Energy & Environment

As a nation, we face a very grave energy dilemma. We've had the highest natural gas prices in the world for the last five years. Rising prices, coupled with our increased dependence on natural gas from politically unfriendly countries, has the potential to make us a second-rate county. In my view the price and availability of natural gas is a greater concern to America's economic future than global warming or terror or the two combined.

Currently there are two separate, but largely overlapping moratoria preventing energy exploration along more than 85 percent of the federal OCS. One is congressional - the result of a provision in an annual appropriations bill precluding the Department of the Interior from leasing offshore tracts for exploration. The other is presidential, first adopted in 1990 by President George H.W. Bush and later extended by Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush. The current presidential ban, which President Bush could withdraw tomorrow, expires in 2012; the congressional ban, which I seek to lift, is up for review each year. Read more...

Last week, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin told NPR that he is unsure whether global warming is "a problem we must wrestle with."

As the world's most renowned scientists concluded in the International Panel on Climate Change reports this year, the debate on global warming is over: global warming is occurring, humans are contributing to the problem and we need to curb the greenhouse gases that cause it.

It's not rocket science. Read more...

After hearing the news from the White House that President Bush was set to unveil his new strategy for combating global warming, I wondered if he had finally returned to where he began? Was he finally going to make good on his broken promise from the 2000 campaign to support the Kyoto Protocol, and lead the international effort to solve global warming?

Well, it’s now clear the answer is no. Not only is the President’s “plan Read more...

While it's encouraging that President Bush may finally be accepting the seriousness of greenhouse gas emissions, his vague plans for technology transfers and voluntary emissions targets will not resolve the issue. There's a pressing need to address the issue of global warming, and the solution must recognize the urgency.

President Bush's proposal duplicates and could undermine the ongoing efforts to build on the Kyoto Protocol and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It is unlikely that a parallel effort would result in a new international agreement that truly addresses global warming.

As the world's leading emitter of greenhouse gases, we have an obligation to convincingly lead the way forward. If the United States fails to limit its own pollution, it is unrealistic to believe that India or China would do so. To resolve this crisis, we must work with the rest of the world to agree on binding goals and a protocol for international enforcement.

A surprisingly large minority of ExxonMobil shareholders, nearly one-third, demanded Thursday at their annual meeting that the company reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and develop sources of renewable energy. Such a large vote for an outsider resolution on any issue except corporate governance would have been unthinkable a few years ago.

Even shareholders who are currently gaining wealth from Exxon’s sole focus on oil and gas see that it can’t last. Just ask industrial dinosaurs like General Motors whether they should have changed course sooner. If Exxon remains unresponsive, the next challenge will be how many of these deeply concerned investors -- including giants like CalPERS, California’s state employee benefits overseer -- decide to take their billions out of a company that can’t see where its own future lies.

Among the institutional shareholders voting for the global warming resolution was Stanford University, which is under fire for taking strings-attached research money from Exxon, then allowing the company to trumpet its Stanford connection as proof of its green credentials. Exxon even cited the university project, which critics call “Big Oil U, Read more...

I applaud the President for recognizing that international cooperation to address climate change is both necessary and possible only with U.S participation.  The U.S. and U.S. companies are more likely to benefit from international negotiations and international market opportunities if we lead rather than follow efforts to promote economic growth combined with reductions in fossil fuels use and emissions.

President Bush’s announcement yesterday that he will invite the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters to negotiate a new framework for addressing climate change is a welcome signal -- but the test for the President’s credibility in those talks will be his support for bipartisan legislation, now under consideration in Congress, to put a mandatory cap on emissions.

Leading U.S. companies have called for tough emissions reduction targets with trading, and the Bush administration has the opportunity to set the example for the world by working with U.S. lawmakers to enact a cap and trade bill. If the President doesn't show leadership at home by turning his words into action, he will lose the opportunity to lead internationally.

President Bush also should make clear that the goal of his summit is to support the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s goal of stabilizing the atmosphere to avert dangerous climate change. If that is the goal, it will mean a greater willingness on his part to work with the Group of 8 industrialized nations and key developing country leaders that Chancellor Angela Merkel has engaged in Heiligendamm.

Reiterating the chorus from the song "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands," Sen. Chris Dodd's (D-Conn.) campaign team launched a global warming commercial this week to address global warming.

"All the earth's creatures are threatened by global warming," the narrator in the commercial said. "One candidate for president is doing something to stop it."

This week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) held its first hearings in response to California’s long-standing request to implement landmark global warming emissions standards for new automobiles. Under the Clean Air Act (CAA), California is permitted to set higher vehicle emissions standards than the federal government, with other states given the option to enact either the federal or the California standard. By affirming EPA’s authority to regulate global warming pollutants under the CAA in Mass. v. EPA, the Supreme Court placed California’s own efforts to do so under the CAA on solid legal footing. California and thirteen other states -- comprising some forty percent of the U.S. auto market -- have shown bold leadership on global warming by enacting these standards and continue to wait for the EPA to grant them the waiver they need to move forward.

EPA should give California its Clean Air Act waiver immediately. Instead of sitting in neutral until the last days of 2008, it’s well past time for the Bush administration to get out of the way and let these states shift the fight against global warming into high gear. Read more...