E2-Wire

Dana Milbank used a recent Washington Post column to suggest that climate change activists looking to make headway should "put away the slides of polar bears and pine beetles" and "keep the focus on national security and jobs."

But what about color photos of threatened birds?

The Interior Department, in concert with several conservation groups, on Thursday released "The State of the Birds: 2010 Report on Climate Change," a study that surveys the effects of global warming on various bird species.

The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Larry Persily to head a federal office tasked with pushing forward a long-delayed pipeline project.

Over on our opinion page, Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship and environmental attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr. slug it out over the future of coal. Worth a read.

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) is attacking General Motors and Chrysler for participating in a coalition lobbying for climate legislation in light of the automakers' receipt of billions of dollars in taxpayer assistance.

Barton, the top Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee, wrote letters to the two companies’ CEOs Thursday about the automakers’ role in the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a group formed in 2007 that unites large companies and environmental groups in favor of cap-and-trade legislation.

“I write to ask whether it is in the interest of the American public and U.S. taxpayers for GM to continue to support lobbying by the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) after the taxpayers rescued GM, and whether financial support for this organization could be put to better use in the interest of taxpayers and your company,” Barton wrote to GM. A nearly identical letter went to Chrysler.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) has put her proposal to nullify EPA’s power to regulate greenhouse gases on hold while she watches the progress of Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s (D-W.Va.) less aggressive plan to do the same thing.

Murkowski has 40 co-sponsors for a resolution that would nix EPA’s endangerment finding that the gases threaten humans. The finding is a legal precursor for all planned EPA rules to limit emissions under its current Clean Air Act powers.

Rockefeller has introduced a separate bill that would stop EPA regulation of greenhouse gases from stationary industrial sources like power plants and factories for two years.

“Climategate” and reports of errors in a U.N. report on climate change may be having some effect on how the public views global warming.

According to Gallup’s annual update of American attitudes toward the environment, 48 percent of Americans now believe that the seriousness of global warming is generally exaggerated. That’s up from 41 percent a year ago and 31 percent in 1997, when the polling company first asked the question.

A majority of Americans still believe global warming is real, but the number is falling. According to the poll, Americans are less convinced that humans are causing climate change. In 2003, 61 percent of Americans said temperature increases were due to human activity. Now, a “significantly diminished” 50 percent say humans are to blame, and 46 percent think not.

There is some evidence in the poll that the news stories on errors in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report and the controversy over emails hacked from a prominent climate research institution in the United Kingdom are weakening Americans' belief that there is a consensus about the causes of global warming. "Roughly half of Americans now say that 'most scientists believe that global warming is occurring,' down from 65 percent in recent years," according to Gallup.

The governors have officially joined the fight against EPA’s move to regulate carbon dioxide.

Governors from 18 states – only one a Democrat – wrote to congressional leaders that EPA’s effort would “increase the cost of electricity and gasoline prices, manufactured products, and ultimately harm the competitiveness of the U.S. economy.”

“We strongly urge Congress to stop harmful EPA regulation of greenhouse-gas emissions that could damage those vital interests,” the letter states, in Dow Jones.

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A mostly Republican group of 20 state and territorial governors is urging Congress to block EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

A letter Wednesday from the governors – 18 Republicans and two Democrats – to House and Senate leaders alleges that planned EPA rules to limit heat-trapping emissions would harm their state economies.

“We feel compelled to guard against a regulatory approach that would increase the cost of electricity and gasoline prices, manufactured products, and ultimately harm the competitiveness of the U.S. economy,” states the letter to Democratic and GOP leadership.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) has provided Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) a wish list of items for climate change legislation that includes a lengthy delay before greenhouse gas limits are imposed on industrial facilities.

Levin is a pivotal voice on climate policy. His state includes Detroit automakers and other manufacturing interests that fear the costs of climate legislation and its effects on their competitiveness.

In a March 5 letter to Kerry – who is playing a leading role in Senate climate negotiations –  Levin calls for a delay of at least 10 years before industrial plants face regulations. Levin argues that a further delay should be provided “if important trade provisions to assure a level playing field are not included and fully implemented.”

A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a bill today to provide homeowners and businesses with low-interest loans to make energy efficiency improvements to cut their energy use.

The measure would grant $4.9 billion in loan authority to the Rural Utilities Services, which finances rural electric utilities. The RUS loans to the electric co-ops would be zero percent interest, and given on the condition that the co-ops would in turn make low-interest loans to their customers for things like installing insulation, replacing old heating and cooling systems and repairing leaky roofs.

The co-op loans could not exceed interest rates of greater than 3 percent.

“This bill provides for energy conservation, job creation and cost-effective upgrades that will improve consumers’ quality of life,” House Majority Leader Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) said in a statement.