 News
EPA Administrator, Stephen Johnson, has notified Congress that he will proceed with an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) before establishing greenhouse gas emission regulations.
Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and John Ensign (R-NV) propose Clean Energy Tax Stimulus Act of 2008 (S. 2821) as an alternative to the stalled Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act of 2008 (H.R. 5351), which became controversial after it proposed to cut oil and gas industry tax credits to pay for renewable energy and efficiency tax incentives.
State Department requests public comments on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change progress. View Federal Register Notice
Recent Briefing
Climate Change:
From Scientific Knowledge to Policy Development (January 11, 2008)
 View presentations and more information...
Featured Science & Technology in Congress
Articles
Another Consuming Month for EPA
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continues to frequent the halls of Senate and House office buildings on Capitol Hill, as Members of Congress in both chambers dissect the agency’s latest climate change moves. Congress has dealt the EPA another subpoena this month and hauled agency heads to testify in committee hearings yet again. Meanwhile, the agency’s most recent smog standard debuted with modest support from industry, environmental groups, and Congress. Continue
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Congress Considers Energy Tax Incentives
Congress toiled this month to address concerns over escalating fuel prices and the upcoming expiration of tax credits for renewable energy producers. The House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming held a hearing on the first of the month to discuss the increasing oil profits and continued government subsidies to the oil industry in the midst of a fuel crisis. Meanwhile, a recently introduced bipartisan bill in the Senate offers a temporary extension of renewable energy tax incentives in the hopes of gaining support in both parties. Continue
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Congressional Hearings Examine Impact of Climate Change on Human Health
National Public Health Week, which took place April 7-13, brought two hearings addressing climate change and its impacts on human health, one with the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming and the other with the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.
The theme of both hearings was that climate change is likely to bring with it an increase in certain types of health problems, particularly in disadvantaged populations such as children, the elderly, and the poor. Continue
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EPA Saga Continues
Controversies, investigations, and subpoenas continue to trail the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) this month. After announcing in a short letter to the state’s governor his decision to refuse a waiver that would grant greenhouse gas regulation rights to California, EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson remained silent on the reasons for his decision for nearly two months. Johnson finally released a lengthy document outlining his rationale on February 29. The basis for Johnson’s argument is that the Clean Air Act allows the waiver to be granted if California wishes to address pollution at a local or state level. Since climate change is a global problem, the waiver would thus be inappropriate. The response on Capitol Hill from prominent Democrats and California legislators has been extremely critical, leading to another subpoena, more investigations, and several probing hearings. Continue
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EPA Denies California Waiver
After much coaxing, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finally delivered a decision late December on whether it would approve a waiver to California to allow the state to regulate vehicle greenhouse gas emissions. EPA’s Administrator, Stephen L. Johnson, declared that the agency would not grant California the waiver because the state had not proven the “existence of compelling and extraordinary conditions” for enforcing restrictions other than those stipulated by the Clean Air Act. Continue
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Energy Package Signed into Law
After months of debate, a congressional energy package was finally signed into law (Public Law No: 110-140) on December 19. The Senate passed the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (H.R.6) on December 13th with a vote of 86-8 and the House cleared the Senate bill by a vote of 314-100 on December 18.
The final version of the bill no longer includes a House-passed provision that would have required investor-owned electric utilities to produce 15 percent of their energy from renewables. After two failed cloture votes, the Senate also dropped a tax provision that would have allotted $21.8 billion dollars worth of tax incentives for renewable energy and energy efficiency. The provision, which made it through the House, was particularly contentious due to the fact that the bulk of the funds required to finance these incentives would have come from scaling back tax incentives for oil and natural gas producers. The White House had made it clear that it would veto the bill if the tax provision was not shelved. Democratic leaders vowed to try again next year to enact these provisions, as many of these tax incentives are set to expire in 2008. Continue
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Cap and Trade Bill to Senate Floor
On December 5, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee voted 11-8 to report out favorably America’s Climate Security Act (S. 2191), a bill cosponsored by Senators Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and John Warner (R-VA) that establishes a cap and trade program for the reduction of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. The 180 amendments proposed prior to the markup led to expectation that the markup would last days. In the end, however, only forty amendments were offered and the Committee was able to complete the markup in one day. Cosponsor Warner was the lone Republican to join the Committee’s eight Democrats and its two independents to send the legislation to the Senate floor. Continue
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For more articles in past issues...
Climate Change & Energy Statements and Letters
--AAAS sent a letter to Members of the Environment and Public Works Committee "to take action now to enable a debate on the Senate floor on how best to mitigate and adapt to climate change." The letter draws upon the AAAS Board Statement on Climate Change. (November 30, 2007) AAAS then thanked key Members for their efforts. (December 14, 2007)
--The AAAS Board of Directors released a statement on the “The Crisis in Earth Observation from Space.” According to
the statement, “The network of satellites upon which the United States
and the world have relied for indispensable observations of Earth from space
is in jeopardy” due to budget constraints and a shift in priorities. (April
28, 2007)
--The AAAS Board of Directors released a statement on climate change, noting that the "scientific evidence is clear: global
climate change caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing
threat to society." (February 18, 2007)
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Updated April 25, 2008
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