The week ahead: Climate change makes cameo in Sandy debate

This week the Senate will debate a $60 billion package to pay for recovery and rebuilding from Hurricane Sandy — a bill that at least implicitly addresses climate change.
 
The disaster relief package doesn’t contain the phrases “climate change” or “global warming,” but encourages consideration of the effects of rising sea levels and other climate-linked factors in the rebuilding effort.
 
From the bill text: “In carrying out activities funded by this title that involve repairing, rebuilding, or restoring infrastructure and restoring land, project sponsors shall consider, where appropriate, the increased risks and vulnerabilities associated with future extreme weather events, sea level rise and coastal flooding.”

It similarly says that federal agencies, in partnership with state and local governments, should seek to ensure that recovery and rebuilding plans “reduce vulnerabilities from and build long-term resiliency to future extreme weather events, sea level rise and coastal flooding.”
 
It also makes money available for “regional projections and assessments of future risks and vulnerabilities.”
 
Across Capitol Hill, this week the House will consider legislation that authorizes the Interior Department to issue rights-of-way for natural gas pipelines in Glacier National Park in Montana.
 
Advocates and critics of expiring wind energy tax credits, meanwhile, will continue their competing lobbying campaigns as the credit's Dec. 31 expiration looms.
 
The American Wind Energy Association, which calls the credit’s renewal vital to financing new power projects, sought to gain traction last Wednesday by offering an olive branch of sorts.
 
The group floated a plan to extend the credit by one year and then reduce it slowly over the next five years. But Capitol Hill opponents of renewing the credit slammed the plan.
 
Off Capitol Hill this week, on Tuesday the Atlantic Council will host a forum titled “Energy and Security from the Caspian to Europe.”
 
It will delve into a new report of the same name written by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Republican staff.
 
Retiring Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the committee’s top Republican, floated legislation alongside the report that would authorize U.S. natural gas exports to NATO allies.