Hill Heat

Breaking from most national environmental organizations, Friends of the Earth has issued a detailed critique of the Kerry-Boxer Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, which limits global warming pollution and invests in clean energy:

We commend Senators Boxer and Kerry for their dedication to combating the important problem of climate change but we cannot support a bill that fails to solve the problem. Overall the draft is riddled with loopholes and does not go far enough to protect the planet.

Friends of the Earth’s “areas of concern” include:

Emissions Cap: Science demands at least a 40% reduction in emissions, compared to 1990, by 2020. The draft bill has emissions reductions targets of about 20 percent below 2005 levels – nowhere near what a fair U.S. contribution to a global emissions reductions should be to avert climate catastrophe

Clean Air Act: The draft bill prohibits the Administration from regulating greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants and other stationary sources until 2020.

Offset Loopholes: The extensive use of unreliable offsets in this draft bill, up to 2 billion tons a year, seriously undermines the integrity of the already weak emissions cap and delays the health, environmental, and economic benefits of shifting to a low-carbon economy.

Methane Regulations: The House-passed bill would require emissions from landfills, coal mines and natural gas pipelines to be regulated, but under the Kerry-Boxer draft, these sources can voluntarily capture methane in exchange for offset payments.

Markets Regulations: The bill would create from scratch a new commodities market for carbon that could quickly be the largest market in the world and has no specifics on how that market would be regulated.

Subsidizes Dirty Energy: The bill gives special subsidies to expensive, unsafe and environmentally damaging technologies such as nuclear reactors and carbon capture and sequestration and capture for coal plants, not to mention ambiguous incentives for biofuels.

Friends of the Earth’s policy team will be taking a deeper look at the bill in further days and release a more detailed analysis at a later date so that we can work with the Senate to pass legislation that will fairly and effectively address the problem of climate change.

With the U.S. facing combined threats from economic and climate crises, the Blue Green Alliance and its labor and environmental partners are releasing their policy recommendations calling for passage of comprehensive climate legislation, driven by a cap-and-trade system, in 2009. Through strong climate legislation, America can jumpstart its economic recovery and create millions of good jobs for America’s workforce.

The press teleconference will be on Friday, March 27, at 10 a.m. ET and will coincide with the release of the BGA policy statement on climate change.

The call will include Leo Gerard, International President, United Steelworkers; Frances Beinecke, President, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC); Jim Clark, President, IUE-CWA; and David Foster, Executive Director of the Blue Green Alliance, who will discuss the urgency for climate change legislation, as well as the political and economic dynamics in the debate around this issue. Climate change legislation is needed in 2009 to rapidly put people back to work with millions of jobs building the clean energy economy, promote long-term economic growth and reduce global warming emissions to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

CALL-IN: (888) 275 – 4480 Reference ID #: 92215225

Participants

• United Steelworkers International President Leo Gerard
• NRDC President Frances Beinecke
• IUE-CWA President Jim Clark
• Blue Green Alliance Executive Director David Foster

27/03/2009 at 10:00AM

Senate Finance Committee member Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and House Energy and Commerce Committee member Jay Inslee, D-Wash., will join Laborers’ International Union general president Terence O’Sullivan, Sierra Club political director Cathy Duvall, and clean energy business leaders and workers for a news conference on Tuesday, February 3 at 11 a.m. ET at the United States Capitol to urge Congressional leaders to take bold action to create a new Green American Dream for working people by making sure the newly created green jobs are good jobs that can sustain families and fuel economic recovery.

Speakers will release a new report analyzing the varied quality of existing green jobs (some paying as little as $8.25 an hour), and urge Congress to take bold action to ensure that the major public investments in Congress’ economic recovery and reinvestment plan create a green economy that rebuilds the middle class and renews the American Dream for America’s workers.

The report release comes a day before hundreds of labor, environmental and business advocates go to Capitol Hill — on Wednesday, February 4 — for Green Jobs Advocacy Day to educate lawmakers about the job-creating opportunities that exist in the green economy.

