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Monday, November 29, 2010
Associated issues: Commitment to Independent and Verifiable Science, Commitment to Cost-Benefit Analysis, National Security and Energy Independence, Get the Facts on Energy & Gas Prices
After more than 20 years, millions of pages of studies, and a reported cost of more than $10 billion, the fate of the nation's first nuclear waste repository is about to be decided.
Or is it?
For months, the normally sleepy Nuclear Regulatory Commission has kept the energy industry and state utility regulators in suspense as it weighs the Obama administration's request to kill the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada -- a project that's been in the works since the Reagan administration.
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Monday, November 22, 2010
Associated issues: Commitment to Independent and Verifiable Science, Global Warming, Cap-and-Tax Opposition Resource Center; Impacts of Costly Climate Bill Exposed, Climategate, Commitment to Oklahoma, Commitment to Cost-Benefit Analysis, National Security and Energy Independence, Get the Facts on Energy & Gas Prices
Roll Call: Inhofe Is Happy to Stand Apart - "He's not seen as a rebel around here by any means ... but he's an independent thinker," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said of the Oklahoma Republican. Inhofe, 76, is comfortable being a contrarian. In an interview last week, he recalled a time when one of his grandchildren "came up to me and said, ‘Pop-I, Why do you always do things that nobody else does?' ... and I said, ‘because nobody else does.'" ..."This earmark debate is a great example" of Inhofe's indifference to public opinion or peer pressure, Graham added. ... Inhofe's colleagues said he is motivated by principles, not politics: "He's very passionate and he can be as partisan as the best of them. But deep down, he wants to help people," a second Republican Senator said ...While most Members look to avoid intraparty confrontation, Inhofe appears to welcome it, taking pride in often being the most hated man in the room.
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Monday, November 22, 2010
Associated issues: Commitment to Independent and Verifiable Science, Improving the Service of the Federal Bureaucracy, Commitment to Cost-Benefit Analysis, National Security and Energy Independence, Get the Facts on Energy & Gas Prices
President Obama famously declared in 2009 that under his Administration the "days of science taking a backseat to ideology are over." Except, apparently, when the Administration wanted to justify its Gulf of Mexico drilling ban this summer.
The White House dropped its deep water drilling ban last month, ending months of government-imposed pain on a Gulf region hit by the BP oil spill. But only last week did the Department of Interior's acting inspector general, Mary Kendall, issue her findings on the moratorium's controversial beginnings. Lackluster though her investigation was, the report confirms that the moratorium never had any basis in science or safety. It was pure politics.
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Monday, November 22, 2010
Associated issues: Commitment to Independent and Verifiable Science, Improving the Service of the Federal Bureaucracy, Global Warming, Cap-and-Tax Opposition Resource Center; Impacts of Costly Climate Bill Exposed, Climategate, Commitment to Oklahoma, National Infrastructure and Public Works Accomplishments, Commitment to Cost-Benefit Analysis, National Security and Energy Independence, Get the Facts on Energy & Gas Prices
In an era of change, Sen. James Inhofe is unapologetic about standing his ground.
"He's not seen as a rebel around here by any means ... but he's an independent thinker," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said of the Oklahoma Republican.
Inhofe, 76, is comfortable being a contrarian. In an interview last week, he recalled a time when one of his grandchildren "came up to me and said, ‘Pop-I, Why do you always do things that nobody else does?' ... and I said, ‘because nobody else does.'"
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Friday, November 19, 2010
Associated issues: Cap-and-Tax Opposition Resource Center; Impacts of Costly Climate Bill Exposed, Commitment to Oklahoma, Commitment to Cost-Benefit Analysis, Get the Facts on Energy & Gas Prices
U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe reportedly was the only member of the Senate's Republican caucus who voted this week against a moratorium on earmarks - the process by which members of Congress designate federal spending on specific projects in their states and districts. Sen. Lisa Murkowski missed the vote because she was in Alaska awaiting the conclusion of her re-election race, but says she would have voted against the ban if she had been around.
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Thursday, November 18, 2010
Associated issues: Commitment to Independent and Verifiable Science, Global Warming, Cap-and-Tax Opposition Resource Center; Impacts of Costly Climate Bill Exposed, Commitment to Oklahoma, Commitment to Cost-Benefit Analysis, Get the Facts on Energy & Gas Prices
Cap and trade may be dead in the Senate, according to newly installed Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, but Republicans warn the news of its demise have been exaggerated.
Manchin told a teleconference of West Virginia reporters Monday that he had received assurances from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that cap and trade would not see the light of day in the Senate - either in the lame duck session or in the 112th Congress.
