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5 States Where Republicans Are Getting Serious About Criminal Justice Reform

by RusselLoeffler Posted on February 13, 2015

Mother Jones

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A growing group of conservatives are stepping back from their traditional “tough on crime” stance and taking a lead on reforming the criminal justice system. There’s even talk that congressional Republicans and Democrats could come together on the issue: Earlier this week, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee introduced a bipartisan prison reform bill. (Though it seems to have considerable flaws.)

At the state level, Republicans have already been taking on the issue. Here are five states where Republican governors and their fellow GOP lawmakers are taking on broken prison systems and the harsh laws that have fueled the incarceration boom:

Nebraska: Members of Nebraska’s legislature have introduced several bills that address the state’s overcrowded prisons. These include two bills introduced Wednesday, which would do away with mandatory minimum sentences for a slew of crimes (including distributing cocaine and heroin) and limit Nebraska’s “three-strikes” law to violent crimes. While the Cornhusker State’s legislature is nonpartisan, a majority of bills’ cosponsors are affiliated with the Republican Party, including Sen. Jim Smith, the head of the state branch of the American Legislative Exchange Council. Republican Governor Pete Ricketts reportedly supports the push for prison reform, as does the Omaha-based Platte Institute, a conservative think tank that recently released recommendations for decreasing incarceration that have drawn support from the Nebraska ACLU.

Utah: Republican state Representative Eric Hutchings is sponsoring legislation that aims to reduce Utah’s prison population and decrease recidivism. The bill, which has yet to be publicly released, would decrease the charge for drug possession from a felony to a misdemeanor. Governor Gary Herbert, also a Republican, has put aside $10.5 million for recidivism reform.

Illinois: Governor Bruce Rauner’s agenda includes a plan to keep nonviolent offenders out of prison by instead sending them to community programs. Earlier this week, he created a commission of lawmakers, cops, and activists to recommend reforms to the state’s criminal justice system. More details about his plan will come out when he releases his 2016 budget recommendations next week.

Alabama: The legislature-appointed Alabama Prison Reform Task Force is gearing up to propose a new bill for the next legislative session, which begins in March. Led by Republican state Senator Cam Ward, an outspoken Second Amendment defender, the task force is seeking ways to cut down the state’s prison population, which is more twice its intended size. One of Ward’s ideas? Making re-entry easier by throwing out draconian laws for ex-felons, like those preventing them from getting driver’s licenses.

Georgia: A similar task force, the Georgia Council on Criminal Justice Reform, has been recommending reforms to lawmakers. Formed in 2011 by Republican Governor Nathan Deal, the group has pushed the state to stop imprisoning juveniles and reform sentencing for nonviolent offenders, which slashed $20 million off the cost to house inmates in Georgia. The council’s current agenda includes initiatives to improve reentry for ex-felons.

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5 States Where Republicans Are Getting Serious About Criminal Justice Reform

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Man Arrested for Fatal Shootings of Three Muslim Students Near University of North Carolina

by WilfordVYR Posted on February 11, 2015

Mother Jones

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Update, February 11, 2015, 11:24 a.m.: In a statement, police say the shootings may have stemmed from a parking dispute. “Our preliminary investigation indicates that the crime was motivated by an ongoing neighbor dispute over parking. Hicks is cooperating with investigators,” a police spokesman said Wednesday.

A 46-year-old man was arrested for the fatal shootings of three Muslim students inside an apartment complex near the University of North Carolina on Tuesday.

Police say Craig Spencer was charged with three counts of first-degree murder. The victims are Deah Barakat, his wife Yusor Abu-Salha, and her sister Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha. The sisters were reportedly enrolled at North Carolina State University; Barakat was a student at Chapel Hill’s school of dentistry.

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Post by Yusor Abu-Salha.

Spencer turned himself into police Tuesday night “without incident,” according to Chatham County Sgt. Kevin Carey. While officials are still investigating a motive behind the murders, news of the students’ deaths quickly sparked alarm over concerns of racial bias. The hashtag #MuslimLivesMatter was also created.

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Post by Deah Barakat.

On Wednesday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations urged police to investigate the murders as a possible hate crime. An official statement from the council specifically addressed Spencer’s Facebook account, in which he allegedly called himself an “anti-theist” and spoke out against “radical Christians and radical Muslims.”

