As the Senate gets ready to examine energy and climate legislation, America's most serious welfare dependent is back at the taxpayer trough again. Unsatisfied by a set of federal loan guarantees, subsidies, and other trinkets and baubles that would make the greediest gold digger blush, the nuclear complex is demanding...

San Francisco -- As Congress considers clean-energy and climate legislation, most of the fuss has been about whether (and how) to use price signals to encourage clean energy and reduce our dependence on dirty fossil fuels. Should we have a cap-and-auction system (as President Obama prefers), a carbon tax (as...

For eight years under George Bush, America's wilderness faced a systematic assault from the federal government. By the end of the first Bush term, more than 100 million acres that previously enjoyed federal protection had lost it.

Since last November's election, the Bush legacy has been unraveling, and the progress on...

Washington, D.C. -- President Obama delivered some stellar remarks yesterday after the passage by the House of H.R. 2454, the climate and energy bill championed by Congressmen Waxman and Markey and steered through a narrowly divided House by Speaker Pelosi. President Obama pointed out, most importantly, that the bill is...

Coal River, WV -- I hope that when I am 94 I am able and eager to do exactly what retired coal miner and former Congressman Ken Hechler was doing in Coal River yesterday: getting arrested for the cause he has so long worked for. Hechler, along with NASA climate...

Monday was the 40th anniversary of the environmental disaster that gave America the Clean Water Act -- the day the Cuyahoga River caught fire. But memories on the Supreme Court are either short or very long. In a remarkably crabbed opinion, the Court ruled yesterday that...

It's cool and beautiful up here in the foothills of the San Bernardino mountains. I'm looking out over some of the sunniest terrain in the world, though, and I can survey much of Congressman Jerry Lewis's district from the peaks. So it's almost incomprehensible to learn that Lewis, at a...

The cleanup of the Bush administration's phenomenal mismanagement of the nation's forests continues to grind forward in federal courts. Thus far the Obama administration has not yet put in place new leadership for the Forest Service -- one potential nominee had a lobbying background and one withdrew for personal reasons....

Chevron's CEO, Dave O'Reilly, and I debated for an hour last night at the Commonwealth Club. We got to the bottom of some differences and found some common points -- but didn't come to closure on some of the most important.

My bottom line is that O'Reilly is...

Fourteen years ago, the Nigerian junta was preparing to execute Ogoni activist Ken Saro-Wiwa for his organizing activities against the environmental devastation being visited on his people by oil development -- the Shell Corporation in particular. I reached out to a senior consultant with Shell, who made it clear that...

Americans hate Big Oil and Big Coal, and they disapprove of bailouts for even their iconic car companies. But we tend to have a soft spot for our local public utilities -- and that is turning out to be a very dangerous thing. For it's the political clout of Big...

Washington, DC -- Last August, then-candidate Barack Obama declared that, if elected, he would create five million new, green jobs. He's pushed that promise hard, with his stimulus package, appointments, and support of an ambitious climate-protection bill. But since he made the promise, more than five million Americans have lost...

While Big Carbon is tying Congress in knots (with announcements from coal advocates that even the modest goal of cutting carbon dioxide emissions to one percent below 1990 levels by 2020 are too ambitious, and that they will try to water down this goal on the House floor), the Obama...

Don't feel bad if you're confused about the merits of the comprehensive climate bill reported out yesterday evening by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The array of reactions from environmental leaders and organizations is not the usual one: Some (such as NRDC and Environmental Defense Fund) have hailed it,...

Washington, D.C. -- Tomorrow President Obama will announce that, with a little nudge from Uncle Sam (and a big nudge from the Sierra Club and the states), the auto industry has finally agreed to join the 21st century. President Obama will announce a federal standard for global-warming emissions from...

The contradictions that are slowing down our progress towards a green-energy recovery and climate recovery were on full display last week in our nation's capitol. On the one hand, you had the Southern Company, its polluter allies among power companies, and the ultimate parties with an interest in clinging to...

Washington, D.C. -- A classic definition of the logic of terror is "the severing of the link between the target of violence and the reason for violence."  By this definition, hostage-taking is the original terrorist act. Recent behavior by the Republican Senate leadership, although violent in a political...

It's scary how difficult it is proving for this Congress to embrace a new energy future. In the Senate, Energy Chair Jeff Bingaman is talking about passing a renewable-energy standard that would barely nudge the status quo -- only 12 percent renewables by 2019, and up only to...

San Francisco -- Oil and coal are not about to let clean energy get to market without a fight. And Congress is so used to thinking of energy policy in terms of which regions produce which fuels -- instead of in the context of our collective need for energy services...

LAS VEGAS -- We rarely stop to think that the Teamster's union was originally all about teams of mules (and horses). In fact, I learned today, the union was once against trucks because they were a threat to their livelihoods! (I wonder at what age the average child of a...