Read & Watch

While the media spotlight is elsewhere, the U.S. Senate this summer is seriously negotiating climate change legislation. Senate Democrats have signaled that they are focused on climate change. They plan to address the issue in this year’s budget reconciliation. This is potentially good news for those who have argued for a price on carbon. That’s because consideration of a carbon price meets the strict parliamentary requirements of budget reconciliation. The reconciliation is not subject to the filibuster, meaning that it can be passed with 51… Read More »Decision Time: Will Senate Go Big or Small on Climate Change?

We didn’t see that coming. Extreme drought in the west. Extreme wildfires out west. Flooding in the southeast. More and stronger hurricanes. More tornadoes. Dangerous heat in the west. The drying of the Great Salt Lake. Possibly a high-rise condo on a barrier island collapsing. Rivers flooding in Europe. These are occurring due in part to misinformation campaigns by the oil industry and by climate change-deniers on social media. We can’t solve this crisis by recycling more, eating less red meat, planting trees and driving… Read More »Time for Carbon Fee is Now

BY SYLVIA NEELY This OpEd appeared in the Centre Daily Times on JULY 11, 2021 Agriculture faces serious problems in a warming world. California, according to one recent article, “supplies two-thirds of the country’s fruits and nuts and more than a third of America’s vegetables.” The Central Valley’s bounty is made possible by water from the north flowing down rivers and irrigation streams. When rain and snow are not abundant, as has been the case recently, farmers rely on water from underground aquifers. Unfortunately, that… Read More »Climate Watch: How agriculture and climate change are connected, and why it matters

Our nation’s lawmakers are currently working on a package of spending measures and policies aimed at transforming America’s infrastructure and tackling climate change. During an Earth Day summit with world leaders, President Biden committed the U.S. to reducing greenhouse gas emissions 50 to 52 percent by 2030 compared to 2005 levels. To achieve that goal, Biden has proposed spending hundreds of billions of dollars on electric vehicle charging stations, incentives for consumers to purchase EVs, retrofitting homes and businesses to be more energy efficient, and… Read More »Price on Carbon Must Be Part of This Year’s Climate Legislation

On June 4, a group of 25 Utah Republicans, mostly state legislators, published an op/ed in a Salt Lake City newspaper asking Congress to enact a fee on carbon pollution and to return the money collected directly to American families. This happened in Utah, the most reliably “red” state in the nation. It is the latest example of how Republicans increasingly are getting involved in finding solutions to climate change. For several years, the conservative Climate Leadership Council has made the same “carbon fee and… Read More »Republicans Engage on Climate Legislation