Deregulate Parking, Says Obama Administration

Great to see the Obama administration come out in favor of housing for people over storage for cars:

“Parking requirements generally impose an undue burden on housing development, particularly for transit-oriented or affordable housing,” the paper states. “When transit-oriented developments are intended to help reduce automobile dependence, parking requirements can undermine that goal by inducing new residents to drive, thereby counteracting city goals for increased use of public transit, walking and biking.”

The anti-parking stance came from a “Housing Development Toolkit,” a broadside against zoning. The report says zoning “reduced the ability of many housing markets to respond to growing demand,” making affordable housing hard to find in high-price areas.

Nixing off-street parking is not the paper’s only recommendation. It also advocates taxing vacant land, making it easier to get permits and making cities more dense.

This is the opposite of a big government mandate - it's the Obama White House urging communities to get rid of local regulations that restrict new housing and smart growth.

Conservative Media's New Lie About Obama and Coal Jobs

Conservative media keeps saying there have been 83,000 coal mining jobs lost under President Obama. The problem is that there were barely that many coal mining jobs total when President Obama took office.

Total U.S. coal mining jobs, according to the Energy Information Administration:

• 2009: 86,859
• 2014: 74,931 (most recent year available)

If you believe the historic trends, the war on coal began under President Reagan and has had only modest success under President Obama:

The truth is that mechanization has been killing coal jobs for decades. As the Center for American Progress reports, in recent years, cheap fracked gas and competition with foreign coal have done as much to hurt coal as clean air regulations.

"The World is Looking to Us to Lead": President Obama's Weekly Address on Climate Change

Here's the transcript and here's a link to tell Congress you support President Obama's plan to act on climate.

2015 State of the Union Highlights Obama's Climate Transformation

Just 30 months ago, President Obama was silent on climate change in his re-election campaign. But as the Washington Post's Chris Mooney reports, in his 7th State of the Union, Obama is not only staking his legacy on climate action, he's using climate science to make his political opponents look ignorant - and polls show it's working.

Rep. Raul Grijalva Gets to the Heart of President Obama's Keystone XL Decision

President Obama talks a lot about standing up to the industrial carbon polluters disrupting our climate. So why does he act like the decision on Keystone XL tar sands pipeline - a carbon bomb & one he doesn't have to beg Congress to defuse - is so hard? Why are he and Secretary of State John Kerry standing by in silence as the State Department hires oil contractors to write the environmental review?

Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-NM) has a must-read op-ed on KXL in today's New York Times:

The administration’s approach to the pipeline is a throwback to the time when endangered species were defenseless in the face of corporate moneymaking. It is a reminder that even though our environmental laws use science, not profits, as the basis of our environmental decisions, any company with bottomless pockets used to be able to game the system and get away with it.

That’s why Keystone is about more than one pipeline. It is about establishing once and for all whether we have moved on from the disastrous Bush-Cheney view of environmental policy. [...]

Depending on the outcome, I worry that the American public won’t just lose faith in Keystone. It will lose faith in the government’s ability to fund, carry out, understand and implement scientifically based environmental policy. President Obama doesn’t want that to be his legacy. Neither do I. And I am hardly alone.

Will President Obama and Secretary Kerry do the right thing, or will they be yes men for Washington's big money special interests? Ask them to say no to Keystone XL.

Obama Administration Official Shilling Hard for Coal

People who don't listen to what the Obama administration like to complain about an imaginary war on coal. But if you listen to the actual words spoken by actual administration officials, they often sound a lot like coal executives. (I say executives because there are very few coal mining workers left - machines do almost all of the work now.)

Listen to Julio Friedmann, deputy assistant secretary for clean coal at the Energy Department, who makes the Obama administration sound incredibly desperate to be the coal industry's best friend:

Friedmann said it was “unquestionable” that coal would remain an essential element of a “vibrant” American energy portfolio but said it would be difficult to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and address climate change without the use of CCS technologies.

