TPMDC

Despite opposing cloture on a previous cap and trade bill, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) says that–whether he supports the underlying bill or not–he won’t support a filibuster of climate change legislation this Congress.

“I’m not going to be part of a filibuster on climate change,” Brown told me today. Brown voted against ending debate on the Lieberman-Warner bill in 2007, but he says he did that because the bill had no real chance of making it to the floor, and opposing cloture was his way of expressing his objection to aspects of that legislation.

“I was not blocking the bill from having a hearing on the floor, because it wasn’t gonna get to that,” Brown said. “I wanted to show that I don’t support this bill unless you take care of American manufacturing.”  Source Article

From ilovemountains.org

Please write your senator today and ask them to become a co-sponsor!

The Appalachian Mountain Restoration Act (S.696) is necessary to protect clean drinking water for many of our nation’s cities. It is also necessary to protect the quality of life for Appalachian coalfield residents who face frequent catastrophic flooding and pollution or loss of drinking water as a result of mountaintop removal.

From the east coast, to the west coast, to the states where it’s taking place, Americans want an end to mountaintop removal coal mining. This is the reason the Appalachia Restoration Act was introduced in to the 111th Congress by Senator Benjamin L. Cardin (D-MD) and Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN).

Building on that momentum, and with a friendlier administration and Congress, we have a real chance to pass the Appalachia Restoration Act in the 111th Congress.

Source Article

From Alternet

By Bo Webb , AlterNet. Posted February 19, 2009.

Dear Mr. President,

As I write this letter, I brace myself for another round of nerve-wracking explosives being detonated above my home in the mountains of West Virginia. Outside my door, pulverized rock dust, laden with diesel fuel and ammonium nitrate explosives hovers in the air, along with the residual of heavy metals that once lay dormant underground.

The mountain above me, once a thriving forest, has been blasted into a pile of rock and mud rubble. Two years ago, it was covered with rich black topsoil and abounded with hardwood trees, rhododendrons, ferns and flowers. The understory thrived with herbs such as ginseng, black cohosh, yellow root and many other medicinal plants. Black bears, deer, wild turkey, hawks, owls and thousands of [other] birds lived here. The mountain contained sparkling streams teeming with aquatic life and fish.

Now it is all gone. It is all dead. I live at the bottom of a mountain-top-removal coal-mining operation in the Peachtree community.

Mr. President Obama, I am writing you because we have simply run out of options. Last week, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court in Richmond, Va., overturned a federal court ruling for greater environmental restrictions on mountaintop-removal permits. Dozens of permits now stand to be rushed through. As you know, in December, the EPA under George W. Bush allowed an 11th-hour change to the stream buffer zone rule, further unleashing the coal companies to do as they please. Source Article

Courtesy USA Today:

Renewable energy is one of the top issues facing voters Tuesday, along with ballot proposals that would ban abortion, legalize marijuana, protect farm animals, end affirmative action and use gambling to fund education.

Three states — California, Colorado and Missouri — have measures on their ballots that deal with alternative energy sources, including wind and solar power. “This is a fairly new issue to the ballot,” says Jennie Drage Bowser, who has been tracking ballot measures for more than a decade at the National Conference of State Legislatures. “It’s a direct response to the demand for energy independence and the rising cost of energy.”

Also new, she says, are a measure in South Dakota that would repeal eight-year term limits on state lawmakers and one in Colorado that would criminalize abortion by defining a person as “any human being from the moment of fertilization.”

Californians will consider animal rights. An initiative there would require farms to give egg-laying hens, calves and pregnant pigs room to turn around, lie down, stand up and fully extend their limbs. Florida passed a similar measure in 2002 that protected only pregnant pigs, and Arizona approved one in 2006 that covered pigs and calves.

On Tuesday, voters in 36 states will consider 153 ballot measures. Most are referendums placed on the ballot by legislatures; 59 are grass-roots initiatives that needed tens of thousands of signatures to qualify. Many citizen initiatives are controversial, and fewer than half have passed in the past decade. Three of every four referred by legislatures succeeded.

For more on this story, click this link.

boston.com

Posted by Foon Rhee, deputy national political editor October 14, 2008 04:36 PM

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcG58KzANKE]

Barack Obama focuses on his energy plan in a video message to supporters gathered at house parties to watch the fall campaign’s final presidential debate Wednesday night.

