman bill

In January 2007, Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) began drafting a bill that would establish an emissions intensity "cap and trade" system starting in 2010 for petroleum refineries, coal mines, natural gas processors, electricity generators, and carbon-intensive manufacturing. Requirements for greenhouse gas emission reduction would start at 2.6 percent per year between 2012 and 2021 and rise to 3 percent per year after 2022. The provisions would include a safety valve, or price cap, of $7 on the cost of carbon emissions. The bill would also provide R&D funding for zero or low-carbon energy technologies (e.g., high efficiency consumer products), advanced coal technologies, cellulosic biomass, and advanced technology vehicles.^[20]

On July 11, 2007, Bingaman unveiled a draft of his energy and environment bill. The bill, which had yet to be officially introduced, already had garnered significant support from noteworthy members, including Sens. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii), Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), who is cosponsoring the bill with Bingaman. Several key lobbying organizations also endorsed the draft legislation, including American Electric Power, Exelon Corp., Duke Energy Corp., the AFL-CIO, the United Mine Workers of America, the United Auto Workers, and a variety of hunting, fishing and other wildlife conservation groups. However, many environmental groups opposed the measure "because it would be less stringent than some of the other climate-change proposals introduced in this Congress."

New details on the potential legislation revealed that it would establish a "cap and trade" for greenhouse gas emissions with a cap on how much the emissions allowances would cost. The controversial ��technology accelerator payment” would give companies the option of buying allowances at a fixed cost of $12 per ton of emissions. That price would rise at an annual rate of 5 percent above inflation. The funds resulting from the payments would be used for the development and utilization of environmentally-friendly technologies. Also included was a provision that "could effectively place tariffs on imported goods from countries that were not addressing the climate issue." Greenhouse gas levels would be restricted nationwide at 2006 levels by 2020 and 1990 levels by 2030.^[21]

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, said it was likely that the committee would consider the bill. Despite hesitation over it not being stringent enough, she expressed interest in several of the bills provisions.^[22]

Support, opposition and critiques

The bill gained bipartisan support from several key senators and outside lobby organizations, including unions, energy companies, and conservation groups. Supporters say the legislation represents the best political compromise that strikes a balance between lower emissions and economic growth. Bingaman acknowledged criticism, stating, "I understand there are those who would like a more aggressive set of targets, but what we’re trying to do is put together legislation that can be passed." Sen. Lisa Murkowski(R-Alaska) called the bill “a rational response that isn��t going to sink our economy.��^[23]

Critics, including many environmental groups, stated, however, that the bill was not stringent enough for combating climate change. They particularly derided the ceiling on the cost of emission allowances, claiming that such price caps limit incentives for businesses to invest in cutting-edge technology aimed at lowering greenhouse gas emissions.^[24]

Emily Figdor, the Global Warming director for U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), argued that the bill was not strong enough. She stated:

“We commend Senator Bingaman for working to build support for action on global warming. Unfortunately, his new bill fails to deliver the pollution reductions science shows are needed in the next 10 years to stave off the most dangerous impacts of global warming for future generations.

Senator Bingaman’s weak pollution-reduction targets fly in the face of the sobering conclusions reached by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and leading U.S. scientists about how to prevent the worst impacts of global warming from becoming unstoppable.

The science demands ambitious goals, and meeting these goals won’t be easy. But they are the minimum acceptable response to the threat posed by global warming. To protect our environment, our economy, and future generations, we can’t settle for less."^[25]

House

During the 110th Congress, the House of Representatives considered many bills relating to climate change. As of June 2007, the House had passed the CLEAN Energy Act, the H-Prize Act, and the Green Energy Education Act. The Climate Stewardship Act, DRIVE Act, and Safe Climate Act had been introduced to the House but no subsequent action had been taken. The H-Prize Act and DRIVE Act are awaiting consideration by the Senate, while the CLEAN Energy Act, a version of which passed the Senate, awaits a conference committee. Just before the August 2007 congressional recess, the House passed comprehensive energy legislation (H.R.3221), which consisted largely of several other measures previously passed or considered during the 110th and 109th Congresses. The bill must now be reconciled with legislation passed in the Senate.

