President Barack Obama speaks at a townhall meeting on healthcare reform. (Photo by Chuck Kennedy, courtesy of the White House)
Big industry is planning to target several
key US Senators who’ll vote on a climate
bill this fall. Lester Graham reports an
industry-funded group plans to hold 19
rallies at Senators’ townhall meetings:
Transcript
Big industry is planning to target several
key US Senators who’ll vote on a climate
bill this fall. Lester Graham reports an
industry-funded group plans to hold 19
rallies at Senators’ townhall meetings:
Rallies on health insurance reform can be pretty rowdy at times. It looks like you can expect the same over climate change legislation.
The American Petroleum Institute, and other big industry types formed a group called “Energy Citizens.”
They say the current climate change bill will mean higher energy prices and the loss of millions of jobs. A video on their website portrays everyday folks opposed to the idea.
“The principle of the government trying to help the environment is a good thing, but I don’t think this legislation is the best way to go about it.”
A memo from the American Petroleum Institute to oil company execs encourages getting those kind of people to townhall meetings. Environmental groups say it’s a fake grassroots movement.
A spokesperson for the Petroleum industry says oil companies are not against climate change legislation, just the climate legislation being considered by Congress.
The bill would require new homes to immediately be 30% more energy efficient. (Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory)
This session of Congress has pledged to take on
the issue of climate change. A bill in the Senate
is already awaiting action. But the House has
already passed the sweeping Clean Energy And
Security Act. One piece of that bill could change
the way homes are built in this country. In short,
they’d use a lot less energy. Tamara Keith has more:
Transcript
This session of Congress has pledged to take on
the issue of climate change. A bill in the Senate
is already awaiting action. But the House has
already passed the sweeping Clean Energy And
Security Act. One piece of that bill could change
the way homes are built in this country. In short,
they’d use a lot less energy. Tamara Keith has more:
The bill would require a re-write of building codes. New homes would immediately have to be 30% more energy efficient. And the requirements would keep getting tougher from there.
The idea is controversial. But for Alex Dean, building efficiently is just the way he does business.
“It’s building to a higher standard. And we really enjoy building fine projects for people who want it done right.”
Dean is the CEO of the Alexander Group, a home design, build and renovation firm in Maryland. He’s showing me around a green remodel.
(sound of key in door)
“This is the entry from the garage into the new addition.”
Dean and his team are putting an addition on a home in an upscale Washington, DC suburb.
He’s designed every detail with an eye to energy efficiency, starting with the insulation. He used a spray foam. It costs about twice as much as the insulation required by current building codes.
“You know, it’s worth it, and in the overall scheme of building the house, it’s not that much money.”
On this hot humid day, you can feel the difference the fancy insulation makes.
Keith: “It’s cooler than it is outside.
Dean: “Yeah, yeah.”
Keith: “And there’s no AC running in here right now.”
Dean: “No, not at all. And this building is directly in the sun. But that’s how effective this is. This is keeping some of the coolness from last night when it was in the 60s.”
That means he can install smaller heating and air conditioning units that use less energy.
The windows are double paned. The lights, all compact fluorescents or super efficient LEDs.
It’s projects like this one that make Bill Fay confident home builders will be able to handle greener building codes. Fay is the executive director of the Building Energy Efficient Codes Network.
“We know it’s achievable. And we know it’s achievable using affordable technologies. It’s just now a matter to have the resolve to do it.”
Past efforts at greening the building codes met with stiff opposition from home builders and failed to make it through congress.
Koteri Callahan is president of the Alliance to Save Energy and she says the stakes are high. Buildings are huge energy wasters.
“Every house and every office building that goes in the ground today is going to be around for decades and decades and in some cases centuries.”
But these days, the ground isn’t being broken on very many homes. The industry is in a serious slump.
Bill Kilmer is the head of advocacy for the National Association of Home Builders and he doesn’t want members of congress to forget about the industry’s struggles.
“Consumers certainly in the last year are stepping back and said, ‘what can we afford.’ And so we’re trying to take a mainstream, if you will, that says, ‘people want this.’ How can we get to that point, and how can we get there reasonably, and take afford-ability into account.”
Kilmer says the building industry is taking environmental issues seriously, and recently created a voluntary green building certification program.
But, he says the House bill moves too far too fast. He says builders would like until 2012 to meet the 30% efficiency goal.
“You really don’t have the equipment or the materials that are ready and ramped up to make the adjustments in the marketplace to bring those things to bear, without a tremendous cost burden that’ll be added on to the production of the housing and that obviously is going to be passed on to someone, and that’ll be the consumer.”