“Based on the brutal nature of this crime, the past anti-religion statements of the alleged perpetrator, the religious attire of two of the victims, and the rising anti-Muslim rhetoric in American society, we urge state and federal law enforcement authorities to quickly address speculation of a possible bias motive in this case,” CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said in the statement.

“Our heartfelt condolences go to the families and loved ones of the victims and to the local community.”

Link: 

Man Arrested for Fatal Shootings of Three Muslim Students Near University of North Carolina

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Scott Walker Wants to Know If Wind Power Is Making People Sick

by JulioQwojsz Posted on February 5, 2015

Mother Jones

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This article originally appeared in the Huffington Post and is republished here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

The two-year, $68 billion budget proposal Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker unveiled Tuesday includes a request for $250,000 to study the health impacts of wind turbines.

Page 449 of the budget proposal includes a recommendation from the governor “directing the commission to conduct a study on wind energy system-related health issues.” The request states that a report should be submitted to the governor and legislature within a year after the budget goes into effect.

“The request for a Wind Energy Health Issues Study was included with the intent to provide the Public Service Commission with comprehensive information to consider as they receive requests for future wind energy projects,” said Laurel Patrick, Walker’s press secretary, in a statement to The Huffington Post.

Wind power in the state has been the subject of some public debate, drawing campaigns paid for by conservative groups with ties to fossil fuel interests on one side and by renewable energy advocates on the other.

Last October, health officials in Brown County declared that eight turbines located at the Shirley Wind Farm posed a health hazard to residents. The chairwoman of the local board of health cited “ear pain, ear pressure, headaches, nausea” and “sleep deprivation” as symptoms among nearby residents. Local reports suggest Brown is the first county in the country to reach such a conclusion.

The conservative Heartland Institute, which advocates for “free-market solutions,” has touted the Brown County decision, and used it as an opportunity to criticize the state for “imposing its wind power mandates.” Heartland has received funding in the past from fossil fuel interests. Walker has appeared as a guest speaker at the group’s events.

Previous studies have found no link between wind farms and increased health problems. The Wisconsin Wind Siting Council, an advisory group to the state’s public service commission, issued a report to the state legislature last fall that concluded that “some individuals residing in close proximity to wind turbines perceive audible noise and find it annoying,” but “it appears that this group is in the minority and that most individuals do not experience annoyance, stress, or perceived adverse health effects due to the operation of wind turbines.”

Canada’s health department also undertook a large-scale study of the subject in 2012, and concluded last year that wind turbine noise could not be linked to sleep disorders, illnesses, dizziness, ringing in the ears, migraines or headaches, perceived stress, or quality of life concerns. The only thing Canadian health officials did find to be related to wind turbine noise: annoyance with features of turbines, such as noise, shadows cast by the blades, blinking lights, vibrations and visual impacts. They found that louder turbines had a greater impact in that regard. A panel of health experts in Massachusetts also released a study on wind turbine health impacts in 2012 that reached similar conclusions.

Those studies have not diminished the complaints of some residents who live near turbines, however, and that has prompted additional research in this field.

Some renewable energy advocates in the state said they welcome the additional research funded by the Walker budget, as long as it’s based on sound science.

“All peer-reviewed studies to date indicate using the wind is a safe way to generate electricity, far safer for human health than other forms of electricity production, such as coal,” Tyler Huebner, executive director of RENEW Wisconsin, told HuffPost. “If approved and funded, this study should be specifically designed so that the results would be acceptable to the appropriate peer-reviewed science or medical journal. That way, this study would meaningfully expand the body of knowledge on wind and health.”

Others were more skeptical of the governor’s motives. Chris Kunkle, the regional policy manager for the pro-wind group Wind on the Wires, said the study proposed in the budget is “just another example of Gov. Walker’s targeting of an industry that is incredibly successful in largely every other state in the Midwest.”

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Scott Walker Wants to Know If Wind Power Is Making People Sick

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EPA to Obama: You gotta reject Keystone

by MAQReginavpus Posted on February 3, 2015

EPA to Obama: You gotta reject Keystone

By on 3 Feb 2015commentsShare

Extracting tar-sands oil from Canada would lead to “a significant increase in greenhouse gas emissions,” says the U.S. EPA.

Since the Keystone XL pipeline would facilitate tar-sands extraction, and President Obama said he would only approve the proposed pipeline if it “does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution,” the EPA is in effect saying to the president, “Reject it!”