“It's a technology that we simply need to have,” Friedmann said.

Why do we need to have carbon capture & storage coal-fired power plants? If solar, wind and tidal power become cheaper than even dirty coal - and in New England wind is already cheaper than coal - why would it be "questionable" to install as much clean energy as possible, blow up coal plants, and use gas-fired plants to fill in any gaps? (Gas plants can fire up much faster than coal plants and are much cheaper than nuclear.)

Is it to protect coal jobs? The solar energy industry already employs more people than the coal and gas industries combined. Why are Obama administration staffers like Friedmann be putting a thumb on the scale for coal? As Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) explained, we should look out for the fate of high-carbon energy industry workers, but not at the expense of workers in countless other industries like fishing, skiing and foresting that suffer due to carbon pollution.

But as Andrew Breiner reports at Climate Progress, Friedmann has more reasons to advocate for carbon capture & storage coal plants than just, is it good for America? The real question is, is it good for Friedmann's past and likely future employers?

Friedmann is a Ph.D geologist, and comes to the DoE from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a federally-funded research organization, where he worked in carbon capture and sequestration. His resume also lists work with ExxonMobil and board memberships with the National Coal Council, a coal industry group that lobbies the government. He has also worked with energy companies, as well as with clean energy research organizations. [...]

The very existence of Friedmann’s clean coal post is boon for the coal industry. The possibility of “clean coal” is highly questionable, and industry has pushed the idea for decades to allay concerns about the environment and climate change. While the DoE has pursued a variety of worthwhile efforts to make fossil fuel production generate less CO2, it cannot do enough to make coal a fuel that can be safely pursued. But the DoE will continue to fund research and demonstration projects that support its desirability as a climate change solution, fostering positive public perceptions of coal, and decreasing the perceived urgency of abandoning it.

It is at this point I must remind you that this is a Democratic administration, which is allegedly the party that understands we need to get off of coal as quickly as possible if we have any hope of keeping climate change from becoming climate crisis.

No matter who's in charge in DC, the fix is always in for dirty energy. The default, the center of gravity, the least painful thing is to do what the polluters and their huge piles of desperately-needed campaign cash want you to do.

It's always up to average citizens to make our elected officials feel enough pressure to do the right thing. That's the only way things change.

State of the Union Excerpt on Climate Change

The advance copy of President Obama's State of the Union address focuses much too heavily on fracked gas for my liking, but this section is the key:

Taken together, our energy policy is creating jobs and leading to a cleaner, safer planet. Over the past eight years, the United States has reduced our total carbon pollution more than any other nation on Earth.

But we have to act with more urgency – because a changing climate is already harming western communities struggling with drought, and coastal cities dealing with floods. That’s why I directed my administration to work with states, utilities, and others to set new standards on the amount of carbon pollution our power plants are allowed to dump into the air.

The shift to a cleaner energy economy won’t happen overnight, and it will require tough choices along the way. But the debate is settled. Climate change is a fact. And when our children’s children look us in the eye and ask if we did all we could to leave them a safer, more stable world, with new sources of energy, I want us to be able to say yes, we did.

UPDATE 9:52pm: Just wanted to highlight this shift in President Obama's tone on climate science.

2010:

I know that there are those who disagree with the overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change.

2014:

Climate change is a fact.

Obama to Unveil Climate Action Plan Tuesday - Watch Preview Video

Today's Must-Read Piece on Barack Obama and Climate Change

Heading out the door in a few minutes for the groundbreaking for New Bedford's South Terminal, which hopes to service the Cape Wind project when it finally goes in the water late this year or early next, but first a few quick thoughts on Jonathan Chait's New York magazine feature, Obama Might Actually Be the Environmental President:

