Category Archives: CO2

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When it comes to climate change, Congress is a Fact-Free Zone

“The ocean levels are rising, the icecap is melting, severe storms are more intense and more frequent; Climate change is real. Not that you’d know it in this body.”

— United States Representative Peter Welch (D-VT)

 

Floor Statement of Rep. Peter Welch
*Safe Climate Caucus
March 20, 2013

Rep. Peter Welch.

Mr. Speaker, the ocean levels are rising, the icecap is melting, severe storms are more intense and more frequent; Climate change is real. Not that you’d know it in this body.

We’re still having a debate about the reality. This is a fact-free zone in Congress when it comes to climate change. But we can still make progress even if we debate the science.

We should do things that allow all of us to use less energy. Energy efficiency is good, regardless of what fuel source you use. It creates jobs for the folks out of work in the home construction industry, doing retrofits for commercial and residential buildings. It saves families money, and saves businesses money.

There’s an enormous amount of advocacy on both sides of the aisle to do this practical, commonsense step. It will have an incidental benefit as well of reducing carbon emissions.

Even as we have an unresolved debate about the science of climate change, let’s take practical steps that are good for jobs, good for the economy and good for saving taxpayers money.

Rep. Welch tours Acorn Renewable Energy Co-op solar project, March 16, 2012.

Welch is one of 24 Representatives who comprise the Safe Climate Caucus — a group organized in February 2013 and headed by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), who chairs the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. According to the group’s website, each day that Congress is in session a member of the caucus will speak about climate change on the House floor.

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U.S. Representative: Keystone XL “poses major threats at every turn”

United States Representative Steve Cohen (D - TN) spoke against the Keystone XL pipeline, on the House floor yesterday.

“When you brush aside the studies by TransCanada and other oil companies and you analyze the pure scientific studies,” said Rep. Cohen, “every analysis clearly demonstrates the Keystone XL pipeline poses major threats at every turn – in its extraction, its transportation, its refining, and its consumption – threats to our earth.”

Here’s the video of Cohen’s brief remarks.

And here’s the text:

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share my grave concerns about the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline, the decision and existence of which is awaiting a decision by the Administration.

Last week, 84 of my colleagues (82 Republicans and 2 Democrats) introduced H.R. 3, a bill that would approve the construction and maintenance of the Keystone XL pipeline.

The world’s foremost climatologist, Dr. James Hansen—and one of the first scientists to warn of the dangers of burning carbon fuel and a partial recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize—has likened the building and use of the Keystone pipeline to the “lighting of a carbon bomb.” Game over.

DC rally against the Keystone XL pipeline.

DC rally against the Keystone XL pipeline.

When you brush aside the studies by TransCanada and other oil companies and you analyze the pure scientific studies, every analysis clearly demonstrates the Keystone XL pipeline poses major threats at every turn – in its extraction, its transportation, its refining, and its consumption – threats to our earth.

The truth of the matter is, the U.S. isn’t even going to be using those fossil fuels transported by the pipeline—they’re going straight to China.

In fact, the only proposed feasible method of getting those Canadian tar sands to China or any other country is by building the Keystone XL pipeline, to feed into the port in Houston, Texas.

I urge my colleagues to stop the Keystone XL Pipeline, avoid lighting that carbon bomb in our country. Oppose H.R. 3 and return our focus to initiatives that center on true energy independence through renewable resources and greener production.”

Cohen is one of 24 Representatives who comprise the Safe Climate Caucus — a group organized last month and headed by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), who chairs the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

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Renewable Energy Under Attack in Two Dozen States

Recent attacks on state support for renewable energy in solar-rich Arizona are part of a nationwide trend.

Solar panels cover the roof of a parking garage at Arizona State University in Tempe. (Photo by Osha Gray Davidson)

At InsideClimate News today, Maria Gallucci writes:

Over the past few years, a rising tide of legislation has sought to repeal or weaken renewable portfolio standards RPS, which require a certain share of a state’s electricity supply to come from sources like solar and wind. Lesser known are the few lawsuits filed to challenge the constitutionality of these laws.

Many of these attempts have fizzled, but some are being revived this year. In total, 42 efforts are wending their way through legislatures and courts in more than two dozen states, according to the North Carolina Solar Center, a clearinghouse for state renewable energy policies.

“The danger of some of these [RPS laws] being repealed is a little bit greater this year than it was last year,” said Justin Barnes, a senior policy analyst at the center.”

While Republicans are behind most of these anti-renewable attacks (unsurprisingly), Gallucci points to a more specific source.

The biggest push is coming from the American Legislative Exchange Council ALEC, a 40-year-old industry group with free-market views that drafts and pushes legislation and that sees renewable energy mandates as an overreach of government authority.

via Renewable Energy Standards Target of Multi-Pronged Attack | InsideClimate News.