Climate Progress: An insider's view of climate science, politics, and solutions

The annual convention of hypocrites with short memory (aka the Tea Partiers) paid FoxNews commentator Sarah Palin $100,000 to repeat conservative talking points:

Sarah Palin says President Barack Obama’s proposed 2011 budget is “immoral” because it increases the national debt, which she called “generational theft.”

Palin told the national “tea party” convention Saturday that America’s national debt, which is held largely by other nations, “makes us less free” and “should tick us off.”

The 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee got one of several standing ovations from the gathering of about 600 people when she said the nation is drowning in debt. The Obama administration argues that much of the nation’s debt is being caused by tax cuts and a Medicare drug program enacted under former President George W. Bush.

Given that anti-science conservatives like Palin are the champions of the most grievous imaginable “generational theft” — doing nothing to stop catastrophic climate change — and given that they continue to push this “generational theft” meme, I’m going to update my earlier response (see “The Generational Theft Act of 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001….).”

But first, yes, those are crib notes on her left hand — top word “energy” — as HuffPost (and photo below) show:

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This Wonk Room repost is by guest blogger is Tom Kenworthy, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.

When president-elect Barack Obama nominated Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar to head the Department of Interior at the end of 2008, some voices in the conservation community wondered whether the moderate Democrat with ties to ranching and other traditional western industries was the best choice to chart a new direction in managing one-fifth of the nation’s land.

But immediately after taking office, Salazar quickly moved to dispel many of those worries with a series of directives that forcefully demonstrated that the Bush era had ended, particularly on policies related to energy development on federal lands:

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Sean Pool is a special assistant for energy policy at American Progress.

Riddled with ever-escalating cost overruns, years of delays, and a lack of public support, its baffling why the nuclear industry continues to enjoy the support of so many “fiscally conservative” members of the US legislature.

Earlier this week CAP’s Dan Weiss blogged here about Obama’s nuclear error, explaining that the President has proposed in his 2011 budget to triple loan guarantees for the nuclear industry — from$18.5 billion to $54 billion — without extracting any concrete promises from nuke proponents to support comprehensive climate and clean energy legislation in return.

The other problem is that there weren’t any credible applicants even before the funding increase, let alone for a program three times the size, as this  NGO analysis reveals:

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I don’t normally agree with the uber-conservative American Spectator — and vice versa (see here).   But there is, as they say, a first time for everything.

In a piece titled, “Norm Coleman’s Right-Wing CAP,” their assistant managing editor writes about the Center for American Progress (CAP), where I work:

Another feature that sets CAP apart from the right-wing organizations is its messaging operation. It was a leader in sending out a daily briefing and using blogs to disseminate research, which are both now common practices among think tanks. But it also took the unusual step of hiring professional bloggers to spread its ideas. Joseph Romm, a giant among environmental experts, blogs for their climateprogess.org. And CAP hired Matt Yglesias, a prominent young liberal blogger, away from the Atlantic to blog under their umbrella.

Thanks.  Let me tell you this kind of thing is very helpful around performance evaluation time.

I do, of course, have to correct one mistake here, which long-time readers may spot….

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Clean-energy investments in the president’s budget would help kick start the economy and build sustainable, long-term growth.  CAP’s Daniel J. Weiss has the details in this repost.

After eight years of sparse investment in the clean-energy technologies of the future, President Barack Obama launched a crash program at the start of his presidency last year to create clean-energy jobs and catch up to our economic competitors who grew their clean-energy industries while Bush slept. The 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act began this task by investing $70 billion in clean-energy technologies and adopting $20 billion in clean-energy tax cuts, and President Obama’s proposed fiscal year 2011 budget would continue to build on these investments.

The ARRA programs will create more than a million new jobs, increase American energy independence, and cut global warming pollution. ARRA will double the amount of renewable electricity in the United States by 2012, weatherize 1 million low-income homes so that they are more energy efficient, and double domestic manufacturing capacity for wind turbines, solar panels, and other clean-energy equipment.

President Obama’s proposed FY 2011 includes larger investments in energy efficiency, renewable energy, and advanced research, despite the budget freeze and reductions in other discretionary spending programs. This budget would create jobs, increase American energy independence, cut global warming pollution, and make our economy more competitive.

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Climate politics can be very strange indeed.  Because cap-and-trade bills like Waxman-Markey are seen as having no chance of passing the Senate, some enviros appear to be shifting their support to bills that are politically even less attractive and environmentally even less adequate.

The latest misguided missile is the Carbon Limits and Energy for America’s Renewal (CLEAR) Act put forward by Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Susan Collins (R-ME) — full text and info here.  Supporters call it “Cap-and-Dividend,” but right now I think the best term for it is, “Cap-and-Divide,” since it has no chance whatsoever of becoming law but is serving to undercut the tripartisan effort by Graham, Kerry, and Lieberman to develop a bill that might get 60 votes.