Creation of House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming

In late 2006, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced the creation of a special House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, invoking the ire of incoming House Committee on Energy and Commerce Chair John Dingell (D-Mich.), whose committee would have had partial jurisdiction on global warming legislation. After a three-week turf battle, Pelosi, Dingell and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) reached an agreement that would give the standing committees the first crack at producing legislation and calling witnesses on the condition that Dingell produce a bill by June 2007. The committee was created on March 8, 2007 and is chaired by Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.).^[26]

Main article: House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming

Activity in the House Energy and Commerce Committee

In March 2007, Dingell held several hearings in the Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality, which included appearances by former Vice President Al Gore, scientists and representatives from the automobile industry and state and local governments.^[27]

Main article: House Committee on Energy and Commerce#Climate change hearings

CLEAN Energy Act of 2007 (H.R.6)

As part of the House Democrats' "first 100 hours" agenda, they passed the CLEAN Energy Act of 2007. The act would eliminate certain tax breaks previously afforded to the oil and gas industries, as well as impose new fees on them. Doing so, Democrats said, would encourage investment in, and provide funds for, alternative sources of energy. The bill passed the House on January 18, 2007 and was sent to the Senate. On June 21, 2007, the Senate passed their version of the bill, as amended including provisions of the Senate's own energy legislation, S.1419.^[28]

Main article: CLEAN Energy Act of 2007

��

Support, opposition and critiques

The Sierra Club praised the House's passage of the bill, arguing that it was an "important first step" in leading to a more secure energy future. Melinda Pierce, the Club's director of National Campaigns, stated "By supporting this part of the 100 Hours Agenda, the new Congress upholds the pledge made during the election to end corruption, bring about change and bring America closer to a cleaner, safer energy future." She argued that while American families had been forced to deal with skyrocketing energy costs, oil companies were recording record profits partly because of the generous giveaways the federal government had been providing.^[29]

Climate Stewardship Act of 2007 (H.R.620)

Reps. John Olver (D-Mass.) and Wayne Gilchrest (R-Md.) introduced the Climate Stewardship Act of 2007 (H.R.620) on January 22, 2007 to "accelerate the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States by establishing a market-driven system of greenhouse gas tradeable allowances that will limit greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, reduce dependence upon foreign oil, and ensure benefits to consumers from the trading in such allowances, and for other purposes." It was the House version of the Senate's Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act (CSIA) of 2007 (S.280). It attracted 128 cosponsors^[30] (as of June 2007), and was referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, House Committee on Science and Technology and House Committee on Natural Resources.^[31]

The bill would establish an emissions "cap and trade" system, set to start in 2012, and require a cut in greenhouse gas emissions of 15 percent by 2020 and 75 percent by 2050 (focusing on electric power production and petroleum use in the industrial, commercial, and transportation sectors). It would also establish a Climate Change Credit Corporation to reduce costs to consumers resulting from this act, set higher energy efficiency and renewable portfolio standards beginning in 2008 and set low-carbon electric generation standards for electric utilities beginning in 2016. In addition, it would require periodic evaluations by the Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere to determine whether emissions targets are adequate.^[32]

Support, opposition and critiques

The organization Environmental Defense supported the provisions of the Olver-Gilchrest bill, which was first introduced by different sponsors in the Senate. For information on their commendation of the legislation, please see Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act (CSIA) of 2007 (S.280) above.

Greenpeace was considerably less supportive of the bill's provisions, as was indicated by their comments on the Senate version (see above). Their criticisms focused on the bill's emission reduction requirements and subsidies for nuclear energy.^[33]

��

DRIVE Act of 2007 (H.R.670)

On January 24, 2007, Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) introduced the Dependence Reduction through Innovation in Vehicles and Energy Act – the DRIVE Act of 2007 – (H.R.670) to "promote the national security and stability of the United States economy by reducing the dependence of the United States on foreign oil through the use of alternative fuels and new vehicle technologies, and for other purposes." The bill attracted 82 cosponsors^[34] (as of June 2007), including Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) and several other Republicans. It was referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, House Committee on Science and Technology, House Committee on Ways and Means, House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. ^[35] In the 109th Congress, the bill was known as the Fuel Choices for American Security Act of 2005 (H.R.4409), and was sponsored by Rep. Kingston and 87 cosponsors.^[36]

