Hill Heat

On September 18, Sen. Bingaman (D-N.M.) told a local activist that media magnate Ted Turner visited his office to ask what he can do to convince more senators to support climate legislation. Turner owns several vast ranches in New Mexico, established as wildlife preserves. “If we know something about the problem and don’t do it,” Turner has previously commented, “then we don’t deserve to live.”

BINGAMAN: He came in this week to lobby me on – or not lobby me really, but just basically talk about what needs to be done to get some type of climate change legislation enacted. He’s very committed on that issue, and part of what he’s taken on – I mean he’s done an awful lot, as you know, with support for the United Nations – but on climate change he’s committed as well. And he was in here with some of his key people to talk about what he could do to persuade more people in the Senate to assist with climate change legislation.

Putting the Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill “on a fast-track” for passage, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “issued an ultimatum to her committee chairmen: move climate change legislation by June 19 or risk losing jurisdiction over the bill.”

“Stephen Ward, chief of staff for Senate Energy Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M, said Wednesday that lawmakers fear a ratepayer backlash” if carbon pollution is capped, telling “a room full of alternative-energy financiers at the Lazard Capital Markets Alternative Energy Investor Summit” that he foresees “a more modest bill” than Waxman-Markey coming from the Senate.

Researchers have discovered that the Phragmites “super weed” emits toxic chemicals to kill competitors, and “the poison becomes even more toxic” because of global warming’s effect on ultraviolet radiation.