This question of affordability is a big one. And it seems like everyone has a statistic to make their point.
Democratic leaders are expected to bring a draft bill to the Senate before the August recess. (Photo courtesy of the Architect of the Capitol)
The giant climate change bill
squeaked through the House of
Representatives. Now the battle’s
beginning in the Senate. Rebecca
Williams has more on the debate:
Transcript
The giant climate change bill
squeaked through the House of
Representatives. Now the battle’s
beginning in the Senate. Rebecca
Williams has more on the debate:
Republican Senator Kit Bond said the climate change bill will be destructive to Americans.
“Impose new energy taxes on them, kill their jobs, punish the Midwest and South, help China and India and construct a new bureaucratic nightmare.”
The Obama Administration says doing nothing will cost us more.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu pointed out a recent MIT study predicting, with global warming, temperatures could rise as much as 11 degrees Fahrenheit.
“During the last Ice Age, when Canada and United States, down to Ohio and Pennsylvania, were covered year round in a glacier the world was only 11 degrees colder. A world 11 degrees warmer will be a very different place.”
Democratic leaders are expected to bring a draft bill to the Senate before the August recess.
Opponents in the House argued last Friday that the climate change bill would make energy much more expensive. (Photo courtesy of the Architect of the Capitol)
The climate change bill heads to the Senate. In all likelihood, so will some inaccurate statistics. Lester Graham reports some opponents of the climate change and energy bill are still using numbers they’ve been told are wrong:
Transcript
The climate change bill heads to the Senate. In all likelihood, so will some inaccurate statistics. Lester Graham reports some opponents of the climate change and energy bill are still using numbers they’ve been told are wrong:
Opponents in the House argued last Friday that the climate change bill would make energy much more expensive.
For example, Congressman Paul Broun, a Republican from Georgia, said it would hit low-income people especially hard.
“People who can least afford to have their energy taxes raised by – MIT says, by over $3100 per family.”
Several opponents used that $3100 figure. But, that’s just not correct.
In April we talked to the author of that MIT study, John Reilly.
“They’re really kind of just misinforming the debate and trying to scare people with numbers that really aren’t accurate.”
Reilly says he’s told the Republicans they’ve got the numbers wrong.
“The right number is actually $340 not $3100 or something.”
And a Congressional Budget Office analysis indicates the cost could be even lower.
Senator Robert F. Bennett blocked the nomination of David Hayes as the Deputy Interior Secretary (Photo courtesy of the US Senate)
This week the Senate is expected to take up President Obama’s nominee for deputy secretary of Interior. Lester Graham reports the nomination was blocked last week because of a dispute over oil and gas leases:
Transcript
This week the Senate is expected to take up President Obama’s nominee for deputy secretary of Interior. Lester Graham reports the nomination was blocked last week because of a dispute over oil and gas leases:
Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar says he knows his old Senate colleague Bob Bennett of Utah very well, and he understands the politics behind blocking the nomination of Salazar’s deputy.
Senator Bennett and his fellow Republicans blocked the nomination of David Hayes after Secretary Salazar canceled leases for oil and gas drilling near National Parks in Utah.
Salazar says the leases were rushed through late in the Bush administration without proper environmental review.
Senate Democrats say the Hayes nomination will be brought up again. Secretary Salazar says he hopes so.
“I sure hope that it happens. You know I think Senator Durbin and others, Senator Reid, indicated they think that it can happen this week. I hope that it does.”
The Democrats will need the votes of Senators Edward Kennedy and Robert Byrd. Both men have been absent from the Senate because of health problems.
More than half of the groups represented by lobbyists
are big industry such as oil, coal, electric utilities
and big energy users. (Photo courtesy of the Architect of the Capitol)
A lot of lobbyists are visiting
members of Congress because of the
climate change bill that’s under
consideration. A new report finds
there are 880 different businesses,
trade organizations, and special
interest groups formally lobbying
Congress. Lester Graham has more
on that:
Transcript
A lot of lobbyists are visiting
members of Congress because of the
climate change bill that’s under
consideration. A new report finds
there are 880 different businesses,
trade organizations, and special
interest groups formally lobbying
Congress. Lester Graham has more
on that:
More than half of the groups represented by lobbyists
are big industry such as oil, coal, electric utilities
and big energy users.
Marianne Lavelle wrote the investigative report
the Center for Public Integrity. She says recent
changes in the bill show big industry’s influence.
“You can see that the changes made were changes
that were really to address those industries and
their concerns.”
A few environmental groups such as Greenpeace say
the climate change bill is so watered down they
can’t support it now.
But most environmental groups are still on board.
