Hill Heat

CQ reports that Air Force Undersecretary Ronald M. Sega plans to deliver the keynote address to a Coal-to-Liquids Coalition conference August 15 in West Virginia. Other speakers include John P. Murtha, D-Pa., House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee chairman, and Natural Resources Chairman Nick J. Rahall II, D-W.Va.

The Washington Post reports that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is in talks with House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John D. Dingell (Mich.) on how to introduce the CAFE standards legislation that passed the Senate last month. Also of interest from the article, discussing the overall House energy legislation:

Lobbyists are still working to alter key parts of the legislation as it moves to the House floor and later to conference committee with the Senate. The American Petroleum Institute has been lobbying to limit the impact of tax measures that would effectively boost oil companies’ corporate income tax rate and increase royalty payments. Coal and nuclear advocates are pushing for additional loan guarantees and tax breaks. Beef and poultry producers that use corn feed hope to dilute incentives for corn-based ethanol.

In today’s Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the Kyoto Protocol, Dana Rohrabacher calls federally funded climate scientists “scientists on the dole”. Read that and more from my live-blog coverage of the hearing.

This is my first real post on Hill Heat, the dynamic site focused entirely on covering global warming developments on Capitol Hill. You’ll find a complete listing of global-warming related Congressional hearings and other events, as well as informative commentary and analysis. Future features include bill tracking, live webcasts, and the ability to search the hearing database by committee, topic, witness, or whatever you choose. Drop me a line at cunctator at hillheat any time.

Crossposted at Daily Kos.

Last week I diaried on the key battles in the Senate energy bill, the Renewable Fuels, Consumer Protection, and Energy Efficiency Act of 2007 (SA 1502):

• No on Coal-to-Liquid
• No on restricting EPA or state regulation of motor vehicle emissions of greenhouse gases
• No on diluting definition of biofuels
• No on changing “renewable” to “alternative” in legislation
• No on offshore drilling
• Yes on strong CAFE standards (no on weakening further)
• Yes on price-gouging regulation (the right-wingers are fighting this hard)
• Yes on national Renewable Portfolio Standard of 15% by 2015, 20% by 2020 (if we’re lucky, we’ll get legislation for 15% by 2020)
• Yes on incentives for distributed generation (aka cogeneration, net metering, electranet) at the commercial and residential level
• Yes on support for energy efficiency, especially
• Yes on funding of The Weatherization Assistance Program
• Yes on funding renewable energy by removing some oil subsidies

So what were the results?