Fuel Economy Reform Act (H.R.1506)

On March 13, 2007, Reps. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Todd Platts (R-Pa.), along with a bipartisan group of 21 Democratic and 19 Republican original cosponsors, introduced the Fuel Economy Reform Act (H.R.1506). The bill would increase the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards for cars and light trucks.^[37] The bill was referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Support, opposition and critiques

The Sierra Club applauded the bill, stating:

"The Sierra Club applauds Reps. Markey and Platts for moving forward with a bill that will make our environment, economy, and the nation as a whole safer and more secure. Making our cars and light trucks go farther on a gallon of gas is the single biggest step we can take toward saving American families money at the pump, ending our dangerous addiction to oil, and curbing global warming.”^[38]

The group called the measure ambitious, yet realistic, noting that it had bipartisan support. They noted that in fifteen years, the bill could save the U.S. as much oil as it (at the time) imported from the Persian Gulf. In supporting the measure, the club issued a challenge to American automakers, stating:

"It is time for automakers to get off their tailpipe and get into gear to do their fair share to curb global warming and our oil addiction. They need to take the technology gathering dust on Detroit’s shelves and put it to work to help America tackle some of its most urgent problems. Requiring the American auto industry to make more fuel-efficient vehicles is auto mechanics, not rocket science. It will force them to compete with foreign automakers like Honda and Toyota who have used hybrids and other efficient vehicles to remake their brands and cruise to record profits while the Big Three teeter on the brink of insolvency." ^[39]

Safe Climate Act of 2007 (H.R.1590)

On March 20, 2007, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) introduced the Safe Climate Act of 2007 (H.R.1590) to "reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect the climate." It was referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and received 139 co-sponsors (as of June 2007).^[40]

The bill would establish an emissions "cap and trade" system to start in 2010, requiring a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 15 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050. It would also establish passenger vehicle standards no less stringent than California's by 2014; set up a national renewable energy standard in 2009 that 20 percent of electric energy generation must be from renewable sources by 2020; create a national energy efficiency standard; and require periodic evaluations by the National Academy of Sciences to determine whether emissions targets are adequate.^[41]

Support, opposition and critiques

Environmental Defense called the bill one that "could jump start the needed emissions cuts" in the U.S., and commended that it would "cap and reduce tons of heat-trapping gases, and would do so at the levels and within the time frames demanded by the science." It added, however, that like all bills, it has its pluses and minuses.^[42]

The following organizations also expressed their support for the bill in a letter:

The groups cited the bill’s aggressive call to reduce carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. They also praised the bill for requiring improvements in energy efficiency to meet the goal, as well as provisions designed to help companies meet the goal through a carbon “cap-and-trade�� program. The policies put forth by the bill, according to the groups, would “reduce U.S. dependence on oil, improve air quality, protect pristine places from oil drilling, and have other far-reaching benefits.”^[43]

The Sierra Club referred to the bill as "the most aggressive global warming legislation introduced in the House." The group praised its call for aggressive strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while also protecting state regulations and initiatives to reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions.^[44]

U.S. PIRG praised the bill, calling it "a science-based approach to prevent the worst impacts of global warming." The group actively asked members to contact their representatives and ask them to support the legislation.^[45]

Green Energy Education Act (H.R.1716)

On June 5, 2007, the House considered a bill (H.R.1716), sponsored by Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), which would authorize higher education curriculum development and graduate training in advanced energy and green building technologies.^[46]

Specifically, the Secretary of Energy would be required to provide funds to the National Science Foundation for an Integrated Graduate Education Research Traineeship program to support graduate students pursuing energy projects. Advanced energy technology research, development and demonstration and then commercial application would then be facilitated with further grant funds to NSF.^[47]

The grants would also aim to improve interdisciplinary engineering and architecture education related to design and construction of high performance buildings and to improve the ability of engineers, architects and planners to work together on incorporating advanced energy technologies in the design and construction of high performance buildings.^[48]

The bill passed, 416-0.^[49]