• If coal & oil state Democrats and purple state Republicans don't like Barack Obama regulating carbon pollution through the Clean Air Act, Chait's piece is a reminder that they should blame Claire McCaskill, Jay Rockefeller, Lisa Murkowski, Lindsey Graham, Blanche Lincoln, and all the other "moderates" who blocked climate & energy legislation in 2010. That legislation would likely have blocked the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating industrial carbon pollution. But extreme Republicans and those "moderates" were successful in blocking it, so now we get the EPA regulations many of those same senators claim to oppose. 
• It could've been an even stronger piece if Chait wasn't so hand-wavy about Keystone XL being important. Climate activists are making a stand on Keystone not just because of Keystone's direct climate impacts. We're taking a stand on it because, for as many positive things as Obama has done, he's been extremely reluctant to say no to new polluting energy projects, from pipelines to oil drilling to coal mining. 
• It's a good reminder that despite Beltway media hype about presidential rhetoric and the bully pulpit, presidential powers are in reality limited by Congress. Bush couldn't completely destroy the environment in part because he was limited by Congressional Democrats. Obama can't completely save the environment because of the same handcuffs. 

Read Chait's article and let me know what you think in comments.

President Obama & Climate Change: Bold Talk, Meek Action

Hey, remember President Obama's inaugural address and State of the Union speech? How he compared the need for climate action to the civil rights movement? Pledged to stand up for the victims of climate-fueled extreme weather like superstorm Sandy? Said that if Congress wouldn't act on climate change, he would?

Now that we're past the time for dramatic speeches, President Obama is back to barely mentioning climate change in his budget, considering delaying and/or watering down first-ever limits on industrial carbon pollution, and refusing to talk about whether the Arkansas tar sands pipeline spill means we should reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

It was fun while it lasted.

Big Oil: We'll Still Hate Obama Just As Much Even If He Builds Keystone XL

Those who support climate action but say it's not worth fighting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline like to imply that President Obama's approval of the pipeline would earn him political capital. But the head of one polluter front group would like to assure Washington that whether President Obama approves or rejects Keystone XL, Big Oil will still hate him just as much.

First, Dave Roberts summarizes the case against #noKXL activists:

Professional wanker Matt Nisbet says [fighting Keystone XL] “distracts” and “limits” Obama’s ability to broker a deal. (A deal on what? With whom? He doesn’t say.) Michael Levi says it makes 60 Senate votes for a price on carbon less likely. (Less likely than impossible?) I could cite a dozen more examples, people casually accusing Keystone activism of impeding or draining energy from other solutions.

What is this good-faith bipartisan progress just waiting to happen if only activists weren’t being unreasonable about Keystone? What do the VSPs have to offer? I don’t see it. I see self-pleasuring dreams of bipartisan Grand Bargains with no awareness of changed political circumstances.

As Jennifer Yachnin reports in today's E&E News (sub. req.), a top oil industry lobbyist says those who think approval of Keystone XL would mean Big Oil will look the other way on other carbon-cutting efforts are dead wrong:

But [American Energy Alliance and Institute for Energy Research President Thomas] Pyle added that approving the pipeline won't curb industry criticism of the Obama administration, including over what it sees as efforts to hold back oil and gas production on federal lands.

"I don't know that it buys him any good will," Pyle said. "There will be lots of statements of thank you ... but ultimately from a political perspective I don't know that it buys him any room to maneuver."

And ill will could linger over how much time it has taken the administration to make a final decision on the pipeline, Pyle added.

All the climate-disrupting carbon pollution and no thanks from his political enemies? All the more reason President Obama should do the right thing and reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

Tonight's State of the Union: No More Yes Man?

President Obama's first four years saw him attempt to say yes to everything on climate and energy - yes to both the right policy choice AND the political pander. Tougher fuel efficiency standards and new air pollution limits? Yes! The fastest expansion of oil drilling in U.S. history? Yes!

This all-of-the-above strategy has been a failure - instead, we've gotten the worst of all worlds. More risky drilling than ever? Gas prices near record highs? Price tag for climate-fueled weather disasters hitting $188 billion? Yes, yes and yes!

