WonkLine: June 3, 2009
From the Wonk Room.
“Climate change could spark ‘environmental wars’ in the Middle East over already scarce water supplies and dissuade Israel from any pullout from occupied Arab land,” a report from the International Institute for Sustainable Development warns: “In a region already considered the world’s most water scarce, climate models are predicting a hotter, drier and less predictable climate.”
“A recession, the worst GDP drop since the 1950s, is the wrong circumstance, the wrong backdrop to introduce legislation that would revolutionize the energy economy in this country,” said Rep. Artur Davis (D-AL), who has “urged House Democratic leaders and the Obama administration to ditch the cap-and-trade provisions until the economy picks up.”
Two different coalitions of agriculture lobbies have asked House leadership to modify the agricultural and forestry carbon offsets program in Waxman-Markey (H.R. 2454).