Support, opposition and critiques

H-Prize Act of 2007 (H.R. 632)

On June 6, 2007, the House passed the H-Prize Act of 2007, 408-8. It would establish a series of cash rewards for innovation in hydrogen energy technology. The measure sought to bring hydrogen-fueled vehicles closer to reality through government-sponsored competition. $1 million awards would be given every two years in the categories of production, storage, distribution and utilization, with one $4 million prize for a hydrogen vehicle and a final $10 million grand prize for a “transformational advance in hydrogen energy technology.��^[50]

Support, opposition and critiques

Comprehensive energy bill

On August 4, 2007, the House passed comprehensive energy legislation after extending their session into the weekend prior to the August 2007 recess. The legislation was split between two bills, one containing the new energy measures (H.R.3221) and one containing a corresponding tax package (H.R.2776) to pay for the programs included in the bill.^[51] The legislation included many measures already considered or passed in the House from both the 109th and 110th Congresses, passing them under one overarching bill intended to promote alternative energy sources, ease pollution and climate change, and improve the energy infrastructure.^[52]

Provisions included a mandate that 15 percent of retail electricity come from renewable energy sources by 2020.^[53] The bill would also fund programs to research and develop alternative sources of energy, including bio-fuels, forest and marine biomass, geothermal sources, wind, and solar power. Projects geared toward carbon capture, transportation, and storage would also be funded. The bill would fund planning into the development of a national infrastructure for the transport of renewable fuels to the pump for use in automobiles and other modes of transportation. The national electricity grid would be made more reliable through the development of a "Smart Grid" system to better manage the distribution and flow of electricity. Energy efficient building construction would be promoted at the residential, commercial, industrial, and government levels, with detailed requirements to increase energy efficiency for numerous consumer products from toasters to washing machines to air conditioners. The government would be required to purchase these more energy efficient devices.

The bill also included provisions regarding international energy policy, including the creation of an Office on Global Climate Change in the State Department, and the establishment of US foreign policy "to promote United States and global security through leadership in cooperation with other nations of the global effort to reduce and stabilize global greenhouse gas emissions and stabilize atmospheric concentration of such gases.” Grants and loans for developing countries to use more efficient and less pollutant energy sources were also included. The government would also be prohibited from entering into contracts with companies "for exploration of oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico until those companies agree to revise earlier contracts that inadvertently limited the amount of revenues they owed on extracting the commodities."^[54] In order to pay for these provisions, the tax package included significant tax increases on the gas and oil industries.^[55]

The bill did not include provisions for improved fuel efficiency standards for automobiles, as did a similar bill passed in the Senate. When Congress returns following the August recess, the House and Senate bills will have to be reconciled, and issues such as renewable-fuels mandates and fuel economy standards will be debated. Despite a commitment to improved mileage standards and alternative fuels mandates, the White House has threatened to veto the legislation, primarily over increased taxes on the oil industry.^[56]

The initial energy bill passed the House in a 241-172 vote.

The associated tax package passed in a 221-289 vote.

Support, opposition and critiques

Environmentalist praised the legislation as a significant step in the right direction, while the oil industry criticized the increased taxes it would face.^[57]

Supreme Court

Supreme Court faults E.P.A. inaction on emissions

In 2007, the Supreme Court rebuked the Bush administration for refusing to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, siding with environmentalists in the Roberts' court's first examination of the phenomenon of global warming. The court ruled 5-4 that the Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A.) violated the Clean Air Act by improperly declining to regulate new-vehicle emissions standards to control the pollutants that scientists say contribute to global warming.^[58]

"Greening the Capitol" report

On June 21, 2007, Dan Beard, chief administrative officer of the House, released the "Greening the Capitol" report, making recommendations for how to make the House carbon-neutral by the end of the 110th Congress.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) applauded the report, commenting, "Global warming and climate change are formidable issues that the entire world is confronting, and the United States Congress must lead by example. This plan is an essential first step."

