When asked what he would change immediately, if he could, President Obama talked about reforming energy policy to favor clean alternatives.

photo via flickr

The New York Times editorial page is calling on the Senate and President Obama to use the BP oil spill to pass comprehensive climate and energy reform that would reduce our dependance on dirty fuels like oil and coal. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid seems to have a similar idea, signaling the other day that he intends to push the Senate climate bill, championed by Sens. Kerry and Lieberman, in the beginning of July. Obama too seems r…Read the full story on TreeHugger

The disastrous oil crisis still unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico is only the most recent reminder that America is overdue to start a major transition to a clean energy economy. And meaningful energy reform is something that Representative Jay Inslee (D-WA) has been pursuing for years. His book, Apollo’s Fire, co-authored with Bracken Hendricks and with a foreword by some guy named Bill Clinton, is a veritable road map to how the nat…Read the full story on TreeHugger

Image via nicolasnova

Talk about an energy efficiency success story! Consumers Energy, a utility in Michigan, needed to meet the requirements of Michigan’s 2008 energy reform law, which says that utilities have to work with customers to cut electric use by 5.5% and natural gas use by 3.85% by 2015. Their work didn’t just hit the targets, it blew them out of the water with customers hitting 134% of the target for electricity savings, and 132% of the target for natural gas savings. The utility estimates that energy efficiency measures installed during the first six months of the programs …Read the full story on TreeHugger

Photo via NY Daily News

Looks like there’s been yet another warped development in the ongoing Lindsey Graham is-he-in-or-out-with-the-climate bill saga: When we last left off, Graham (R-SC) had walked away from the clean energy reform bill he helped draft because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid moved immigration ahead of climate on the agenda, which Reid said he was going to do. But Reid relented, and…Read the full story on TreeHugger

Photo via AMNH

You all know how we feel about CCS, the technology that will somehow miraculously provide the world with so-called ‘clean coal‘ (in reality, it provides Democrats with a way to appease the coal industry in the increasingly unlikely event of clean energy reform). Well, along with the host of other problems it has — it’s ridiculously expensive, nobody wants the CO2 buried anywhere n…Read the full story on TreeHugger

Photo via Wellsy

Lord knows I love me a little political wonkery from time to time–good thing, then, that there’s been plenty to go around lately. The green community, myself included, has been trying to figure out what motivated Obama’s two seemingly needless concessions to the conservative energy agenda (nuclear power and offshore drilling). The question boi…Read the full story on TreeHugger

Photo via Reuters

Get ready to git your wonk on. The long, long, long-awaited senate clean energy reform bill crafted by the bi (or tri) partisan team of John Kerry (D-MA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) will be unveiled on April 26th. But wait, you say, I thought it was coming out on Earth Day, April 22nd–why has it been bumped back?
…Read the full story on TreeHugger

Image via AZ LD-6 GOP

Doth my eyes deceive me? Why, it would appear that a number of prominent GOP members are, yes, praising the new climate bill, according to a new Reuters story. And not just Lindsey Graham (R-SC)! Yes, rumors that there may be widening support from high profile senators like Scott Brown (MA) and Lamar Alexander (TN). How can that be? Thus far, the party has taken a pretty hard line against energy reform–what gives? …Read the full story on TreeHugger

Images via Climate Progress

You’ve likely heard the big news today that 162,000 new US jobs were added in March, which marks the biggest gain in employment in 3 years. Some 40,000 of those were attributed to the Census, but the rest was true private sector growth. Since the boilerplate (but untrue) talking points opponents of energy reform use was that it would kill jobs and burden the fragile economy, and now we’re finally seeing distinct job growth again, is there a better chance that the beleaguered clean en…Read the full story on TreeHugger