Tonight, I hope President Obama continues his inaugural theme of making good choices and smart investments. He needs to keep saying yes to clean energy investment and yes to carbon emissions continuing to go down while economic recovery continues its upward track.

But he also needs to start saying no - no to America serving as the middleman for dirty, expensive Canadian tar sands. No to unlimited, untracked methane emissions from gas fracking. No to unlimited carbon pollution from existing coal-fired power plants.

The good news for President Obama is that making those hard choices is politically popular. Today's Washington Post poll finds more than half of voters support action on climate change, with just a third of voters in opposition. Climate-fueled extreme weather events like superstorm Sandy have shifted the center - climate action is now a clear political winner.

Now that's worth saying yes to.

Conventional Wisdom Fortune-Tellers Act Blindsided by Data

Until Hurricane Sandy, the political media derided anyone who said global warming was fueling extreme weather as an environmental activist who was overstating science to make his case. Then Sandy came, and the media acted like no one could have seen it coming.

Today, the pundits all insist the presidential race is a toss-up and Nate Silver is a moron for saying otherwise. Tuesday night, they'll all insist no one could possibly have predicted Barack Obama would decisively win the Electoral College.

In fortune-telling business, it's important to insist that only you are allowed to look into the magic crystal ball and see the future. Otherwise the rube forking over $5 for a phony fortune might be able to tell you're a huckster with a glass toy and maybe they'd be better off controlling their own destiny.

Another Unanswered Hurricane Sandy Question

Remind me again why it's against the rules for President Obama to point out that a never-before-seen storm like Hurricane Sandy might be reason to take climate action now? Or that it might be reason for voters to choose candidates who support climate action?

Oh, right. Might anger people who think pointing out scientific reality is politicizing disaster. But aren't those people already voting for Mitt Romney? If not already hosting right-wing talk shows?

Arctic Ice Cap Collapse: Where Polar Bears See Crisis, Big Oil Sees Opportuniy

Global warming is pushing Arctic Sea ice cover towards new record lows:

The area of ocean covered by ice shrank to 4.93 million square kilometers (1.9 million square miles) on average for the five days through Aug. 15, according to the latest data from the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado. With as many as five weeks of the annual melt season left, it’s already the fourth-lowest annual minimum ever measured.

“Unless the melting really, really slows down, there’s a very real chance of a record,” Walt Meier, a research scientist at the NSIDC, said in a telephone interview. “In the last week or so it’s dropped precipitously. There’s definitely a chance it’ll dip below 4 million square kilometers.”

The shrinkage is the most visible sign of global warming according to Meier, and raises the prospect that the Arctic Ocean may become largely ice free in the summer. That opens up new shipping routes and is sparking a race for resources that’s led to Cairn Energy Plc (CNE) and Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) exploring waters off Greenland for oil and gas.

Needless to say, the combination of melting ice and new drilling would be double trouble for America's polar bears.

So to recap, global warming driven by carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels is melting the Arctic ice cap, and how do we react? By letting the oil companies that have made huge profits from their ability to release unlimited carbon pollution (and used those profits to fight climate science) move into the melted areas to drill for more fossil fuels.

Meanwhile, Congress is reacting to drought conditions approaching Dust Bowl levels by moving to gut post-Dust Bowl soil conservation programs. If Jared Diamond wants to write a sequel to Collapse we're giving him plenty of material.

As CREDO Action says, "The Arctic has never been drilled for oil, not even under President George W. Bush." Will President Barack Obama be the one to sign the order? Tell President Obama to say no to Arctic drilling.

Obama Campaign Has No Idea How to Inspire Environmentalists

The Barack Obama campaign has apparently made a decision to run to the right of mainstream America on environmental issues. That's their choice, but if they don't want to fire up environmentalists to fight to re-elect President Obama, why are they now launching a ham-handed Environmentalists for Obama campaign?