Right now the pipeline project is being reviewed by the State Department, which will make a recommendation to Obama on whether to give it an OK or a KO. State asked eight other federal agencies, including EPA, to offer their views on the project by yesterday. EPA did so, arguing as it has before that the pipeline would have major environmental and climate impacts. The EPA’s use of the word “significant” is, well, significant, as that’s the same word Obama used in laying out his criteria for making a decision.

Says climate activist (and Grist board member) Bill McKibben, “In a city where bureaucrats rarely say things right out loud, the EPA has come pretty close. Its knife-sharp comments make clear that despite the State Department’s relentless spin, Keystone is a climate disaster by any realistic assessment.”

The EPA has been unenthusiastic about Keystone for years, but it’s even more skeptical now that oil prices are so low. Fuel Fix explains:

In a letter to the State Department released Tuesday, the Environmental Protection Agency said plummeting crude prices could make the proposed pipeline vital to Canadian oil sands developers who face higher costs to ship their crude by rail.

An earlier State Department analysis of the project found that Alberta, Canada’s oil sands likely would be developed with or without Keystone XL. But the EPA noted that “this conclusion was based in large part on projections of the global price of oil.”

With domestic West Texas Intermediate crude hovering around $50, it’s important to revisit that analysis, said EPA Assistant Administrator for Enforcement Cynthia Giles.

Says the Natural Resources Defense Council, “There should be no more doubt that President Obama must reject the proposed pipeline once and for all.”

Now we just have to wait to see if Obama agrees.

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EPA to Obama: You gotta reject Keystone

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Obama Wants to Crack Down on Fracking Emissions

by DemetriHmi Posted on January 13, 2015

Mother Jones

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This story originally appeared in the Guardian and is republished here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

President Barack Obama will unveil a new plan to cut methane from America’s booming oil and gas industry ahead of the State of the Union address, in an attempt to cement his climate legacy during his remaining two years in the White House.

The new methane rules—expected ahead of the State of the Union speech next week—are the last big chance for Obama to fight climate change, campaigners said.

“It is the largest opportunity to deal with climate pollution that this administration has not already seized,” said David Doniger, director of the climate and clean air program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Methane is the second biggest driver of climate change, after carbon dioxide. On a 20-year timescale, it is 87 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas.

US officials acknowledge that Obama will have to cut methane if he is to make good on his promise to cut US greenhouse gas emissions 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, and by 26 percent to 28 percent by 2025.

“It is the largest thing left, and it’s the most cost-effective thing they can do that they haven’t done already, and all the signs are there that they intend to step forward on that,” Doniger said.

The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to roll out a combination of regulations and voluntary guidelines for the oil and gas industry, people familiar with the plan said.

The rules represent Obama’s first big climate push on the oil and gas sector, after moving to cut emissions from power plants and, during his first term, cars and trucks.

But the clock is ticking. Any new EPA regulations would have to be finalized by the end of 2016—and Republicans in Congress and industry lobby groups are already mobilizing to oppose the standards.

Methane accounts for about 9 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, according to the EPA. The biggest share of this by far comes from the oil and gas industry, which has exploded over the last decade.

The US is now the world’s largest producer of natural gas, and is on track to become the world’s largest oil producer in 2015.

Most of those greenhouse gas emissions are from leaky equipment—faulty casing on newly fracked wells, but also millions of miles of pipelines and aging infrastructure.

The EPA had originally promised to announce a new methane plan by the end of last year.

The agency administrator, Gina McCarthy, indicated that the agency would combine regulations with voluntary guidelines for industry.

Unlike the power plant rules, which left industry a fair amount of latitude in cutting emissions, the methane standards are believed to be tightly focused on plugging leaks.

The new rules could directly target leaking valves and other equipment that allow methane to escape from wells, pipelines and other infrastructure.

The new rules could also be backed up with voluntary guidelines for other types of air pollutants that would also lower methane emissions.

“If you take steps to reduce volatile organic compounds, those steps would automatically have the secondary benefit of reducing methane emissions,” said Sandra Snyder, an environmental attorney at the Bracewell Giuliani law firm.

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Obama Wants to Crack Down on Fracking Emissions

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How About If We All Get Back to Protecting and Serving?

by PrestonCaraway Posted on December 28, 2014

Mother Jones

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My neighboring city of Costa Mesa may be thousands of miles from New York and much, much smaller (population: 112,000), but they have something in common: police unions that don’t seem to know when to quit. Check this out:

An Orange County Superior Court judge on Wednesday ordered a private investigator to stay away from two Costa Mesa councilmen he allegedly helped surveil in the run-up to local 2012 elections.

