gop

It's only Tuesday and already it's another disappointing week for transportation law. The House GOP has shelved its 90-day extension due to - surprise! - inability to get the votes to pass it. A 60-day extension is in the offing now, with the vote slated for who knows when; they just pulled it back at the last minute, most likely due...[read more]

The Republican Party has turned the Environmental Protection Agency into a political punching bag in the past year. GOP lawmakers routinely call for abolishing the agency and scraping the government standards that protect us from pollution. These attacks are part of the GOP’s larger ideological war against government regulation. But what...[read more]

During much of the last decade, LLNL researcher and University of California Physics professor Richard Muller has been something of a darling too the right-wing GW deniers. In December 2003 Muller published a column in the MIT's Technology Review, announcing support for the contentions of notorious climate change skeptics Steve...[read more]

The Obama administration's controversial decision to zero-fund (and effectively cancel) the Yucca Mountain spent fuel repository - in violation of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act - was generally regarded as a decision which would only be reversed by a subsequent administration. (One can argue about whether the 1987 amendment to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act mandating Yucca mountain was a good or fair idea, but it still is the law, bad law as it may be.)[read more]

Debates are underway in the United States as contenders seek the Republican party nomination to challenge Barack Obama in the 2012 U.S. presidential election. Last week’s debate was the first for Texas Governor Rick Perry, whose front-runner status appeared to take a slip to former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney following...[read more]

With Solyndra executives take the Fifth Amendment to escape scrutiny form Congressional investigators, the ‘open’ season on Federal loan guarantees means any credible push for green jobs has run its course. That said, any continued finger-pointing holds opportunities and risks for both Democrats and the GOP. 'Jobs yes but leaving the...[read more]

Out of Australia, a solid and succinct evaluation of the political difficulties of climate action:People on the left instinctively believe in communal action, the role of government and the efficacy of international agencies such as the UN. They were always going to believe in climate change; it's the sort of problem that can best be...[read more]

Here's an intriguing story to kick off the new year with a little retrospection...Flash back to 2008, and nearly all of the top GOP contenders for a 2012 presidential run were taking global warming pretty seriously and offering real, if measured, endorsements of Congressional or state action to curb pollution and GHGs.On the campaign...[read more]

With the Republican Party's newly won control of the House of Representatives, national energy policy could be rolled back to 2005, with all legislative advances under a Democratic Party majority at risk. Republicans could adopt a dual-track strategy that attacks energy regulation through budget reductions of the Environmental Protection Agency that de-fund efforts to impose carbon emissions on industrial infrastructure, at a minimum coal-burning utilities and the gas and oil complex of extraction and refining.[read more]

Opposition to “cap-and-trade” legislation to reduce global warming pollution is a common refrain among many Republican and a few Democratic officials this fall. The program is derided as a “cap and tax” that would drain voters’ wallets while bankrupting the nation. But, ironically enough, the three most recent Republican presidents...[read more]

Ron Brownstein pointed out, over the weekend, that the Republican party is almost unique among major political parties across the world in its overwhelming skepticism of the science of global warming. As an American living in America, I counted this as one of the pieces of knowledge I held in my possession, but not one which I tended to...[read more]

by Zachary Shahan, ecopolitologyYes, the illegal hacking of people's private email accounts, the out-of-context quotes pulled from decades of emails, and the excessive media coverage of a false scandal may not be over. While leading scientific bodies conducting multiple independent reviews of these emails have found that the scientific...[read more]

By Jesse Jenkins, originally at the Breakthrough InstituteAccording to most electoral prognosticators, Republicans are poised to win major victories in the upcoming November midterm elections, with control of both the House and Senate within their reach. That should spell the end for climate and clean energy legislation, according to...[read more]

When Earth Day was first celebrated 40 years ago today, environmental distress was in our face. Rivers caught fire, oil spills fouled U.S. shores, toxic waste dumps proliferated, and Los Angeles seemed permanently wreathed in smog. Now we worry more about things we don’t see — runoff and waste from farms, growing carbon concentrations...[read more]

President Obama has delivered on his promise to expand nuclear energy -- big time. But can Republicans take "yes" for an answer? Obama's new budget calls for a whopping increase in federal loan guarantees for nuclear power, from $18.5 billion to $54 billion. Last week, he also created a blue ribbon panel to explore solutions to the...[read more]