supreme court

Smithsonian Magazine has posted some unusual portraits of jolly Saint Nick and asked readers to vote for the Scariest Santa.  Here’s my choice:                               ...[read more]

Peter Lehner, Executive Director, New York City Tuesday the Supreme Court heard oral argument in American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut. In the case, six states and several other plaintiffs claimed that the nation’s five largest greenhouse gas polluters were contributing to a nuisance and that the court should order them to reduce...[read more]

In a setback for environmentalists, the Supreme Court signaled Tuesday that it would throw out a huge global warming lawsuit brought by California and five other states that seeks limits on carbon pollution from coal-fired power plants in the South and Midwest. Sad.  Doubly sad that he Obama administration’s support for the...[read more]

A vocal group in Congress is attacking the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to reduce carbon dioxide emissions through the Clean Air Act. These lawmakers say leaving the EPA in charge of large polluters is bad for business.If they were truly interested in helping to turn our economy and getting Americans back to work, they...[read more]

In a big step forward to protect Americans’ health and well-being, EPA is announcing today a two-year plan to set clean air standards for power plants and oil refineries, the two largest industrial sources of the dangerous pollution that drives global warming.    Following on the heels of the Obama administration’s breakthrough...[read more]

The Supreme Court will hear challenges by America's biggest power companies to a landmark appeals court ruling in Connecticut v. American Electric Power that they can be sued to curb their emissions of carbon dioxide, the main cause of global warming.  Four coal-burning power companies – American Electric Power, Southern Company,...[read more]

An older transmission power track and power line stands tall against a Kansas sunset north of Topeka, Kansas. Utilities are vying to build a new power system to stretch across the state that would give six times more capacity than the present systems. The upgraded systems will be needed to help fully harness wind power generation....[read more]

This post does not necessarily represent the opinions or priorities of Focus the Nation, and instead represents Mark Kimbrell’s sentiments alone. Jesse Jenkins contributed to this post through many informative discussions and a comprehensive suggested reading list. Last week represented defeat after defeat for the climate movement...[read more]

I’ve spent the past several hours reading the Supreme Court’s opinion in Citizens United vs. the FEC; the document is available at the Supreme Court web site, and I encourage anyone who has an opinion about or interest in political expression and freedom of speech to read it. In other words, every American citizen, and our republic,...[read more]

Big business just got a huge shot in the arm yesterday thanks to a Supreme Court of the United States ruling that removes restrictions for federal campaign financing by corporations, unions, and other special interest groups (See "A Shocking Win for the Fat Cats"). The argument made by the majority boils down to the need to give...[read more]

[Note: Tom Schueneman is a San Francisco based environmental journalist. This dispatch from the UN climate summit in Copenhagen is Tom's first post at ecopolitology. We're fortunate to have him on board. -TH] As the first week of the COP15 climate conference in Copenhagen begins to draw to a close, it is clear that emotions run high as...[read more]

After a thorough examination of the scientific evidence and careful consideration of public comments, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today that greenhouse gases (GHGs) threaten the public health and welfare of the American people. EPA also finds that GHG emissions from on-road vehicles contribute to that threat...[read more]

President Obama has chosen federal appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court.  The African American Environmentalist Association has an extended discussion of her energy and environmental views, reprinted below:Judge Sonia Sotomayor [above] wrote an opinion in Riverkeeper v. EPA, 475 F.3d 83 (2d Cir. 2007), that the EPA was...[read more]

One of the first conjectured short-lists of possible replacements for retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter comes from the Atlantic: Among those who might make the list of replacements: incoming solicitor general Elena Kagan, formerly the dean of the Harvard Law School,  Cass Sunstein, a brilliant constitutional law...[read more]

From Environmental Capital:The Supreme Court ruled today in favor of a power company. That’s not necessarily a bad thing for the environment....Specifically, the court said, using the “best available technology” to tackle any given environmental problem means using the most efficient approach—not necessarily the best technology if it is...[read more]