I’m all for pursuing innovative solutions to get a comprehensive climate and energy bill, which conventional wisdom keeps saying is highly improbable this year.  But to be a “solution,” such a bill would need to achieve the emissions reductions in 2020 required for a global deal — in the range of 17% –  and, of course, it has to be politically viable.

Cap-and-Divide, however, doesn’t even pass the environmental viability test, as the first-rate researchers at World Resources Institute have shown (click to enlarge figure, full analysis here).  And while W-M is far from perfect environmentally, as I’ve said many times,   it would enable a global deal.  W-M’s biggest problem is that it can’t get 60 votes in the Senate or even close.   But “cap-and-divide” is certainly less politically viable than Waxman-Markey or Kerry-Boxer.

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Today’s guest post is by Daniel J. Weiss, Senior Fellow and Director for Climate Strategy at American Progress.  For more on the Texas reactor, see Toshiba tells San Antonio its new twin $13 billion nukes will cost $4 billion more! The city balks. This looks like a job for clean energy.”

President Barack Obama’s proposed FY 2011 budget includes some important proposals to invest in clean energy, but it also includes a nuclear bombshell.  The budget will seek at total of $54 billion in loan guarantees for nuclear power.  This would require a $36 billion increase over the existing $18.5 billion for nuclear loan guarantees, a program created under the Energy Policy Act of 2005 – none of which has been issued yet.  And while they loan guarantee proposal cheered some pro-nuclear senators, it has not garnered their support for comprehensive, bipartisan clean energy and climate change legislation.

None of the four “top-tier” project proposals inspire confidence: all have “rising cost estimates, delays related to reactor designs, and credit downgrades,” according to Taxpayers for Common Sense.

For instance, one of the top four pending applications for a loan guarantee for reactors in Texas may be withdrawn by the utility proposing it, NRG Energy.   The project was supposed to be a joint venture with San Antonio’s municipal utility, but the latter is having second thoughts due to enormous estimated cost increases that would bring the project from the initial $5.4 billion to at least $17 billion.

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Hard to know whether to laugh or cry:

For those actually interested in the overwhelming evidence, a good place to start is this review of the 2009 scientific literature:  “The year climate science caught up with what top scientists have been saying privately for years.”  It ain’t funny, unless you’re into gallows humor.

An older transmission power track and power line stands tall against a Kansas sunset north of Topeka, Kansas. Utilities are vying to build a new power system to stretch across the state that would give six times more capacity than the present systems. The upgraded systems will be needed to help fully harness wind power generation.  Another day, another bad Supreme Court move (see “High court unleashes tsunami of corporate cash with Citizens United Ruling“).  First-time guest blogger Richard W. Caperton has the story and analysis in this CAP repost.

The Supreme Court last week decided not to review a lower court ruling on electricity transmission, upholding states’ ability to deny permits for new transmission lines. This will allow states to prevent anyone—either the government or private businesses—from building new transmission lines. The United States needs these transmission lines. They would enable Americans to consume more clean energy by bringing it from wind- and solar-powered plants to homes around the country. And a report released last week by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates that we need 20,000 new miles of transmission lines to move carbon-free wind energy from wind turbines to East Coast consumers alone. The United States can’t reap the benefits of clean energy if Americans can’t access it, and these developments reinforce the fact that climate and energy legislation must contain a comprehensive transmission proposal to effectively drive the transition to a clean energy economy.

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Say No to the Dirty Air Act.

That’s Sen. Lisa “fiddle while Nome burns” Murkowski defending her Dirty Air Amendment.  And yes, I can’t decide what the best nickname for her is.  If you’re known by your accomplishments, then it could be Lisa “top fundraiser from utility industry” Murkowski.

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) has a terrific response on Grist, “An argument against Murkowski’s radical attempt to overrule EPA scientists“:

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Sweeping aside a century-old understanding and overruling two important precedents, a bitterly divided Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections….

The 5-to-4 decision was a doctrinal earthquake but also a political and practical one. Specialists in campaign finance law said they expected the decision, which also applies to labor unions and other organizations, to reshape the way elections are conducted….

Justice John Paul Stevens read a long dissent from the bench. He said the majority had committed a grave error in treating corporate speech the same as that of human beings. His decision was joined by the other three members of the court’s liberal wing.

And so a corrupted process becomes more corrupt.  The High Court’s ruling can be viewed here.

Of course, existing dirty energy industries have tens of billions of dollars in profits to spend on electing their candidates.  New clean energy industries and future generations, not so much.  Indeed, the very point of the ruling by the conservative majority is that corporations are really no different than homo “sapiens” sapiens – except of course they have a lot more money.

The Sierra Club has released a Statement by Political Director, Cathy Duvall, on the grim implication for energy and climate policy:

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The state that stands to suffer the most from human-caused global warming has elected leaders who want to stop efforts to avoid its inundation (see “Sea levels may rise 3 times faster than IPCC estimated, could hit 6 feet by 2100“).  That’s true of the Governor and presidential hopeful (see “Jindal Tries to Block Climate Change Regulation“).  It’s true of GOP Sen. Vitter who tried to block climate change response centers.  We’ve known for a while that Sen. Landrieu wants to jettison cap-and-trade.  Now we know she is joining Sen. Lisa Dirty Air Murkowski (R-AK) in her campaign to prevent Clean Air Act regulation of global warming pollution , as Brad Johnson reports in this Wonk Room excerpt:

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One of the Senate’s most vocal critics of U.S. EPA’s climate rules is also Congress’ top recipient of campaign funds from the electric utility industry.

Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski, who was elected to Senate GOP leadership last year and holds a key post on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, received more campaign contributions from the utility industry than any other lawmaker during the 2009-2010 election cycle, according to data compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

Last year, Murkowski received $157,000 from electric utilities, and since 2005, she has received more than $244,000, according to the center’s data.

So Greenwire (subs. req’d) reported yesterday in its piece “Senate’s top EPA critic raked in utilities’ campaign cash.”

We’ve also learned in the past week just who Murkowski has been getting help from for her dirty air amendment (see Polluters work with Lisa “fiddle while Nome burns” Murkowski on amendment to thwart EPA GHG regulations that might help save her state).

Today the NY Times editorialized on “Ms. Murkowski’s Mischief“:

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New details are emerging of just how involved a pair of energy industry lobbyists were in writing a controversial amendment by Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski that would strip the Environmental Protection Agency of its authority to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant….

Jeffrey Holmstead, head of the environmental strategies division at Bracewell & Guiliani, and Roger Martella Jr., a partner at Sidley Austin, walked Senate staffers through the details of the amendment, via speakerphone, during a meeting held at 8:45 a.m. in Room 370 of the Hart Senate Office Building on Sept. 23, 2009, a person familiar with the meeting told POLITICO. The meeting, convened by aides to Murkowski and Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.),  was called to gauge interest among staffers to four or five Democrats.

Holmstead and Martella are lobbyists for big corporations and polluters (see here).  Senate Majority Leader Reid described Murkowski’s “misguided amendment” as “a highly hazardous one to our health and the environment” (see Senate Majority Leader expects to pass bipartisan energy and climate bill this spring: It “may be the most important policy we will ever pass”).  Working with James “I Am The Planet’s #1 Worst Enemy“ Inhofe is a new low for this once-moderate Senator from the state most devastated by climate change.

The rest of this post is a reprint of “Lisa Says, Let Alaska Melt” by guest bloggers are Daniel J. Weiss, Director of Climate Strategy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, and Jaren Love.

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This Think Progress repost is about health care, but you could just as easily substitute “climate change,” especially if anti-science ideologues are able to kill the bipartisan climate and clean energy jobs bill.

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Obama’s achievements in climate and clean energy have been unprecedented, as I’ve discussed.  And while he still needs a domestic climate bill and an international deal to be a true success, his accomplishments after one year in office deserve enumerating, if only because the status quo media won’t.  So here is Daniel Weiss in a CAP repost.  The AP photo is of Obama touring a Solar Energy Center in Arcadia, FL last October (see Creating a clean energy economy will require an “all-hands-on-deck approach similar to the mobilization that preceded World War II…. I also believe that such a comprehensive piece of legislation that is taking place right now in Congress is going to be critical”).

During President-Elect Barack Obama’s transition, the Center for American Progress proposed a 10-point clean-energy agenda for the president and Congress that would speed the economic transformation to a clean energy economy. A review of these items today finds that all were adopted or are working their way through the process. This is a startling achievement amidst the worst economy in 70 years, two wars, and an opposition party disinterested in cooperation. President Obama did much of what he promised, and he can do more in 2010 by cajoling Congress to do its part.

These achievements will have real world impact. By 2011, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, P.L. 111-5, will double the generation of renewable electricity from the wind, sun, and earth. ARRA will also lead to energy efficiency retrofits in 1 million homes by 2012. And President Obama’s new fuel economy standards would save 1.8 billion barrels of oil. Additional benefits will accrue as the president and Congress finish some 2009 clean-energy initiatives and additional efforts are launched in 2010.

Here’s a review of progress made by the president and Congress over the past year.

1. Wish they all could be California cars

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The Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis, has a good HuffPost piece on “Green Jobs” I’m reprinting here:

Over the last year, the Obama Administration has been focused on many issues, none more important than creating jobs. We are working hard to sustain economic growth and spur renewed hiring for millions of Americans who need and want work, but cannot find it.

As I have said from day one, my goal is “A Good Job for Everyone.” A good job is one that can support a family by increasing incomes and narrowing the wage gap. A good job is safe and secure, and gives people a voice in the workplace. A good job is sustainable and innovative — like green jobs — that export products not paychecks. And a good job is one that will help to rebuild the middle class.

In this economy that’s a tall order, however I am more confident than ever that we will reach this goal because of the steps we have taken and the investments we have made in the American worker.

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That’s the Politico’s headline today in a story that concludes, “it doesn’t yet appear that the party’s congressional majorities are threatened.”  Anyway, it’s a good piece if you want to know the conventional center-right “establishment” wisdom these days.