Climate Change
5 Down, 5 to Go: Plan Linking Transit to Climate Bill Wins Sponsors
Streetsblog Capitol Hill reported this week that the Obama administration -- which often talks about reducing transportation-based emissions -- is staying mum on a bill that would devote a guaranteed share of revenues from carbon regulation to transit, bike paths, and other green modes of transport.
July 17, 2009
White House Staying Quiet For Now on Transit’s Role in Climate Bill
Delivering his climate-change message to Congress yesterday, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood warned that fuel-efficiency advances secured by the Obama administration would not be enough to reduce emissions from transportation -- not without encouraging Americans to drive less.
July 15, 2009
Taking GOP Graphics a Bit Too Seriously
Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO), one of his chamber's leading opponents of action against climate change, has swiped the hilariously complicated "chart" that his House colleagues used last month in a futile attempt to portray emissions reductions as just too complex for the American people to stomach.
July 10, 2009
Boxer Delays Senate Climate Bill Until September
This was supposed to be a big week for action on climate change in the Senate -- but it's ending with Republicans rubbing their hands in glee as the Environment and Public Works Committee delays its unveiling of legislation on carbon emissions.
July 9, 2009
Getting the Message
Two things were clear at this morning's hearing of the Senate Banking Committee concerning green investments in public transportation. First, transportation experts and leading legislators are very much in agreement on how transportation spending should change. And second, Randal O'Toole's days as anything other than an anachronism are numbered.
July 7, 2009
Senate Starts Climate Push With Nods to Jobs, Energy, and Transportation
The Senate is taking its first public steps toward combating climate change -- and while the U.S. DOT was absent from this morning's hearing, the chiefs of the Energy Department and Environmental Protection Agency reminded lawmakers that transportation must play a key role in any emissions reduction plan.
July 7, 2009
Adding More Transportation to the Climate Change Mix
Nate Silver's new analysis of the state of play on climate change in the Senate makes a convincing argument that a carbon cap-and-trade system can become law this year.
July 6, 2009
The GOP Climate ‘Traitors’ Have Something Else in Common …
Conservatives are continuing to pull the Republican party towards self-immolation today, vowing to defeat the eight House GOPers who backed last week's climate change bill unless they change their votes.
June 30, 2009
How Did the Senate’s 2008 Climate Bill Treat Transportation?
As I hunted for the language in the House climate change bill that set aside emissions allowances for transportation projects, I wondered how the Senate treated the issue in its climate bill last year.
June 29, 2009
House Climate Bill on Green Transpo: The Details
Late Update: An earlier version of this post used the committee-approved version of
the climate bill rather than the final, House-passed version. The climate bill's identifying number was changed at the last minute, from the original H.R. 2454 to H.R. 2998, which can be downloaded at the fourth link from the top on the House Rules Committee's website. Streetsblog Capitol Hill regrets the error.
June 29, 2009