Many individuals are also all letting Congress know
what they want in – or out – of the climate change bill.
Members of Congress always stress they want to hear
from all interested parties, but lobbyists do more
than offer persuasive arguments – they’re very good
at organizing fundraisers for the politicians.
Democrats in the Senate are talking about climate change policy. (Photo courtesy of NASA)
Democrats in the US Senate are talking about climate change legislation again. But its fate is uncertain. Tamara Keith reports from Washington:
Transcript
Democrats in the US Senate are talking about climate change legislation again. But it’s fate is uncertain. Tamara Keith reports from Washington:
Barbara Boxer is the senator who chairs the Environment and Public Works committee. The committee will be putting together the climate change legislation. A climate bill didn’t get anywhere last year in the senate, but Boxer says things have changed since then.
“A lot of those who voted against us are no longer here.”
But what’s not changed is the argument over how sweeping controls on carbon emissions could affect the economy. Those opposed call climate legislation a job-killer. Steve Cochran with the Environmental Defense Fund argues the opposite.
“If those of us who want to see strong climate policy are effective and articulate and persuasive on the jobs argument then I think we can actually get this done. And if we’re not I don’t think we will.”
Boxer said she didn’t know when the full senate would take up the legislation.
Many of the last-minute Bush rules are already in effect
(Photo courtesy of the Obama transition team)
The Obama administration would like to stop some new Bush regulations from going into effect. Lester Graham reports some can be stopped, but many more cannot:
Transcript
The Obama administration would like to stop some new Bush regulations from going into effect. Lester Graham reports some can be stopped, but many more cannot:
A memo from Obama’s chief of staff stopped several rules.
But, a lot more of these last-minute Bush rules are already in effect.
Patti Goldman is with the environmental group Earthjustice. She says the Obama team can avoid enforcing the new rules if the new administration thinks they’re not lawful.
“That they are legally doubtful. That’s the language. And that in court the may need to confess error rather than defend the rule.”
But many of the rules passed by the Bush White House are legally solid, and Goldman says there’s not a thing the Obama administration can do about that.
“Because we live in a country that has the rule of law you can’t just undo everything as soon as there’s a change of administration.”
But groups such as Goldman’s can challenge them in court. And they are.
Congress is investigating whether investors are inflating the prices of food and gas for profit (Photo courtesy of the USDA)
The price of food is going up and some
members of Congress want to know why. The Senate
recently held hearings on whether investors in
the commodities market are artificially inflating
prices. Mark Brush has more:
Transcript
The price of food is going up and some
members of Congress want to know why. The Senate
recently held hearings on whether investors in
the commodities market are artificially inflating
prices. Mark Brush has more:
Big investors are moving money out of stocks and other investments and into
commodities.
In the last five years, the amount of money in commodities markets has
increased 20 fold. And there’s a theory that these investors are driving up food and gas
prices.
Timothy Wood says that’s not so. He’s the editor of ResourceInvestor.com.
Instead, he
says you’re paying more mostly because the dollar is worth a lot less these days. He also
says Congressional mandates to turn corn into fuel are driving up corn prices.
“When corn is so much a part of the American food chain, and the global food chain, it is
just a complete and utter farce that this has gone and been legislated.”
Wood says Congress should let the markets sort themselves out. But some members of
Congress wonder if big investors in commodities are getting rich at the expense of
families.
It’s been two years since Congress passed the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act – or DERA
– to help states cut down on pollution. But as Brian Bull reports, an advocacy group says
no money’s gone to support any efforts yet:
Transcript
It’s been two years since Congress passed the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act – or DERA
– to help states cut down on pollution. But as Brian Bull reports, an advocacy group says
no money’s gone to support any efforts yet:
Congress authorized up to one billion dollars over a five-year period, to enable states to
“retrofit” their diesel vehicle fleets with special devices. Backers say they can reduce up
to 90 percent of emissions caused by buses, trucks, and other state vehicles.
Dawn Fenton is policy director for the Diesel Technology Forum. She says Congress
didn’t allocate any money to the programs while it was putting together the most recent
fiscal year budget:
“Retrofitting diesel-vehicles is one of the most cost-effective ways that you can reduce
emission of particulate matter. And by funding a diesel-retrofit program, the federal
government gets more bang for its buck, in terms of the investment that it’s making”
There’s reportedly 50 million dollars in DERA funding contained in the Interior
Appropriations bill for this fiscal year. The full Senate’s expected to review it this fall.
President Barack Obama speaks at a townhall meeting on healthcare reform. (Photo by Chuck Kennedy, courtesy of the White House)
