Daily Briefing - 1/11/07

Keeping it short and sweet today...

The EU is proposing cleaner and more competitive energy markets and subsequently spurring (hopefully) action by the UN. DaimlerChrysler's chief economist scoffs at the EU's handling of global warming, warning against "chicken little reactions." Let's just say, the folks at Daimler backpedaled away from that one real quick.

In other news, MIT has released a study with a perplexing title that offers some mixed results for corn ethanol. Speaking of mixed results, President Bush spoke last night. I'll leave it at that. On to the briefing...

MW

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Daily Briefing – 1/11/07
662 days until the NEXT election… and global warming is an integral part of our nation’s agenda!

Key Issues in the News
Global Warming
- EU proposes cleaner, more competitive energy market
o Spurring UN action
- NASA scientist urges action
- Daimler Chrysler economist criticizes Europe over climate change
- Does a hot 2006 seal the debate?
- Threatening all species
- McKibben says clock-ticking
- Affecting skiers and bears
o Dooming ski resorts?
- Grist: A week of action on campus (not THAT kind of action)
Washington/Legislation/Politics/People/etc.
- Where the 100 hours will hit the brakes… the Senate
- House passes minimum wage increase
- Most Americans opposed to Bush’s Iraq plan
- Democrats pick Denver as convention site
- WH opposed to new bill on stem cells
Potential ‘08ers…
- Dodd (officially declares), Biden (not just talk), Romney (wrong on issues in 94), Obama (may get help from state), Clinton (front-runner status is slipping), Giuliani (getting help from Kilgore), McCain (targeted by MoveOn), Richardson (helps orchestrate ceasefire in Darfur),
- Florida might move primary
- Candidates on the surge
Other News from the Media
- Mixed results for corn ethanol, from MIT study
- Kermit takes on Detroit
o While CalCars keeps going strong with plug-in hybrids
…and the Blogosphere
- The Caucus: Congress v. The White House
- From the SirotaBlog, Senator Grassley: “I would hate to see,” labor/enviro standards in U.S. trade policy
- TomPaine: Harmonizing shades of green
- Grist:
o I’m gonna link to Step It Up again
o Discussing generations
o Questioning Friedman and his love of coal
Miscellaneous… or just plain weird
- David Beckham is coming to the States
- Fox News anchor calls Senator Kennedy “A hostile enemy right here on the home front”
Quotes O’ the Day
“We ought to form a designated-driver caucus of people who are ready to drive the Senate agenda while their colleagues who are intoxicated with the idea of being president are sitting in the back seat." ~ Sen. Ron Wyden (paraphrased by Sen. Durbin) on dealing with the many Senators with Presidential ambitions

Daily Briefing - 1/10/07

We're running late again! At least blogger seems to be running okay today. Instead of the normal DB debrief, I think it might be fun to quickly recount the festivities at last night's New Member Reception held by members of the green community.

Set in the heart (ahem, down a bunch of stairs and waaaaay in the corner) of the Capitol, the reception turned out to be an unbridled success. It was ran for the most part by LCV, but supported by National Wildlife Action among others. Throughout the event, the reception room was filled with members of the environmental community (from interns to Presidents of organizations), Members of Congress, and their many staffers. If I had to guess, I would say that roughly 20 Members stopped by and mingled, a nice showing for the once neglected enviro community.

While most Members came in, made their rounds, and graciously left, some stuck around for quite awhile engaged in numerous discussions with the interested crowd (most likely fielding way too many questions on their committee assignments). Rep. John Hall (D-NY19) came early, left and came back. He even suffered through two quick conversations with yours truly about Westchester County and Indian Point. A certain attendee even asked him, "Weren't you naked on one of your album covers?" To which he answered, "No! We were wearing pants."

A certain intern tried his best to impress Members by first asking Senator Cardin about his former fraternity (which he mistakenly thought they shared), and second by talking up Rep. Jason Altmire about his FSU football days, only to be outed by a mean-spirited coworker as a UF grad.

Aside from the occasional funny and awkward moments (such as another attendee almost getting into a precarious situation with Rep. Keith Ellison by running into him chest first), most of the night was filled with enthusiastic discussion and light-hearted mingling.

On to the briefing...

MW
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Daily Briefing – 1/10/07
663 days until the NEXT election… and global warming is an integral part of our nation’s agenda!