The Obama campaign released this video in conjunction with Earth Day, but as ClimateProgress' Joe Romm points out, it makes no mention of global warming, the biggest threat to Earth's life and ecosystems. That's why I say the Obama campaign is running to the right of America - poll after poll shows a majority of Americans understand the threat posed by climate change, but the Obama campaign has apparently chosen to ignore the majority's concerns and instead woo the skeptical minority. Best of luck with that.

Also noticeably absent from President Obama's Earth Day outreach to environmentalists - wildlife. The video shows beautiful landscapes and depicts them as great habitats for mountain bikers and little else. Really? Not even a quick shot of a bald eagle, that great Endangered Species Act success story?

I was most confused and frankly insulted by the Obama campaign having their man go on and on about "energy independence." This is supposed to be the environmentalist pitch and you're talking to me not about less drilling and fewer oil spills, but about national security?

Environmentalists are ready to be fired up to re-elect President Obama. But if his campaign doesn't know how to drop the cold-blooded calculated messaging for even two minutes to inspire their base, a key opportunity could be lost.

President Obama on Investing in a Clean Energy Future

President Obama delivers his weekly address from the Rolls-Royce Crosspointe Centre plant in Petersburg, Virginia that makes fuel-efficient jet engines:

 

Obama's 2012 State of the Union Disappoints on Conservation

Overall, it felt like a clumsy attempt to co-opt Occupy Wall Street's message with little policy substance to back it up. Only a fleeting mention of global warming despite a record year for extreme weather disasters in 2011. And as ThinkProgress Green's Brad Johnson points out, President Obama blamed Congress for climate inaction while himself proposing more oil and gas drilling.

But hey, at least he had Mitch Daniels to follow him, who combined George W. Bush's disastrous policy prescriptions with Dick Cheney's reptilian demeanor.

What did you think?

Thank You, President Obama: Tar Sands Pipeline Decision Delayed

The State Department announced today that it's delaying a decision on TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline pending further study of its route and impacts. It's a major victory for the coalition of hundreds of thousands of climate activists, wildlife lovers and landowners and from Montana to Texas to DC who've asked the Obama administration to do the right thing. Thank you, President Obama!

More Pollution, Higher Gas Prices: Tell Obama to Say No to Tar Sands

From activist Bill McKibben to actress Daryl Hannah, about 600 people have been arrested so far this week at the White House. They're protesting a planned tar sands pipeline cutting from the Canadian border all the way down to Texas.

Al Gore explains why a bipartisan coalition has come together to ask President Obama to take a stand against the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline:

The leaders of the top environmental groups in the country, the Republican Governor of Nebraska, and millions of people around the country—including hundreds of people who have bravely participated in civil disobedience at the White House—all agree on one thing: President Obama should block a planned pipeline from the tar sands of Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico.

The tar sands are the dirtiest source of fuel on the planet. As I wrote in Our Choice two years ago, gasoline made from the tar sands gives a Toyota Prius the same impact on climate as a Hummer using gasoline made from oil. This pipeline would be an enormous mistake. The answer to our climate, energy and economic challenges does not lie in burning more dirty fossil fuels — instead, we must continue to press for much more rapid development of renewable energy and energy efficient technologies and cuts in the pollution that causes global warming.

Here's what's most ridiculous: The Keystone XL tar sands pipeline wouldn't cut gas prices. The company that wants to build the pipeline admits it would actually raise gas prices 15 cents a gallon in the Midwest, where it's currently forced to dump tar sands oil at a discount. Why would President Obama even consider a pipeline that would put communities, water supplies and wildlife at risk, would lock in our oil dependence, and would raise gas prices?

But with Energy Secretary Steven Chu making approving statements about the pipeline and the White House press secretary refusing to even tell President Obama about the protests, it's fair to wonder if the fix is in for dirty tar sands.

Learn more at TarSandsAction.org, then tell President Obama to say no to dirty tar sands.