How much to charge for each ton of emissions is perhaps the most crucial element of a carbon pricing policy. However, there is little consensus among economists about the appropriate level for carbon prices. By Noah Kaufman, Alexander R. Barron, Wojciech Krawczyk, Peter Marsters, and Haewon McJeon Center on Global Energy Policy Setting CO2 prices […]
Washington may be gridlocked and deadlocked, but traffic is flowing smoothly in some parts of the government. This morning, President Obama announced a cornerstone of a real national energy policy: new fuel efficiency standards that will save money, promote energy independence and cut carbon emissions.
We need to rebuild the kind of mass movement that marked 1970: bodies, passion, and creativity are the currencies we can compete in. It’s not impossible.
We knew this election would have consequences – not that much has gotten done on climate action in the past two years. Now, Republican guru Karl Rove announced this week that “Climate is gone”. Speaking at a Pittsburgh conference on natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale formation (aka fracking), Rove told the giddy crowd […]
If you had any slim hope left for “bipartisanship” on environmental and energy legislation in Washington after the 2010 midterm election, you can forget about it. The Hill reports “Republicans aren’t interested in compromising with President Obama on major issues if they retake the House or Senate, a senior GOP lawmaker said.” “Look, the time […]
Well, they’ve done it, and ahead of schedule. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has determined it is appropriate that deepwater oil and gas drilling resume, provided that operators certify compliance with all existing rules and requirements, including those that recently went into effect, and demonstrate the availability of adequate blowout containment resources… “In light […]
Writing at Salon, Andrew Leonard ponders the imponderable: Is the White House’s new acceptance of solar panels (nearly two years after the Election of Hope!) “…a welcome change of tone, prefiguring a new push on climate change and renewable energy, or yet another example of how a too-cautious administration keeps stepping on its feet”? Bill […]
BP concluded 48 hours of testing on the new cap over their busted well, and the results are good. The oil flow has stopped, pressure is stable, and there’s no evidence – so far – that the cap has blown a new leak in the underground well. “As we continue to see success in the […]
This is a pivotal week in the clean energy debate. The Senate will vote on Murkowski’s short-sighted resolution to take away the EPA’s authority to regulate pollution. As we head into this critical time, it’s not the Inhofe-cloned climate deniers who trouble me – it’s the knowing bystanders who are keeping me up at night.
While most states have some sort of renewable energy standard on the books, the lack of a national standard means that a handful of states are way behind the curve, having developed few renewable energy projects of any considerable scale.
The Australian government’s ruling coalition has come to terms on an agreement that would quadruple the renewable energy target set by the previous government in 2001
The Department of Energy on Thursday released the details of a new $2.3 billion manufacturing tax credit, enacted earlier this year as part of President Obama’s stimulus package.
Whatever the relative merits and drawbacks of biomass are, they are preferable to continuing to mine and burn coal. Until we start to bring large-scale base loading renewable capacity online, we continue inexorably on the same business as usual curve.
Shortly after winning approval from the California State Senate, a controversial deal that would have allowed the first new offshore oil leases in California state waters in forty years, was rejected by the California State Assembly by a vote of 43-30.
Energy didn’t get a sniff in last night’s Obama press conference. That wasn’t really a surprise given the way that health care has elbowed its way into the political spotlight. You can count climate change among the “priorities” now in the shadows.