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Harry Reid calls the bluff of Climate Peacocks

Climate peacocks like to preen and call attention to themselves with flashy moves — but they are not sincerely interested in taking the difficult but necessary steps toward reducing carbon pollution.  Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson has the story of this rara avis, which should be an endangered species, but, sadly, isn’t.

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Reid Calls The Bluff Of Climate Peacocks

THE CLIMATE PEACOCK CAUCUS

ALEXANDER
BROWN (MA)
COLLINS
CORKER
CRAPO
ENZI
GRAHAM
GRASSLEY
HATCH
KYL
LANDRIEU
LINCOLN
McCAIN
MURKOWSKI
NELSON (NE)
PRYOR
RISCH
ROCKEFELLER
SNOWE
THUNE
VOINOVICH

Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) is giving obstructionist senators a chance to finally take action on climate and clean energy, after they attempted to block the “unelected bureaucracy” of the Environmental Protection Agency from doing so. After holding a “thrilling” climate caucus with his members last week, the Democratic majority leader plans to bring an “impenetrable” comprehensive package of legislation to repair the damage caused by fossil fuels to our economy and our planet.

Earlier this month, 47 senators — every Republican and six Democrats — voted for Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-AK) resolution to overturn the Environmental Protection Agency’s scientific global warming endangerment finding, finalized after years of delay in following a Supreme Court mandate to obey the language of the Clean Air Act.

Twenty-one of Murkowski’s supporters claimed they voted to reject science in order to preserve the “balance of power” between the legislative and executive branch. They said that they had to overturn the EPA’s scientific finding because setting pollution limits should instead be the job of the elected members of Congress. Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) even said he voted for Murkowski to “ensure that Congress keeps its responsibility to establish our nation’s environmental regulations.”

Like “deficit peacocks” who pretend to be hawkish on budgets but refuse any real solution, these “climate peacocks” claim to care about science, energy reform, and the environment, but have yet to find solutions to the threat of climate change. Reid is now calling the bluff of these twenty “responsible” senators, who will be proven to be fossil-fueled hypocrites if they fail to support policies that bring the swift reduction of carbon pollution that science demands.


The Climate Peacock Caucus

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Time magazine names Climate Progress one of the 25 “Best Blogs of 2010″

And one of the “top five blogs Time writers read daily”

For any first time visitors here, you might start with “An Introduction to Climate Progress.”

From the savvy to the satirical, the eye-opening to the jaw-dropping, TIME makes its annual picks of the blogs we can’t live without

Here’s the full list along with what Time said about Climate Progress [plus a nice video]:

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Jindal’s self-righteous indignation

LA governor talks tough on BP oil disaster response, while deploying “only a fraction” of National Guard, CBS reports

If Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) were a Texan, they’d say he was all hat and no cattle.  He speaks loudly, but he doesn’t carry much of a stick as we’ve seen on the sand berm “solution.”  TP has much more on the great Jindal swindle.

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Energy and Global Warming News for June 28: Silicon Valley becoming driving force for electric vehicles; G20 urges phasing out of fossil fuel subsidies; Gore says record temps show need for Senate to pass climate bill

Silicon Valley becoming driving force for electric vehicles

Tuesday’s scheduled stock market debut for Palo Alto-based Tesla Motors Inc., the first by a U.S. automaker since Ford Motor Co.’s in 1956, is the highest-profile sign of the region’s role as a vibrant hub of the growing electric-vehicle industry.

But Silicon Valley is also home to some of the top companies working on the infrastructure needed to keep the cars charged up and on the road, including Better Place of Palo Alto and Coulomb Technologies in Campbell, Calif., which have established early leads in creating battery-swapping stations and public charging networks.

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