Get Energy Smart! NOW!

In the last week, several studies (okay, one lobbyist press release packaged as a “study” and the other a real study) have made a splash. The first, the Price Waterhouse “study” for America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) on implications of moving toward a public option and universal coverage. The other, the month’s old Congressional Budget […]

[Read more →]

All too often, those engaged in examining options for “greening” a new or existing building are constrained in a stove-piped cost analysis which (in a very simplified fashion) goes something along these lines: How much more will it cost to build? And, how fast will energy and other operating cost (water usage/sewers, maintenance) savings pay […]

[Read more →]

That title provides a reasonable summation of Estimating U.S. Government Subsidies to Energy Sources: 2002-2008, a report released today by the Environmental Law Institute and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars looking at U.S. subsidies for energy, the relationship of fossil fuel to renewable energy subsidies, and how this relates to foreign production of […]

[Read more →]

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Transportation (DOT) today released proposed rules for implementating the increase in CAFE standards, beyond the Congressional mandate, as announced this past May. In short, this deal between the Obama Administration and the auto industry accelerates the improvement in light vehicle fuel efficiency across the fleet average (the […]

[Read more →]

What follows is a guest post (the quotation material), with some commentary, from Stranded Wind who has a major focus on finding routes for solutions and opportunities amid the perfect storm of economic problems, peak oil (and other resource constraints), and global warming.  One of the streams of discussion, with various degrees of urgency and […]

[Read more →]

There is a fundamental framing and analysis challenge that pervades much of the Washington (and national) discussion of moving forward toward better policy. This is true in health care, transportation, prison reform, decriminalization of marijuana (and industrial hemp), clean energy, global warming, and very many other important policy arenas. At Netroots Nation, on a panel […]

[Read more →]

Last year,  National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and that American Council for Capital Formation (ACCF) made noise with a report written by SAIC showing that the Lieberman-Warner Coal Subsidy Act (misrepresented as the Climate Security Act)  would have devastating impact. Now, NAM and ACCF have long fought against any moves to clean energy and any […]

[Read more →]

The strong success of the CARS Program (WIN on economic stimulus, with wins environmentally, energy security, and highway safety) have led to consideration of what to do next. Last week, Senators Senator Bingaman, Snowe, Kerry, and Lugar introduced S. 1620, Efficient Vehicle Leadership Act of 2009. This act would set up a feebate program, much […]

[Read more →]

This guest post comes from mwmwm, who is found normally at ApocaDocs. This is a powerful, must read, discussion about the seriousness of the “convergence of emergencies” that we, as a society and a species, face in the coming years and decades. This morning, I started my day with a coffee cup and DailyKos, intrigued […]

[Read more →]

Senator James Inhofe (R-Exxon) has misused the power of his chairmanship and, now, Ranking Minority status on the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) committee to expend taxpayer resources on distorting, misleading, and outright deceiving when it comes to scientific issues, most notably in relation to questions of Global Warming. One of the most infamous […]

[Read more →]