"I got his commitment that cap and trade will definitely not be on the agenda and won't be on the agenda during the next Congress," Manchin told reporters following his swearing in. "I have a deep commitment and a personal commitment from him that cap and trade is dead."
Observers attribute Reid's reluctance to pursue cap and trade to a lack of votes in the Senate and to opposition from the incoming Republican House majority. Outgoing senators who supported cap and trade, such as Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter, are being replaced in the 112th Congress by Republicans who oppose it.
"They don't have the numbers, but the administration is working hard on imposing cap and trade through regulation," Republican Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe told The Daily Caller.
The senator predicts Carol Browner, President Obama's climate change czar, will circumvent Congress and use executive branch regulatory power to implement cap and trade.
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Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Associated issues: Commitment to Independent and Verifiable Science, Global Warming, Cap-and-Tax Opposition Resource Center; Impacts of Costly Climate Bill Exposed, Commitment to Oklahoma, Commitment to Cost-Benefit Analysis, Get the Facts on Energy & Gas Prices
Senate Democrats who championed climate change legislation before its collapse this year met behind closed doors Tuesday to pick up the pieces and map out their strategy for next year.
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), who arranged the meeting, acknowledged that cap-and-trade legislation is dead. But he and others see room for passing smaller energy bills with bipartisan support.
There was a "clear understanding" around the table that, "whether we like it or not, cap-and-trade has no chance of passage in the next Congress," Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), who co-authored the climate bill, told POLITICO.
"And so we've got to find separate ways to go at it," Lieberman added. Possibilities include energy provisions like support for electric cars, nuclear energy or a "clean energy standard," that includes cleaner forms of traditional energy like nuclear and coal.
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Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Associated issues: Commitment to Independent and Verifiable Science, Global Warming, Cap-and-Tax Opposition Resource Center; Impacts of Costly Climate Bill Exposed, Commitment to Oklahoma, Commitment to Cost-Benefit Analysis, Get the Facts on Energy & Gas Prices
There will be no cap-and-trade climate bill considered in the next Congress, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) promised a colleague today.
Newly sworn-in Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said today that Reid made a "total commitment" to him that there would be no cap and trade next session.
Reid's office confirmed the promise. "Given the election results, there is no chance we can deal with cap and trade," Reid spokesman Jim Manley told E&ENews; PM.
Whether Reid pushed the measure or not, it was unlikely to gain traction next Congress after Republicans narrowed Democrats' Senate majority and took control of the House.
A cap-and-trade bill, which would set a national limit on greenhouse gas emissions and require polluters to buy carbon permits, once seemed destined to become the law of the land. House Democrats passed a cap-and-trade measure in 2009 that, along with carbon limits, included incentives and mandates for renewable energy and $60 billion in funding for carbon capture and storage technologies for coal plants.
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Friday, November 5, 2010
Associated issues: Commitment to Independent and Verifiable Science, Commitment to Oklahoma, Commitment to Cost-Benefit Analysis, National Security and Energy Independence, Get the Facts on Energy & Gas Prices
President Obama's newfound interest in expanded natural gas drilling yesterday surprised many on all sides of the drilling debate, from environmentalists to drillers and even the coal industry.
Representatives of drilling groups said they had no idea that Obama would make natural gas his lead olive branch to the newly empowered Capitol Hill Republicans. But they were pleased that he did.
"I was surprised by the venue," said Chris Tucker, spokesman for Energy In Depth, a drilling industry group formed to fight off federal regulation of shale gas drilling.
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Friday, October 15, 2010
Associated issues: Commitment to Independent and Verifiable Science, Commitment to Oklahoma, Commitment to Cost-Benefit Analysis, Get the Facts on Energy & Gas Prices
LA Times: EPA's Ethanol Decision Sparks Controversy - But there are many out there who don't see much "green" in ethanol that comes from corn. They note that burning E-15, as the new mix is called, can increase emission of some pollutants. And it can convert land better used for carbon absorption into industrialized agriculture, which consumes fossil fuels. Among the first to blast EPA was a coalition of agricultural interests, including the American Meat Institute; the Grocery Manufacturers Assn.; the National Council of Chain Restaurants; the National Chicken Council; the American Frozen Food Institute; the American Bakers Assn.; the National Meat Assn. and the National Turkey Federation: E15 - which would be a 50 percent increase from the currently permitted level of 10 percent ethanol in gasoline - will result in dramatic increases in the portion of the U.S. corn crop used to make fuel rather than food and, when fully implemented, could result in more than 40 percent of the nation's corn crop being diverted to ethanol production. The corn ethanol industry has received over $30 billion in federal subsidies over the last three decades.
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