….The false-imprisonment charge relates to the filing of a police report that caused Councilman Jim Righeimer to be detained briefly when an officer responded to his home to perform a sobriety test, according to prosecutors….Scott Impola ‘s firm was retained by the Costa Mesa Police Assn. to surveil and research local councilmen who were trying to cut pension costs and reduce jobs at City Hall, according to the Orange County district attorney’s office.

As part of their work, Impola and private investigator Chris Lanzillo allegedly put a GPS tracker on Councilman Steve Mensinger’s car and later called in a false DUI report on Righeimer as he was leaving Skosh Monahan’s, a restaurant owned by fellow Councilman Gary Monahan.

….Prosecutors say they have no evidence that the police union knew of any illegal activity beforehand.

Well, yeah. No evidence. But there is this:

Costa Mesa police officers mocked members of the City Council and suggested ways to catch them in compromising positions in the run-up to the 2012 municipal election, according to emails contained in court documents reviewed Monday by the Daily Pilot.

…. In one message, the association’s then-treasurer, Mitch Johnson, suggested telling the union’s lawyer about two of the councilmen’s upcoming city-sponsored trip to Las Vegas….”I’m sure they will be dealing with other ‘developer’ friends, maybe a Brown Act violation or two, and I think Steve Mensinger is a doper and has moral issues,” Johnson wrote in an email from a private account. “I could totally see him sniffing coke off a prostitute. Just a thought.“

Yes. “Just a thought.” I have a feeling that maybe the GPS and DUI revelations didn’t come as a big shock or anything when the union was confronted with them. There’s also this:

The association’s president at the time, Jason Chamness, told the grand jury that he asked the law firm to dig up dirt on certain City Council members because he believed they were corrupt. Shortly after the DUI report involving Righeimer, the union fired the law firm, although the affidavit notes the union continued to pay a retainer until as recently as January 2013.

During his testimony, Chamness also said he deleted emails from his private account, which he used to contact the law firm about union business.

And why did the police union hire these two goons? Because the city councilmen in question were trying to cut pension costs and reduce jobs at City Hall. How dare they?

Source – 

How About If We All Get Back to Protecting and Serving?

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Obama Just Blew A Chance to Crack Down on Coal

by RonnieDonahue Posted on December 23, 2014

Mother Jones

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This story originally appeared on Grist and is published here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

On Friday, the Obama administration quietly passed up an opportunity to make the coal industry clean up its act.

The EPA issued a final rule on the disposal of coal ash, a byproduct of coal burning that contains toxic heavy metals such as arsenic, lead, and selenium. Up until now, disposal of coal ash hasn’t been regulated by the federal government at all. Now it will be regulated, but not very strongly.

“Your banana peel that you throw away has stronger protections when it winds up in a dump than coal ash does,” says Mary Anne Hitt, director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, who is highly critical of the new rule.

More than 100 million tons of coal ash are produced annually in the US, and much of it is simply dumped into open pits. In recent years, there have been large coal-ash spills into rivers in Tennessee and North Carolina.

Groups like the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council wanted EPA to declare coal ash “hazardous waste” and thereby subject it to more stringent federal regulation. Pesticides, for example, are in that category and so they must be disposed of “in a way that prevents releases … to the environment.” That means in a leakproof container meeting various requirements.

Coal ash will instead be categorized as “solid waste,” also known as garbage, and its disposal will be held to a lower standard. The rule does include requirements about where and how coal ash is stored that are intended to prevent leaching into groundwater. It has to be placed “above the uppermost aquifer,” and protected with a geomembrane and a two-foot layer of compacted soil. But environmentalists say that’s not strong enough. Also, old coal-ash dumps won’t have to be cleaned up or improved unless problems are discovered. And the EPA’s new rules won’t even be enforced by the federal government; enforcement will be left to the states.

Greens are disappointed. “We believe coal ash meets all the qualifications of being hazardous,” says Hitt. “It’s tied to cancer among other problems.”

NRDC legislative director Scott Slesinger issued a statement saying, “The EPA is bowing to coal-fired utilities’ interests and putting the public at great risk by treating toxic coal ash as simple garbage instead of the hazardous waste that it is.”

The climate angle

While most of enviros’ complaints focus on the risk to water, air, and surrounding communities, this decision also has bad implications for climate change.

