A new report finds that comprehensive climate and clean energy legislation is needed to protect Americans from oil shock. Brad Johnson has the details in this repost.
Author Archive for Brad Johnson
Report: Mississippi, Montana, Louisiana and Oklahoma most vulnerable to oil spikes
Friday, March 19th, 2010Flashback: Carly Fiorina said cap-and-trade “will both create jobs and lower the cost of energy”
Tuesday, March 16th, 2010In pursuing the California GOP’s nomination for the 2010 Senate, Carly Fiorina has become a world-class flip-flopper. Following the endorsement of Senator Jim “the last flat-earther” Inhofe (R-OIL) in November, she challenged climate science — unlike the company she once ran. Now she’s abandoned her support for cap-and-trade legislation, as Brad Johnson discusses in this repost.
Big Oil uses fake “Americans” to attack fake “energy taxes.”
Thursday, March 11th, 2010The American Petroleum Institute is using fake “Americans” to defend billions in tax subsidies, as WonkRoom’s Brad Johnson explains in this repost. API is running full-page ads in Politico and Roll Call that attack Congress for “new energy taxes” — using stock photos:
American farm bureau’s Rick Krause lies to farmers about EPA ‘cow tax’
Tuesday, March 9th, 2010The American Farm Bureau is continuing to lie to farmers about the threat of Clean Air Act regulation of greenhouse gases. Brad Johnson has the story in this Wonk Room repost.
The Bureau, the largest lobbying group for American agriculture, denies the threat of global warming of farming, instead fearmongering for years about a mythical “cow tax.” Speaking to members of the Kansas Farm Bureau yesterday, AFB lobbyist Rick Krause claimed the Environmental Protection Agency “will require all farms with more than 25 dairy cows and more than 50 head of beef cattle or 200 head of hogs to get a Clean Air Permit”:
American Petroleum tells lawmakers it supports carbon fee because it’s easier to demonize
Tuesday, March 9th, 2010
The bipartisan effort of Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), John Kerry (D-MA), and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) to craft comprehensive clean energy legislation that caps global warming pollution has brought some positive words from Big Oil and their political allies. Brad Johnson explains why in this Wonk Room repost.
In particular, the senators are considering a proposal by ConocoPhillips, BP America and ExxonMobil to exclude petroleum producers and refiners from a carbon market and instead levy a carbon fee. “Once you have oil people saying, ‘We can live with this, this was our idea,’ then hopefully everybody else begins to look at this thing anew,” Graham told reporters. “That’s the hope.” However, the American Petroleum Institute’s Jack Gerard explained that the “support” from the oil industry for a carbon fee on petroleum will come in the form of “signs at the gas pump letting people know they’re paying more because of U.S. efforts to deal with climate change”:
Van Jones: “Will all Americans have a fair shot at America’s fair share?”
Monday, March 8th, 2010Speaking at a conference on the future of America’s economic competitiveness, green jobs leader Van Jones called for a “robust policy discussion” on equity, inclusion, and fairness in the emerging green economy. Brad Johnson of Wonk Room has the story — and the must-see video — in this repost.
The Heritage Foundation loses its grip on reality, calls science ‘magic’
Friday, March 5th, 2010The Heritage Foundation, a once-influential conservative think tank, has long had extreme views (see “Heritage even opposes energy efficiency“). Now it has completely lost its grip on reality, comparing the IPCC’s scientific work to what a magician at a children’s party does (!), as explained in this Wonk Room repost.
The ‘climate change debate’ is Science vs. Snake Oil
Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010
Progress Energy abandons dirty coal front group
Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010
This is a Think Progress repost
Utility giant Progress Energy is the latest in a stream of companies to abandon the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), the scandal-ridden coal-industry front group that has dirtied the debate on climate legislation. Progress Energy — “a Fortune 500 energy company with more than 21,000 megawatts of generation capacity and $9 billion in annual revenues,” serving 3.1 million customers in the Carolinas and Florida — quietly quit the group last year, following Duke Energy, Alstom, Alcoa, and First Energy in the exodus. Its move away from coal propaganda mirrors its recent decision to shut down coal plants and move to cleaner power:
Rep. Tom Perriello tells ‘spineless’ Senate to get ‘its head out of its rear end’ and confront climate crisis
Sunday, February 28th, 2010
Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA) is “sick” of the “insider baseball crap” dominating the Senate debate over global warming and energy reform. In an interview with Grist, the first-term congressman stated in no uncertain terms that the country is at risk from global warming and our economy is at risk of losing the clean energy race. Like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Perriello has not one lick of sympathy for those in the Senate who deny these threats:
South Dakota legislators tell schools to teach ‘astrological’ explanation for global warming
Thursday, February 25th, 2010The gold medal for climate flip-flopping goes to Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who now calls cap-and-trade a “disaster” three years after endorsing it
Monday, February 22nd, 2010Anti-science ideologues have increasingly made opposition to bipartisan action on global warming a litmus test for Republicans seeking national office (see “Honey, I shrunk the GOP, Part 1: Conservatives vow to purge all members who support clean energy or science-based policy” and ”Part 3: RNC Chair Steele withdraws support for Rep. Kirk over his vote on climate and clean energy bill“). Apparently this litmus test doesn’t just include embracing ideological positions on policy, but also on science.