The report called for the Architect of the Capitol to purchase renewable power, the Capitol Power Plant to use natural gas instead of coal and for the leaders to purchase carbon offsets from the Chicago Climate Exchange.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) commented, "This complex has 10,000 employees. Should we be a model? The answer is yes."^[59]

Past legislative action

109th Congress

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) – the ranking Republican member and former chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee – and Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) – the ranking member and former chair of its subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality – had blocked previous climate change legislation that had come through their jurisdictions. ^[60]

On January 18, 2005, Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) introduced the Fuel Choices for American Security Act of 2005 (H.R.4409), which received 87 cosponsors, but no action was taken.^[61] It was the same bill as the DRIVE Act of 2007 (see above), introduced in the 110th Congress.

On March 29, 2006, Rep. Tom Udall (R-N.M.) introduced the Keep America Competitive Global Warming Policy Act of 2006 (H.R.5049) "to establish a market-based system to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and to promote advanced energy research and technology development and deployment, and for other purposes." The bill was referred to the Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality, the Science Committee's Subcommittee on Energy and Subcommittee on Environment, Technology, and Standards; the International Relations Committee; and the Labor and the Workforce Committee's Subcommittee on 21st Century Competitiveness and Subcommittee on Education Reform. The bill only received one cosponsor, Rep. Thomas Petri (R-Wis.), and never received action in committee. ^[62]

In October 2006, however, Rep. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) tried without success to get Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) to look at his bill on global warming. "If I thought it was a good idea, I would have already done it," Dingell said. ^[63]

