In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, incoming energy chair Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) joined Americans For Prosperity (AFP) president Tim Phillips — a global warming denier who pushes the dumbest denier myth — to support the lawsuits by global warming polluters against climate rules. One of the companies leading the charge against the Environmental Protection Agency’s greenhouse gas endangerment finding is Koch Industries, the private pollution giant whose billionaire owners have been directing the Tea Party movement through its AFP front group.

Brad Johnson has the story.

Read more

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, incoming energy chair Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) joined Americans For Prosperity (AFP) president Tim Phillips, a global warming denier, to support the lawsuits by global warming polluters against climate rules. One of the companies leading the charge against the Environmental Protection Agency’s greenhouse gas endangerment finding is Koch Industries, the private pollution giant whose billionaire owners have been directing the Tea Party movement through its AFP front group.

Upton once considered a “moderate on environmental issues,” but has worked hard to refashion himself as a hard-right defender of pollution in recent months. Some Tea Party groups tried to block Upton from taking the gavel of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, attacking his past support for energy-efficient light bulbs. Upton previously claimed that “climate change is a serious problem” and that “the world will be better off” if we reduced carbon emissions. However, in the course of the past two years — as he received $20,000 from Koch Industries — Upton has shifted to oppose not only cap-and-trade legislation but any form of limits on climate pollution whatsoever, instead supporting investigations against climate scientists and lawsuits against the EPA and its supposed “unconstitutional power grab that will kill millions of jobs”:

April 2009: Climate change is a serious problem that necessitates serious solutions.

June 2009: We have a unique opportunity and a responsibility to reduce emissions and preserve our economy – the American public is desperate for solutions, but a national energy tax is not the answer.

December 2009: I think we can lower our emissions. I think the world will be better off if we did that, and we can do it without cap and trade.

January 2010: No matter what we did between now and 2050, it, there was no real science to verify that it would reduce the temperature rise that some predicted. And that’s why we do need hearings.

December 2010: Moreover, the principal argument for a two-year delay is that it will allow Congress time to create its own plan for regulating carbon. This presumes that carbon is a problem in need of regulation. We are not convinced.

“We think the American consumer would prefer not to be skinned by Obama’s EPA,” Upton and Phillips wrote in the Wall Street Journal, invoking the grisly image of the president murdering his fellow citizens. The world would be better off if Upton went back to believing instead in serious solutions to serious problems.

Progressives should know the most commonly used arguments by the disinformers and doubters “” and how to answer them.

Read more

You probably won’t be able to guess which one it is, but here’s a hint.  It’s currently somewhere on the front page of ClimateProgress.

Read more

Many dead trees appear gray and red on the high-mountain slopes of Union Pass Bridger in Teton National Forest in Wyoming

Small Beetles Massacre The Rockies’ Whitebark Pines

The Whitebark pine trees in the high-elevation areas of America’s Northern Rockies have stood for centuries. But these formerly lush evergreen forests are disappearing at an alarmingly fast rate; what remains are eerie stands of red and gray snags.

Warmer climates have sparked an outbreak of a voracious mountain pine beetle that is having devastating consequences for whitebarks and the wildlife that depend on them.

Read more

Claire drowns the western, eastern, northern, and southern seaboards, valleys, and metropolitan areas.

America’s Finest News Service takes on extreme weather — links to the The Onion‘s best 2010 climate, energy, and politics pieces follow:

Read more

By guest blogger Phyllis Cuttino, director of the Pew Climate and Energy Campaign

Last week, Congress took the opportunity to create jobs and to reinvigorate both our manufacturing base and seize new export markets by passing the extension of the Section 1603 Treasury Grant Program, which allows renewable energy developers to claim tax incentives directly. The extraordinary worldwide growth in clean energy investment over the past five years has been defined by a simple fact: Where supportive clean energy policies are adopted, investment follows. Time and again, it has been shown that nations with the strongest policy frameworks have attracted the most capital and enjoyed the associated economic benefits, including job creation. In fact, our new report, Global Clean Power: A $2.3 Trillion Opportunity, underscores the critical connection of government policy to private investment.

Read more