Refuting state AG’s anti-science petition, Virginia climate scientists see “great risk” from greenhouse gases
Sunday, February 21st, 2010Texas state climatologist disputes state’s anti-science petition: Greenhouse gases “clearly present a danger to the public welfare.”
Friday, February 19th, 2010Glenn Beck: “There aren’t enough knives” for “dishonored” climate scientists to kill themselves.
Thursday, February 11th, 2010The anti-science hatemongers have redoubled their efforts, as guest blogger Brad Johnson reports in this pair of ThinkProgress reposts.
On his radio show yesterday, Fox News host Glenn Beck argued that the world’s climate scientists should commit suicide because they “have so dishonored themselves.” After repeating exaggerated and false smears about the work of the United Nations Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the international scientific and governmental body tasked with assessing the threat of global warming, Beck said “there’s not enough knives on planet Earth for hara-kiri that should have occured,” referring to the form of ritual suicide used by Japanese samurai:
Earl Pomeroy, D-Global Warming Denial
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010
A 1995 document the North Dakota coal industry used before the legislature to show how carbon taxes would help wind and hinder lignite development.
Brad Johnson outs Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-ND) for putting coal industry profits above the well being of North Dakotan families in today’s Wonk Room repost.
In a bald attempt to defend coal industry profits, Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-ND) has joined a predominantly Republican push to overrule the Environmental Protection Agency’s scientific finding that greenhouse gases are dangerous pollutants.
Earlier this month, Pomeroy introduced the Save Our Energy Jobs Act (H.R. 4396), which would rewrite the Clean Air Act so that “[t]he term ‘air pollutant’ shall not include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, or sulfur hexafluoride.” Pomeroy’s justification for flouting the reality of the global warming threat is the need to defend the coal, oil, and gas industries:
Pentagon: “Climate change, energy security, and economic stability are inextricably linked”
Monday, February 1st, 2010This guest repost is by Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson.
For the first time, the Pentagon’s primary planning document addresses the threat of global warming, noting that it will accelerate instability and conflict around the globe. Former Senators John Warner (R-VA) and Hillary Clinton (D-NY) added language requiring the department to consider the effects of climate change on its facilities, capabilities, and missions to the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act. The Department of Defense’s Quadrennial Defense Review, officially released today, discusses the department’s “strategic approach to climate and energy”:
Ben Nelson’s strange stance on cap and trade
Sunday, January 31st, 2010
A guest repost from the Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson.
There seems to be something about climate policy that encourages senators to take positions that are logically impossible. In the latest instance, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) has now managed to simultaneously oppose and support a carbon command-and-control regime. Nelson is one of three Democrats to co-sponsor Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-AK) resolution overturning the EPA’s greenhouse gas endangerment finding, supposedly because “EPA regulations would be a government-directed command-and-control regime”:
‘Green Coal’ company LoraxAg dirties Dr. Seuss legacy
Thursday, January 28th, 2010
[If you want to let Dr. Seuss Enterprises know what you think of this misappropriation of the Lorax name, you can email them at "drseuss at drseuss dot com."]
This is repost from Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson. Coal use is not green (see Science bombshell explodes myth of clean coal: Mountaintop “mining permits are being issued despite the preponderance of scientific evidence that impacts are pervasive and irreversible and that mitigation cannot compensate for losses”). You can watch the entire video of The Lorax below.
In a shameless act of greenwashing, a coal-gasification startup has named itself without permission after Dr. Seuss’s beloved Lorax. LoraxAg, LLC, is a western Massachusetts company that is seeking investors for its “Green Coal Technology” of a coal gasification and chemical production facility. The company, whose principals include Michael Sununu, the son of former New Hampshire senator and governor John Sununu, has raised over $1 million in seed capital to build a high-sulfur coal factory. The name choice was a deliberate attempt to cloak their coal-and-chemical company as an eco-friendly venture:
And, yes, the name is inspired by the Dr. Seuss story, Farina said. “The Lorax is the protector of the truffula trees,” he said. “We think this is the greenest use of coal.”
In 3-2 Vote, SEC requires companies to disclose climate risks to investors
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010Many major industries have climate risks, starting with insurers. In this Wonk Room repost, Brad Johnson explains what the SEC did today to help investors understand what those risks are. I’ll add a note on the two anti-science SEC commissioners at the end.
UPDATE: SEC has put out a Press Release (and a video of the Chair’s statement).
In a 3-to-2 vote, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission determined today that companies “must consider the effects of global warming and efforts to curb climate change when disclosing business risks to investors.”
Guidelines approved today require companies to weigh the impact of climate-change laws and regulations when assessing what information to disclose, the commission said. The SEC is responding to investors who said companies aren’t providing enough data on the potential risks to their profits and operations from environmental- protection laws. In the 3-to-2 vote, the commission said companies in the U.S. should also consider international accords, indirect effects such as lower demand for goods that produce greenhouse gases, and physical impacts such as the potential for increased insurance claims in coastal regions as a result of rising sea levels.
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