Coal-burning power plants are the biggest source of US greenhouse gas emissions, and the coal industry’s ability to belch CO2 and conventional pollutants without paying for the damage they cause has made coal power cheaper than renewables.

President Obama is said by his fans to be doing everything he can to address greenhouse gas emissions. With Republicans in Congress blocking legislative action, Obama has supposedly put coal in a vise with the EPA’s new regulations on mercury and forthcoming regulations on CO2 emissions from power plants. The centerpiece of Obama’s Climate Action Plan is using his authority under existing laws to limit power-plant pollution or make coal uneconomical by requiring the industry to pay for cleaning up after itself.

But here Obama has passed up a prime opportunity to raise the cost of using coal. Indeed, industry’s complaints about earlier, stronger proposals from the EPA were that they would hobble the coal industry. Exactly — and that would have been a good thing.

“One of the reasons that coal has been such a fixture in our electric sector is they have huge loopholes that they don’t have to deal with pollution the way other sectors of the economy do,” says Hitt. “This is another one of the egregious loopholes that the industry has secured for itself.”

And make no mistake, this weak rule comes from the White House, not apolitical bureaucrats at EPA. As a ProPublica investigation in July demonstrated, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, which is part of the White House Office of Management and Budget, used its review of the proposed regulation to weaken it. From the story:

The EPA sent OIRA its proposed new rules in January 2013. The agency submitted five options from which it would choose the final rule. In its draft, the EPA indicated it would likely pick one of two options, which it listed as “preferred.” Both set relatively tough standards on power companies.

In the weeks leading to OIRA’s completed review of the coal ash limits, a number of utility industry lobbyists and lawyers met with the office. While OIRA makes public a list of attendees and documents given to the office’s representatives at meetings, it does not disclose the substance of their discussions. …

When the rule on coal ash effluent emerged from OIRA, three more options had been added, a diluting of the two options the EPA favored. OIRA’s draft dropped the tougher of EPA’s preferred rules and identified those new, less demanding options as favored.

The office also recast the EPA’s scientific findings. The agency initially stated that using ponds for storing the most toxic form of coal ash, the emissions captured in the smoke stack’s final filter, did “not represent the best available technology for controlling pollutants in almost all circumstances.” Revisions made during OIRA review recommended eliminating this conclusion, giving no explanation why.

Why do the coal and utility industries have such influence in a Democratic administration? What was Obama afraid would happen if he cracked down on them? That he’d be accused of fighting a “war on coal”? That his approval ratings would tank in coal country? That Democrats would lose Senate races in Kentucky and West Virginia? What, exactly, did he have to lose?

Obama has rewarded his enemies, screwed over his friends, and blown one of his precious few chances to help move us to a clean energy future.

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Obama Just Blew A Chance to Crack Down on Coal

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Methane is leaking out all over the damn place, thanks to the oil and gas industry

by BrandyBergeron Posted on December 10, 2014

Methane is leaking out all over the damn place, thanks to the oil and gas industry

By on 10 Dec 2014commentsShare

Methane, the second most common greenhouse gas emitted by the U.S., is a scary, scary thing. Thanks to two new studies, we just found out a bit more about how, through drilling for oil and gas, it leaks into the air.

Compared with CO2, methane is frighteningly potent — it’s 86 times more effective at trapping heat than CO2 over a 20-year time period. Even though the EPA estimates that methane is only 9 percent of the greenhouse gas cocktail the U.S. is tossing into the sky, the Environmental Defense Fund estimates that methane is responsible for around 25 percent of the human-made global warming we’re experiencing. The biggest source of methane emissions? The oil and gas industry, of course.

The first new study, put out by Princeton University and published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that millions of unused oil and gas wells across America could be leaking significant amounts of unreported methane. Researchers measured methane leaks from 19 abandoned wells in northwestern Pennsylvania. From a Princeton announcement:

Only one of the wells was on the state’s list of abandoned wells. Some of the wells, which can look like a pipe emerging from the ground, are located in forests and others in people’s yards. [Researcher Mary] Kang said the lack of documentation made it hard to tell when the wells were originally drilled or whether any attempt had been made to plug them.

All of the 19 wells that the researchers looked at were leaking methane. All of them! But three of them were spitting out methane at thousands of times the levels that the others were. From an earlier study conducted by Stanford University, we know that there are around 3 million abandoned wells like the ones Princeton studied scattered across the U.S. That means abandoned wells like these that are just sitting out in the woods, not doing anything for anybody, could be making a notable contribution to climate change. Pennsylvania makes an attempt to plug those wells, but the Department of Environmental Protection, which is tasked with that work, is, predictably, understaffed.