Participants

• Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.
• Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash.
• Terence O’Sullivan, general pres., LIUNA
• Cathy Duvall, political dir., Sierra Club
• Michael Peck, dir. Human Resources, Gamesa
• Dennis Wilde, Gerding Edlen Development
• David Foster, exec. dir., Blue Green Alliance
• Perrette Hopkins, trainee, Garden State Alliance for a New Economy

03/02/2009 at 11:00AM

Hill Heat has learned that NRDC legislative director Karen Wayland will return to Congress as a climate and energy policy adviser for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Dr. Wayland holds a dual Ph.D. in geology and resource development from Michigan State University.

From 2001 to 2003, Dr. Wayland served as the American Geophysical Union Congressional Science Fellow for Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), working on nuclear waste, water, energy and Native American issues, immediately upon completion of her doctoral dissertation.

Carl Pope, the 16-year executive director of the Sierra Club, has announced he plans to step down from his position when a new director is found. Pope noted the election of President Obama as “a very exciting time for the Sierra Club and the environmental movement.”

Pope released the following statement:

After 16 years I have decided to step down from my position as Executive Director of the Sierra Club. While I look forward to continuing to serve the Club in a new capacity, I am ready to turn the leadership of the organization over to someone new. Over these years I have made many wonderful friends, and experienced both joyful victories and tragic setbacks in our struggle for a sustainable future. I look forward to many more such victories as I continue this work. My decision comes at a very exciting time for the Sierra Club and the environmental movement. The election of President Barack Obama, and the increase in the number of environmental champions in the Congress, means that after eight years of bitter defense, it is time for America to resume its tradition of environmental leadership.

Day 1: Cooler Heads Prevailing

Background Briefings on Facts, Trends, Policy and Politics

9:40-10:00: U.S. Transportation Policy – Survey of ISTEA-SAFETEA-LU

• Michael Replogle: Environmental Defense

10:00-10:10: Break

10:10-11:00 Where Are We Going? – Demographic, market and policy trends changing the context for transportation * Chris Leinberger: Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Center; University of Michigan; and

• Rob Puentes: Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Center

11:00-12:15: Tools for Shaping a Low Carbon Transportation Future Panel Discussion and Q & A

Growing Cooler – smart growth and transit

• Geoff Anderson: Smart Growth America; Transportation for America

Enhancing walking and biking

• Kevin Mills: Rails to Trails Conservancy

Intelligent transportation systems and pricing

• Leslie Barras: ITS America

Blueprint Plans

• Mike McKeever: Sacramento Area Council of Governments

12:15-1:30: Lunch

Lunch speaker – New Vision for American Transportation (12:45-1:30)

• Jannette Sadik-Kahn: New York City Department of Transportation

1:30-3:00: Politics and Policy: Transportation and Climate

1:30-1:50: Policy in Brief: A summary of action to date at the state and federal level

• Marty Spitzer: Center for Clean Air Policy

1:50-2:30: Perspectives from the Hill

• Amy Scarton, Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
• Susan Binder: Committee on Environment and Public Works

2:30-3:30: Perspectives from Off-the-Hill

• Don Ross: Transportation for America
• Art Guzzetti: American Public Transportation Association
• Polly Trottenberg: Building America’s Future
• Joshua Shank: Bipartisan Policy Center
• Bill Ankner: American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials

3:30-3:45: Break

3:45-5:30: What’s the Vision: A Proposal for the Green Groups and CLEAN

3:45-4:45: Proposal for Platform, with Group Discussion

• Colin Peppard: Friends of the Earth

4:45–5:00: Fundraising

• David Burwell

5:00-5:30: Designing a Winning Green Campaign: Discussion of Goals and Overview of Next Meeting

• Deron Lovaas: Natural Resources Defense Council

5:30-???: Happy Hour

The Pew Environment Group
1025 F Street NW, 9th Floor
Washington, DC 20004

Telephone: (202) 552-2000

RSVP

21/11/2008 at 09:40AM

Leading national conservation groups will hold an afternoon press conference next Wednesday, November 5th to discuss the unprecedented role of energy and global warming as issues in this year’s elections.