Obama highlighted his agenda to spend $150 billion over 10 years on alternative energy to create 5 million new jobs.

“Now is the time to declare our energy independence once and for all,” he says in the video.  Source Article

Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 28, 2008; Page A12

For months, the confrontation mounted, a face-off that arguably held in the balance the fates of two of Alaska’s biggest industries. On one side were companies hoping to open Pebble Mine at a huge gold and copper reserve adjacent to one of the world’s largest salmon runs, Bristol Bay. On the other side were fishermen and environmentalists pushing a referendum that would make it harder for the mine to open.

The two sides spent more than $10 million — unprecedented for such efforts in Alaska — and throughout it all, the state’s highly popular first-term governor, Sarah Palin, held back. Alaska law forbids state officials from using state resources to advocate on ballot initiatives.

Then, six days before the Aug. 26 vote, with the race looking close, Palin broke her silence. Asked about the initiative at a news conference, she invoked “personal privilege” to give an opinion. “Let me take my governor’s hat off for just a minute here and tell you, personally, Prop. 4 — I vote no on that,” she said. “I have all the confidence in the world that [the Department of Environmental Conservation] and our [Department of Natural Resources] have great, very stringent regulations and policies already in place. We’re going to make sure that mines operate only safely, soundly.” Source Article

The Huffington Post |  Rachel Weiner   |   September 16, 2008 10:55 AM

A new MoveOn ad posits who John McCain is really talking about when he says “my friends” — his favorite lobbyists. Watch:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPuoAWaVStE]

Source Article

RENO, Nevada (Reuters) – White House hopeful Barack Obama talked energy policy on Sunday with T. Boone Pickens, a billionaire oil investor who funded the “Swift Boat” attacks on Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry in 2004.

Pickens, a lifelong Republican, has endorsed neither his party’s candidate, Arizona Sen. John McCain, nor Democrat Obama in the November 4 election and wants to make energy a top campaign issue.

He has advocated a plan to cut U.S. oil use by converting cars to run on natural gas. Source Article

Huffington Post

Sam Stein

August 13, 2008 11:42 AM

In presidential campaigns, words matter. With Barack Obama belittled as an empty-suit orator and John McCain stifled by rhetorical blunders, the influence of language has already been felt. But words also offer hints as to what issues the candidate prioritize, how they’ve evolved, the messages they deliver, and topics they avoid.

Since 2004, Obama has delivered 150 speeches with a grand total of 382,132 words, according to those listed on his Senate and campaign website. He is more loquacious than his opponent, McCain who has delivered 127 speeches encompassing 254,342 words.

As documented by the website Speech Wars, what the two candidates are talking about can be telling. Take, for example, the willingness to discuss the current administration. Obama, in his speeches, has uttered George W. Bush’s name 209 times compared to 51 for McCain. Taken as percentages, the presumptive Democratic nominee is 2.73 times more likely to remind listeners of the president than his Republican counterpart. But the tendency to evoke Bush is a relatively new phenomenon. As Speech Wars charts, Obama’s mentioning of the President has increased drastically since he started running for the White House, topping off in a June 9, 2008 speech in Raleigh, North Carolina. Source Article

Huffington Post

Sam Stein

August 4, 2008 01:03 PM

Barack Obama sought to regain the political offensive on Monday, painting John McCain as part of the problem when it comes to comprehensive energy reform. Quoting the Arizona Republican as saying that “our dangerous dependence on foreign oil has been thirty years in the making,” Obama leveled one of the more direct criticisms he’s offered in this campaign.

“What Senator McCain neglected to mention was that during those thirty years, he was in Washington for twenty-six of them,” said the Senator. “And in all that time, he did little to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. He voted against increased fuel efficiency standards and opposed legislation that included tax credits for more efficient cars. He voted against renewable sources of energy. Against clean biofuels. Against solar power. Against wind power. Against an energy bill that — while far from perfect — represented the largest investment in renewable sources of energy in the history of this country. So when Senator McCain talks about the failure of politicians in Washington to do anything about our energy crisis, it’s important to remember that he’s been a part of that failure.” Source Article