The second study, by the University of Texas at Austin with funding from both the EDF and natural gas companies, found that among those wells that are operating, only a few are responsible for the vast majority of emissions. Around 20 percent of sites researchers looked at were emitting far more than the rest. “To put this in perspective, over the past several decades, 10 percent of the cars on the road have been responsible for the majority of automotive exhaust pollution,” said David Allen, chemical engineering professor at the Cockrell School and principal investigator for the study, which was published in Environmental Science & Technology. With natural gas wells, he said, it appears to be the same situation.

To sum up: Emissions from oil and gas wells — both those that are currently operating and those that have been abandoned — are a major issue that has been going largely unnoticed.

Unfortunately, America doesn’t have a system set up to monitor the wells and determine which are the major emitters. And, even if we did, there’s no standard policy on what to do with methane-leaking wells when we find them. The White House announced back in March that it intended to fill this policy gap with some regulations by the fall of 2014. But the regulations aren’t out yet, and environmental groups are becoming frustrated.

“The last we heard was the same. EPA is expected to decide on whether to issue methane standards this fall,” said Kate Kiely, a spokesperson for the Natural Resources Defense Council, which, along with Clean Air Task Force and the Sierra Club, issued a report showing how the EPA could cut methane leaks from oil and gas drilling in half. But winter’s drawing closer by the day. “The clock for that timeline is ticking, and we’re hopeful they’ll stick to it and release strong standards for reducing this waste.”

Source:
Abandoned Wells Leak Powerful Greenhouse Gas

, ClimateWire via Scientific American.

Methane still belches from USA’s old oil and gas wells

, USA Today.

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Methane is leaking out all over the damn place, thanks to the oil and gas industry

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A Republican rep calls for his party to “recognize the reality” of climate change

by AltonDeyoung Posted on December 8, 2014

A Republican rep calls for his party to “recognize the reality” of climate change

By on 8 Dec 2014commentsShare

One lonely House Republican is taking a stand, saying his party needs to get its head out of the sand and “recognize the reality” of climate change. National Journal reports that Chris Gibson was moved to encourage his peers to “operate in the realm of knowledge and science” after witnessing severe weather in his own district in upstate New York:

“My district has been hit with three 500-year floods in the last several years, so either you believe that we had a one in over 100 million probability that occurred, or you believe as I do that there’s a new normal, and we have changing weather patterns, and we have climate change. This is the science,” said the two-term lawmaker who was reelected in November.

“I hope that my party—that we will come to be comfortable with this, because we have to operate in the realm of knowledge and science, and I still think we can bring forward conservative solutions to this, absolutely, but we have to recognize the reality,” Gibson said. “So I will be bringing forward a bill, a resolution that states as such, with really the intent of rallying us, to harken us to our best sense, our ability to overcome hard challenges.”

Gibson spoke at an event hosted by Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, which is a pro-Republican advocacy group; a PAC that supports Republicans called Concord 51; and the Conservation Leadership Council, a group of conservatives that includes Gale Norton, who was Interior Secretary under George W. Bush. The Environmental Defense Fund helped create the CLC.

Gibson is not your standard House Republican. He’s what, by today’s standards, would be considered a “moderate” conservative from a pretty liberal state. During his most recent campaign, the Environmental Defense Fund supported Gibson over his unlikely-to-win Democratic opponent. As Grist’s Ben Adler noted at the time, that opponent, Sean Eldridge, would have been better for the environment, but in supporting Gibson, EDF was being pragmatic. R.L. Miller, who founded the Climate Hawks Vote super PAC, told Adler, “The polarization in Congress [on climate change] is mostly because Republicans don’t admit the reality of climate science. If you find one [Republican who does], you treat them like rare birds.” To EDF, Gibson was one such rare bird. (Neither Adler nor Miller thought this approach by EDF entirely sound.)

But if we’re going to be a tiny bit optimistic, maybe Gibson will kick off a trend. He explains that he was moved to speak out by the increasingly destructive weather in his district. As climate change picks up steam, other Republicans are going to find it harder and harder to ignore those same extremes. One day, even the stubbornest denier might have to acknowledge that, Al Gore–sponsored hoax or no, something is going on and something has to be done about it. (Is that optimism? Maybe that’s not optimism.)

