It’s Budget Day in Washington, when policy wonks break out the calculators that have the “trillions” button and decide whether we’ll have six more weeks of winter, or six decades more of crippling budget deficits. Actually, today is the day President Obama released his proposed budget for fiscal year 2012, which you can explore in …
Congress
Energy: Should the Military Be Going Green? RAND Isn’t So Sure
While American society has bickered on climate and energy, the White House has dithered and Congress has been deadlocked, the U.S. military has been busy going green. The Pentagon has spent some $300 million in economic stimulus financing and research money to improve the military’s energy efficiency and develop alternative fuels. The …
Politics: Will the Departure of White House Climate Czar Carol Browner Make a Difference?
As Politico first reported last night, Carol Browner will be stepping down from her post as White House climate and energy czar. Browner, an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator in the Clinton Administration, was a key member of the “Green Dream Team” of cabinet appointees and White House aides who accompanied …
Politics: Gabrielle Giffords Is a Green Patriot
A lot of attention has focused on how Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords’s support for health care reform might have helped made her a target. (On Monday Giffords was still in a medically induced coma after being shot in the head Saturday morning in Tucson.) Her office in Tucson was vandalized last March after she voted in …
Politics: What to Expect from the Republicans on Energy Policy
At noon today, Republican John Boehner will be sworn in as the 61st Speaker of the House of Representatives, and the GOP will take over partial control of the government. (Apparently the outgoing Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, actually hands over the gavel to the new leader, a ceremony that certainly has more gravitas than the Internet …
Climate: The EPA Gears Up to Regulate Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Over on the Time.com homepage, I have a piece on the coming war over the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from industrial and power sources—the first of which began on January 2. Regulation will be the story for climate politics in the U.S. this year—check out the piece here.
Politics: Celebrating the Passage of a Science Bill
For all the complaints about government gridlock, the 111th Congress proved to be incredibly productive, passing health care legislation, an unprecedented stimulus, major tax cuts, allowing gays in the military and vindicating a landmark arms control treaty. When President Obama addressed the press before Christmas, he celebrated those …
Food: Why the Just Passed Food Safety Bill Is Only a First Step
The troubled but important food safety bill finally passed Congress yesterday, and should be signed by President Obama today. I have a post over at Healthland explaining why the bill may not be worth much without more funding.
Food: The Senate Passes a Food-Safety Bill, But the Problem Isn’t Going Away
Food-safety reform advocates won a long-awaited—and rare—victory today in Washington. This morning the Senate passed a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s food-safety system, approving the Food Safety and Modernization Act by an unusually bipartisan vote of 73-25. The bill, which had been languishing in the Senate for more than a …
Robbing Renewable Energy to Pay Teachers
This afternoon, after Speaker Nancy Pelosi called them back from their six-week summer break, members of the House of Representatives passed an emergency $26 billion spending bill to prevent the layoff of 300,000 teachers, police and other civil servants from layoffs due to state cutbacks. The bill passed