The groups will recap their own political programs and endorsements, outline how candidates up and down the ballot engaged on key issues, and will begin to lay out what a new administration and Congress will mean for clean energy, economic recovery and global warming.

• Gene Karpinski, President, League of Conservation Voters
• Cathy Duvall, Political Director, Sierra Club
• Anna Aurilio, Washington DC Director, Environment America
• Robert Wendelgass, National Deputy Director, Clean Water Action
• Sue Brown, Executive Director, National Wildlife Federation Action Fund

Where:

National Press Club First Amendment Lounge 529 14th St. NW 13th Floor Washington, DC

Visuals will include presentation of group and candidate ads from throughout the campaign

03/11/2008 at 04:09PM

The American Climate Values Survey is cutting edge, actionable research that provides important strategic guidance to leaders of the environmental movement looking to reach new audiences or be more effective with their communications efforts.

For questions, please contact Kara Davidson (202-457-1126) or [email protected].

ACVS is sponsored by NRDC, the Alliance for Climate Protection, EcoAmerica, California Conservation, and the Nature Conservancy.

The Nature Conservancy First Floor Conference Center 4245 North Fairfax Drive, Suite 100 Arlington, VA 22203-1606

01/10/2008 at 08:30AM

A coalition of 16 environmental organizations (and the League of Women Voters) is sending a joint letter to U.S. Senators indicating a joint position on the Baucus-Grassley tax extenders package (H.R. 6049). They write:

On behalf of our millions of members and activists, we urge Congress to pass the clean energy tax incentives included in the Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008 and strip the bill of incentives for dirty fossil fuels. Congress should take this opportunity to promote a new energy economy and begin the fight against global warming, and not reward the big oil and dirty coal industries.

The organizations are the Alaska Wilderness League, Audubon, the Center for International Environmental Law, Clean Water Action, Defenders of Wildlife, Earthjustice, Environment America, the Environmental Defense Fund, Friends of the Earth, League of Conservation Voters, League of Women Voters of the United States, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, The Wilderness Society, and the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The National Wildlife Federation, because of the “sweeping new federal subsidies for oil shale, tar sands and liquid coal refining,” “dirty fuels that will dramatically increase global warming pollution and threaten millions of acres of wildlife habitat,” is sending a letter in unambiguous opposition to Baucus-Grassley.

The text of both letters is after the jump.

As votes near this evening on the “all of the above” Democratic energy package (H.R. 6899), National Wildlife Federation president Larry Schweiger sent a letter to Congress opposing the bill because it lifts the oil shale moratorium. He writes:

The public, including National Wildlife Federation’s four million members and supporters, wants Congress to take the urgent and necessary steps that will give consumers better energy choices, cut oil dependency and cut global warming pollution. While we favor many provisions in the Comprehensive American Energy Security and Taxpayer Protection Act (H.R. 6899), especially when compared to the expected motion to recommit, we oppose the bill because of its provision allowing commercial oil shale leasing. As a result of this provision, the bill fails to address the fundamental challenge of avoiding significant new increases in global warming pollution and protecting important wildlife habitat on our public lands.

League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski issued the following statement opposing the Republican motion to recommit:

Drilling is no longer the issue – unfortunately, both H.R. 6899 and the motion to recommit include drilling. The issue today is whether or not each Member of Congress will stand up for the American people or stand with the oil industry lobbyists.

All summer, Republicans have called for an ‘All of the Above’ plan on energy. Now, presented with a compromise that gives them everything they’ve asked for, the Republican leadership refuses to support it. Instead, they offer a motion to recommit, which will remove every provision from the bill that Big Oil doesn’t like: provisions that reduce tax breaks to Big Oil and extend them to renewable energy companies, increase efficiency, and create the first national renewable energy standard.

How each member votes will highlight the real differences between those in Congress who support clean energy as central to America’s energy future, and those who remain tied to big oil and want to keep us stuck in the past. LCV opposes the motion to recommit and calls on the Members of Congress who support it to stop working for the oil companies and start working for the American people.