Government | ModeShift

While Oil Gushes Into Gulf, A Flurry of Ideas This Week in Washington

by Keith SchneiderMay 13, 2010May 13, 20101

The foreboding of the monstrous Gulf oil spill was accompanied this week by the opportune deeds of Washington lawmakers, policy makers, and activists hard at work to fashion a political response, including the Senate introduction of a comprehensive climate and energy bill. The new proposal was generally applauded for its expansive scope by business groups, labor, and environmental organizations, which also agreed that it needed some work. But first came the White House, which started …

Hour of Choosing Arrives: American Power Act Introduced

by Keith SchneiderMay 12, 2010May 12, 20101

In a long-awaited proposal designed to secure existing domestic energy sources and develop new ones that begin to reverse the damaging effects of global climate change, New England Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman today introduced comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation. The co-authors of the bill, one a Democrat from Massachusetts and the other an Independent from Connecticut, insisted that its vision is to change the direction of some of the nation’s toughest systemic …

A Turning Point in Attack on Climate Science

by Keith SchneiderMay 10, 2010May 11, 20100

On May 5, in an unusually aggressive response to what they saw as an academic witch hunt, the University of Virginia Faculty Senate condemned state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelliâ€™s demand to turn over six years of documents related to the work of Michael Mann, a former UVa climate scientist. Two days later, members of the National Academy of Sciences published a letter in the journal Science that focused on the “political assaults” directed at climate …

Bubbling and Crude: Gulf Coast Spill Reflects Devotion to Wealth, Power, and Oil

by Keith SchneiderMay 5, 2010May 6, 20102

On March 17, two weeks to the day before President Barack Obama laid out a new plan to expand offshore oil exploration in the United States, a government auction of federally controlled oil and gas reserves in the Gulf of Mexico was held at the New Orleans Superdome. It took just a few hours for 77 energy companies to pledge $1.3 billion to the U.S. Treasury to look for oil and natural gas across a …

Go Blue! “Be Nice” While You “Shape Destiny,” Obama Counsels at University of Michigan Commencement

by Keith SchneiderMay 2, 2010May 3, 20101

Barack Obama addressed 90,000 people Saturday at the Big House, the University of Michigan’s football stadium, where he was greeted warmly by the largest crowd to hear the president since the inauguration. Among the nearly 10,000 graduates was my daughter Kayla. The university is a place of innovation, stability, and optimism in a state that has endured more negative consequences of the recession, and the underlying transitional factors that caused it, than any other. The …

Earth, Wind, Fire On Day of Onrushing Risks

by Keith SchneiderApril 28, 20100

The accelerating consequences of the warming Earth, the hazards associated with increasing reliance on fossil fuels, the promise of big clean energy projects, and the difficulties in advancing a national climate and energy policy fit for the 21st century came into sharp focus today in Washington and across the nation. In Boston, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced that aftter nine years of public confrontation, the United States had reached a decision to approve crucial permits …

When It Comes to Climate and Clean Energy, “Just Say No” Has Become Too Popular

by Keith SchneiderApril 27, 2010September 9, 20100

Monday, in the parlance of Washington policy and journalism, was scheduled to be a potential day of breakthrough in the work to achieve action on the warming climate. Senators John Kerry (Mass.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and Joe Lieberman (Conn.) had announced that they’d come to consensus on what a bipartisan energy and climate policy fit for the 21st century looked like. The results were to be unveiled at a news briefing that had global import. …

Though the Need is Urgent, Earth Day’s Best Moment May Lie in Past

by Keith SchneiderApril 23, 2010April 23, 20100

This week, just a day before the nation marked the 40th Earth Day, the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform exploded 50 miles from the Louisiana coast, leaving 11 people dead, dozens injured, and a pulse of crude oil that is spreading across the Gulf of Mexico. The blast, which caused the platform to sink on Earth Day itself, came 16 days after 29 men perished in a West Virginia coal mine – the worst American mining …

“Precedent Setting Achievement”

by Keith SchneiderApril 8, 2010September 9, 20100

The director of the Michigan Department of Energy, Labor, and Economic Growth last week lauded Traverse City Light & Power for pursuing a renewable energy strategy that fits northwest Michiganâ€™s reputation as a green region, and â€œcomplements all the assets and progressive trends this region represents”. Stanley â€œSkipâ€ Pruss, who is one of Governor Jennifer Granholmâ€™s closest advisors and a nationally known clean energy leader, also supported the utilityâ€™s proposal to generate a portion of …

Resistance to Solar Energy in California, Southwest

by Keith SchneiderMarch 28, 2010September 9, 20101

The Solar Energy Industries Association last week made public a national poll that found strong citizen support for adding the energy of the sun to the nation’s portfolio. The timing of the results was meant to coincide with the Federal government’s review of big solar thermal projects proposed on public lands in the West. The poll, though, masks another emerging clean energy trend in the desert. A good number of citizen activist groups are pushing …