The WSJ (subs. req’d) reports:

Three of Wall Street’s biggest investment banks are set to announce today that they are imposing new environmental standards that will make it harder for companies to get financing to build coal-fired power plants in the U.S.

Citigroup Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley say they have concluded that the U.S. government will cap greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants sometime in the next few years. The banks will require utilities seeking financing for plants before then to prove the plants will be economically viable even under potentially stringent federal caps on carbon dioxide, the main man-made greenhouse gas.

Coal just can’t get no respect.

Kudos to the banks and to Environmental Defense and the Natural Resources Defense Council for working with them to develop the standards. More from the story here:

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On the heels of giving away the (decorative) centerpiece of his climate technology effort, Nevergen Futuregen, Bush released a heartless and mindless FY09 energy budget today.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), chair of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, sent around an email on the President’s Budget Request for FY2009 (I will post budget details later). Bingaman is “pleased to see overall growth in the DOE budget, particularly in the area of basic research,” but critical of a number of dubious Administration choices:

• The new Administration budget also cuts funding for solar energy research, hydropower, and industrial energy efficiency. “If American energy-intensive industries, and the jobs they provide, are to prosper in a future in which we impose a cost on carbon dioxide, we need to act aggressively now to position them as global leaders in energy efficiency of all kinds,” Bingaman said. “It’s a bad time to be rolling back this societal investment in our future high-wage jobs.”

[So much for the "we back clean technology because it is the only solution to global warming" rhetoric.]

• The Administration’s proposal [zeroes] out funding of DOE’s weatherization programs from their currently appropriated level of over $220 million. The weatherization assistance program increases the energy efficiency of dwellings occupied by low-income Americans, thus directly reducing their energy costs. This is important, as energy costs account for about 13 percent of the household budgets of low-income families, compared to 3.5 percent or less for all other Americans. With energy costs rising significantly, and an economy poised on recession, the weatherization program is more needed than ever, and the funds already appropriated by Congress for fiscal year 2008 will pay for upgrades to 85,000 low-income dwellings. “It’s hard to fathom why this program is being terminated by the DOE now — a lot of households need help reducing their energy bills, and the work of insulating their homes creates residential construction jobs that are greatly needed right now, too,” Bingaman stated. “I am working to get weatherization funding for an additional 77,000 dwellings into the economic stimulus package before the Senate, so the program can help over 162,000 households this year. I will certainly urge my colleagues to reverse DOE’s ill-timed budget cut for fiscal year 2009.”

[What does Bush say to poor people who are trying to keep warm in the face of record gas/oil prices (driven by his failed policies): "Let them burn cake!" This decision must be quite a surprise to the 3 or 4 remaining people who still believed the "compassionate conservative" nonsense.]

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A plaque on the wall at Wal-Mart headquarters carries a quote attributed to Sam Walton. It says:

Incrementalism is innovation’s worst enemy.
We don’t want continuous improvement,
we want radical change.

That plaque should be mounted on the door of every caucus room and voting place in America on Tuesday, because it gives the key to electing the next President of the United States.

If the most popular word of the 2008 presidential campaign is “change”, then let’s take a moment to think about what “change” means. For the sake of discussion, let’s categorize change into two types: transactional and transformational.

Transactional change might be a new tax credit, a new regulation, a new policy that alters the way we transact business. When the candidates get into specific proposals about energy and climate policy, for example, they generally are describing transactional change. In that department, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both have issued detailed energy and climate platforms. They far outclass John McCain and Mitt Romney, who have not.

Transformational change is something altogether different. As Wikipedia explains:

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