Green Options

The seven Republican members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will boycott next Tuesday’s planned markup of the Kerry-Boxer climate legislation. Ah yes, the “screw you guys, I’m going home” tactic. How productive.

Only 2% of companies are covered by the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, but that 2% represents 70% of US emissions, says Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.), the bill’s co-sponsor.

In an unexpected U-turn, the U.S. Senate has agreed to continue to back research for the next generation of hydrogen cars - funding that the Obama administration had earlier proposed to cut.

The move came last Thursday as Senate members voted to commit $187 million to hydrogen research, almost as much as was promised before the indecision.

Nike just announced that it is leaving its position on the US Chamber of Commerce board of directors because of the business organization’s opposition to climate action.

Nike doesn’t beat around the bush on why it is leaving the board.

In the midst of a week when climate change finally stole back some of the spotlight that had been hogged by health care reform for months, the Senate fought off a potentially devastating attempt to emasculate the EPA and its recently won power to regulate greenhouse gases.

Once upon a time, Obama’s plan called for cap-and-trade dollars to fund health care reform. Greens should be watching the health care fight, because the closer he gets to a bill, the more he will need cap-and-trade in order to pay for it.

If the Senate can get 60 votes for climate change legislation, these are the six Senators that lobbyists will be courting, the White House will be pressing, and you should be watching.

In a recent Zogby telephone poll conducted to gauge public opinion on the the Waxman-Markey climate bill, the results showed that a majority of Americans are finally behind climate legislation.

By most accounts, the Obama administration’s “Cash for Clunkers” program is a resounding success.

Last Wednesday, the Senate passed the Energy and Water Appropriations Bill (H.R. 3183), appropriating $34.3 billion in energy spending for FY2010. Although the bill made good on Obama’s campaign promise to shut down Nevada’s Yucca Mountain nuclear waste facility and funds numerous Army Corps of Engineers’ water initiatives, the bill is shockingly silent with regard to Obama’s energy education program RE-ENERGYSE.

A recent article by TIME’s Bryan Walsh also calls attention to Congress’s stinginess with Obama’s Energy Secretary, Steven Chu’s proposed “energy innovation hubs,” to which the House appropriated $35 million of $280 million he suggested. This allotment is enough to pay for one hub, not the eight R&D centers called for in Chu’s proposal.

The good folks at Grist put together a comprehensive analysis of the 50 Senators’ treatment of energy and climate on their interwebs pages. And the results weren’t exactly flattering.