What Gibson’s calling for right now — “a resolution … with really the intent of rallying us, to harken us to our best sense” — is too little, too late. But what the hell, it’s something.

Source:
House Republican Plans to Introduce Pro-Climate-Science Bill

, National Journal.

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A Republican rep calls for his party to “recognize the reality” of climate change

Posted in Anchor, Citizen, eco-friendly, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, OXO, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on A Republican rep calls for his party to “recognize the reality” of climate change

BREAKING: The US and China Just Announced a Huge Deal on Climate—and it’s a Gamechanger

by Ferne0921fb Posted on November 12, 2014

Mother Jones

In a surprise announcement Tuesday night, the world’s two biggest economies and greenhouse gas emitters, United States and China, said they will partner closely on a broad-ranging package of plans to fight climate change, including new targets to reduce carbon pollution, according to a statement from the White House.

The announcement comes after President Obama met in Beijing with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and includes headline-grabbing undertakings from both countries which are sure to breathe new life into negotiations to reach a new climate treaty in Paris next year.

According to the plan, the United States will reduce carbon emissions 26-28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, nearly twice the existing target—without imposing new restrictions on power plants or vehicles.

Tuesday’s announcement is equally remarkable for China’s commitment. For the first time, China has set a date at which it expects its emissions will “peak,” or finally begin to taper downwards: around 2030. China is currently the world’s biggest emitter of carbon pollution, largely because of its coal-dependent economy, and reining in emissions while continuing to grow has been the paramount challenge for China’s leaders.

The White House said in a statement that China could reach the target, even sooner than 2030. It “expects that China will succeed in peaking its emissions before 2030 based on its broad economic reform program, plans to address air pollution, and implementation of President Xi’s call for an energy revolution.”

This is also the first time such a policy has come from the very top, President Xi Jinping. Previously, the first and only mention of “peaking” came from Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli at the UN climate talks in New York in September.

“This is clearly a sign of the seriousness and the importance the Chinese government is giving to this issue,” said Barbara Finamore, Asia director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, the environmental advocacy group, in an interview from Hong Kong. “The relationship between the US and China is tricky, but climate has been one of the areas where the two sides can and are finding common ground.”

The US also called China’s goal of reaching the goal of 20 percent total energy consumption from zero-emission sources by 2030 “notable,” but painted a picture of the challenges ahead for the energy-hungry giant: “It will require China to deploy an additional 800-1,000 gigawatts of nuclear, wind, solar and other zero emission generation capacity by 2030 – more than all the coal-fired power plants that exist in China today and close to total current electricity generation capacity in the United States.”

The announcement also sets the stage for conflict with the Senate’s new Republican leadership, which just today signaled that attacking Obama’s climate initiatives will be a top priority in 2015.

The plan does not entail using the US Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases, as the bulk of Obama’s existing climate strategy does. Instead, it involves a series of initiatives to be undertaken in partnership between the two countries, including:

Expanding funding for clean energy technology research at the US-China Clean Energy Research Center, a think tank Obama created in 2009 with Xi’s predecessor Hu Jintao.
Launching a large-scale pilot project in China to study carbon capture and sequestration.
A push to further limit the use of hydroflourocarbons, a potent greenhouse gas found in refrigerants.
A federal framework for cities in both countries to share experiences and best practices for low-carbon economic growth and adaptation to the impacts of climate change at the municipal level.
A call to boost trade in “green” goods, including energy efficiency technology and resilient infrastructure, kicked off by a tour of China next spring by Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.

NRDC’s Finamore said the magnitude of the agreement—which was made well in advance of expectations—will provide fresh impetus to the drive for a new global climate agreement in Paris next year. “Hopefully this will give new ambition to other countries as well to move forward quickly,” she said. The agreement “sends a powerful signal to every other country that they are serious and are willing to come to the table to reach a global agreement.”

“Even if the targets aren’t as ambitious as many might hope, the world’s two largest carbon emitters are stepping up together with serious commitments,” said Bob Perciasepe, president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, a Washington policy group. “This will help get other countries on board and greatly improves the odds for a solid global deal next year in Paris.”

“For too long it’s been too easy for both the US and China to hide behind one another,” he said.

Original source: 

BREAKING: The US and China Just Announced a Huge Deal on Climate—and it’s a Gamechanger

Posted in Anchor, Bunn, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, solar, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on BREAKING: The US and China Just Announced a Huge Deal on Climate—and it’s a Gamechanger