Articles and resources

Sources

↑ OpenCongress: S.280
↑ Climate Change Bills of the 110th Congress Environmental Defense, May 29, 2007.
↑ Press Release: Environmental Defense Welcomes Strengthened Lieberman-McCain Global Warming Bill, Environmental Defense, January 12, 2007.
↑ Greenpeace press release on the Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act
↑ Greenpeace press release on the Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act
�� OpenCongress: S.309
↑ Climate Change Bills of the 110th Congress Environmental Defense, May 29, 2007.
↑ "Four principles for successful climate policy," Environmental Defense, 2007.
↑ "Sanders, Leahy re-introduce Jeffords global warming bill," Associated Press (delivered by Boston.com), January 15, 2007.
↑ "Energy: Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act," Sierra Club positon on S.309, 2007.
↑ OpenCongress: S.317
↑ Climate Change Bills of the 110th Congress Environmental Defense, May 29, 2007.
↑ OpenCongress: S.485
↑ Climate Change Bills of the 110th Congress Environmental Defense, May 29, 2007.
↑ THOMAS page on S.1419
↑ John Podesta, Daniel J. Weiss, and Kit Batten, "Memo on Pending Energy Legislation," Center for American Progress, June 11, 2007.
↑ Sholnn Freeman, ��Senate Passes Energy Bill,” Washington Post, June 21, 2007.
↑ "Senate Shifts into Drive on Fuel Economy, Ending Debate," Sierra Club. June 21, 2007.
↑ "Sierra Club Launches Ad Campaign," Sierra Club, June 6, 2007.
↑ Climate Change Bills of the 110th Congress Environmental Defense, May 29, 2007.
�� Avery Palmer, "Boxer Cites Positive Provisions of Bingaman��s Climate-Change Measure," CQ, July 11, 2007.
↑ Avery Palmer, "Boxer Cites Positive Provisions of Bingaman’s Climate-Change Measure," CQ, July 11, 2007.
↑ Avery Palmer, "Boxer Cites Positive Provisions of Bingaman’s Climate-Change Measure," CQ, July 11, 2007.
↑ Avery Palmer, "Boxer Cites Positive Provisions of Bingaman’s Climate-Change Measure," CQ, July 11, 2007.
↑ "Bingaman Climate Bill Fails To Deliver Needed Pollution Reductions," U.S. PIRG, July 11, 2007.
↑ Jim Abrams."House Creates Global Warming Committee,"The Associated Press. March 8, 2007.
↑ "Committee on Energy and Commerce -- Schedule," House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
↑ "THOMAS page on H.R.6," THOMAS.
↑ "Sierra Club praises House for shifting priorities from big oil to cleaner energy," Sierra Club, January 18, 2007.
↑ "THOMAS page on H.R.620 cosponsors," THOMAS.
↑ THOMAS page on H.R.620 (110th Congress), Library of Congress.
↑ Climate Change Bills of the 110th Congress Environmental Defense, May 29, 2007.
�� Greenpeace press release on the Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act
↑ "THOMAS page on H.R.670 cosponsors," THOMAS.
↑ THOMAS page on H.R.670 (110th Congress), Library of Congress.
↑ THOMAS page on H.R.4409 (109th Congress), Library of Congress.
↑ “Bipartisan Group in House Pushes Forward on Fuel Economy,” Sierra Club, March 13, 2007.
↑ “Bipartisan Group in House Pushes Forward on Fuel Economy,” Sierra Club, March 13, 2007.
↑ “Bipartisan Group in House Pushes Forward on Fuel Economy,” Sierra Club, March 13, 2007.
�� OpenCongress: H.R.1590
↑ Climate Change Bills of the 110th Congress Environmental Defense, May 29, 2007.
↑ "Four principles for successful climate policy," Environmental Defense, 2007.
↑ Letter signed by 17 organizations in support of the Safe Climate Act of 2007
↑ "Energy: The Safe Climate Act," Sierra Club, 2007.
↑ "Call To Support Global Warming Solutions," U.S. PIRG, 2007.
↑ Robert McElroy, "Managing America: Education," TheWeekInCongress, June 8, 2007.
↑ Robert McElroy, "Managing America: Education," TheWeekInCongress, June 8, 2007.
↑ Robert McElroy, "Managing America: Education," TheWeekInCongress, June 8, 2007.
↑ Robert McElroy, "Managing America: Education," TheWeekInCongress, June 8, 2007.
↑ Kathryn A. Wolfe, "House Passes ��H-Prize�� Bill for Energy Research" CQ, June 6, 2007.
↑ Richard Rubin and Jeff Tollefson, [http://www.cq.com/display.do?docid=2567345&sourcetype=6 "House Passes Energy Bill Despite Discord on Taxes, Renewable Sources," CQ, August 4, 2007.
↑ Robert McElroy, "Managing America: Energy," The Week In Congress, August 3, 2007.
↑ Richard Rubin and Jeff Tollefson, [http://www.cq.com/display.do?docid=2567345&sourcetype=6 "House Passes Energy Bill Despite Discord on Taxes, Renewable Sources," CQ, August 4, 2007.
↑ Robert McElroy, "Managing America: Energy," The Week In Congress, August 3, 2007.
↑ Richard Rubin and Jeff Tollefson, [http://www.cq.com/display.do?docid=2567345&sourcetype=6 "House Passes Energy Bill Despite Discord on Taxes, Renewable Sources," CQ, August 4, 2007.
↑ Richard Rubin and Jeff Tollefson, [http://www.cq.com/display.do?docid=2567345&sourcetype=6 "House Passes Energy Bill Despite Discord on Taxes, Renewable Sources," CQ, August 4, 2007.
�� Richard Rubin and Jeff Tollefson, [http://www.cq.com/display.do?docid=2567345&sourcetype=6 "House Passes Energy Bill Despite Discord on Taxes, Renewable Sources," CQ, August 4, 2007.
↑ Robert Barnes and Juliet Eilperin, "High Court Faults EPA Inaction on Emissions," The Washington Post. April 3, 2007.
↑ Kelly McCormack. "Dems applaud greening report, vow to lead by example," The Hill, June 21, 2007.
↑ Juliet Eilperin and Michael Grunwald, "Internal Rifts Cloud Democrats' Opportunity on Warming," Washington Post, Decemeber 23, 2007.
↑ THOMAS page on H.R.4409 (109th Congress), Library of Congress.
↑ THOMAS page on H.R.5049 (109th Congress), Library of Congress.
↑ Juliet Eilperin and Michael Grunwald, "Internal Rifts Cloud Democrats' Opportunity on Warming," Washington Post, Decemeber 23, 2007.

External resources

External articles

Jonathan E. Kaplan, "Pelosi, Dingell reach deal," The Hill, February 6, 2007.
Robert Barnes and Juliet Eilperin “High Court Faults EPA Inaction on Emissions,” The Washington Post, April 3, 2007.

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