Key Issues in the News
Global Warming
- 2006 is hottest year on record for U.S.
- EU challenges world with new target
- Thomas Friedman is jumping on the clean coal bandwagon
- Schwarzenegger orders cuts in emissions
- NOAA affirms human influence on climate
- Using supercomputers for research
- The advantage for weeds
- The effect on natural gas and oil stocks
- Editorials on the Administration’s decision to list the Polar Bear as endangered:
o L.A. Times, Kansas City Star, Baltimore Sun, Albuquerque Tribune, Appleton Post-Crescent
- Does global warming cause El Nino?
- Grist: Green progress and state climate plans
Washington/Legislation/Politics/People/etc.
- Nancy Pelosi: Grandma with a gavel
o And she put an end to smoking in the Capitol
- Senator Obama has introduced a not-so-climate-friendly bill
- Senator Johnson’s condition improves
Potential ‘08ers…
- Clinton (NY’s best-dressed), Brownback (irking Romney), Romney (defended by Mass. Activists), McCain and Romney (vying for supporters in the House), Vilsack (comes out against ‘surge’ plan), Gilmore (still exploring), Clinton again (deciding where to run her base), Giuliani (a new book about him is coming out),
Other News from the Media
- U.S. to raise royalty rates for new oil and gas leases in the gulf
o President lifts ban on Alaskan drilling
- Dell offsets its impacts by planting trees
- Finding the green in building renovation
-
…and the Blogosphere
- From The Hotline: Presidential hopefuls on CAFÉ standards
- Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver walks the walk as he reintroduces his CLEAR Act
- Grist:
o Where have all the urban nature writers gone?
o Drillin in the green river valley, from above
Miscellaneous… or just plain weird
- Soooo cool… Apple’s new iPhone
- A woman with a perfect memory
- Fmr. Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT), “one of the fathers of the modern internet”
- Rick Santorum will be at the head of America’s Enemies… uhhh, I mean he will head the America’s Enemies program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center
- O’Reilly and Colbert to trade appearances
- Maybe lack of underwear played into it? I dunno, just a guess
Quotes O’ the Day
“Stop looking at it.” Sen. Barack Obama to reporters asking questions about his shirtless photo

Daily Briefing - 1/9/07

Welcome to the late edition of the briefing thanks to some troubles with blogger. No worries though as we are back up and running. Yee-haw!

At the UN the head of the Climate Secretariat is calling for better leadership on global warming. He's starting with his boss, new Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, asking for him to call a world summit. That would be good, another summit the US can quietly abstain from... or conspicuously walk out on. Oh boy. Moving along, Tony Blair says fighting global warming should not harm local and global economies and David Roberts of Grist grouses about being labeled a dirty hippie... well, sort of.

In Washington, the Democrats have fully unleashed their 100 hours agenda, attempting to ram through bills on 9/11 Commission recommendations and intelligence oversight. Republicans are angry that Democrats are using such tactics. I'm smell hypocrisy on all fronts here.

The official '08 candidate list is growing, but now with some familiar faces. Senator Kerry is on the verge of officially announcing and Al Sharpton is heavily leaning towards another run. I can see this is as a cathartic exercise for the Senator to exorcise the demons of '04, but I think Sharpton is trying to get under America's skin, Ralph Nader-style.

Finally, it has been brought to my attention that the quote from yesterday's briefing is questionably attributed to Victor Hugo, as Mr. Hugo was French and the quote was about Congress. Note the discord. I thank google for their (not so) accurate "quote of the day feature... and myself for being lazy and not researching it before posting. Wikiquote has this to say:
Though research done for Wikiquote indicates that the attribution of this remark to Hugo seems extensive on the internet, no source has been identified. It seems to be a statement a modern satirist might make, derived from one made circa 1910 by Mrs Patrick Campbell regarding homosexuals: "Does it really matter what these affectionate people do— so long as they don’t do it in the streets and frighten the horses?"

MW

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Daily Briefing – 1/9/07
664 days until the NEXT election… and global warming is an integral part of our nation’s agenda!

Key Issues in the News
Global Warming
- Time: Leadership on global warming is thin, according to top UN official
o The new Secretary General should call a world summit
- It could spur and evolution explosion
- The fight should not harm domestic and global economies, says Tony Blair
- What’s global warming got to do with it?
- Japanese cite it as top environmental problem
- Expanding on An Inconvenient Truth – George Monbiot’s Heat
- Woes may hit home
- ExxonMobil reportedly admits PR problem
- David Roberts on global warming and dirty hippies
Washington/Legislation/Politics/People/etc.
- The House continues its work… on 9/11 reforms and intelligence oversight
o Also from CNN
- Sen. Kennedy introduced legislation today forcing the President to get authorization for a troop “surge”
Potential ‘08ers…
- Kerry (he’s running again), Obama (beach babe?), Romney (raises $6.5 mil in one day), Romney again (endorsed by Sen. DeMint), McCain (may get caught up in Bush war plan), Obama again (honesty helps him), Clinton (sharing the bill with Obama), Edwards (already has one vote), Sharpton (oh boy, he might run again), Giuliani (wife may be a liability), Kucinich (he has a plan for Iraq)
- The first debate has been scheduled
Other News from the Media
- Paying in pollution for energy hunger
- Fewer continents are in the forecast
…and the Blogosphere
- Over at DailyKos they’re doing a congressional committees project
- Check out the straw poll over at MYDD
- The Caucus: Where the candidates stand on Iraq
Miscellaneous… or just plain weird
- The blowout nobody (except for Kristin Johnson) expected
- As with most problems New Yorkers face, the blame goes to New Jersey
- Apple jumps into the cell phone world
- Sacha Baron Cohen: out of character
Quotes O’ the Day
"Big day. Nancy Pelosi was sworn in as Speaker of the House. Experts say Pelosi is now the most powerful non-Oprah woman." ~ Conan O'Brien

Daily Briefing - 1/8/07

Ok... it was 73 degrees in Washington, DC on January 6th, the NRA is being pressured by its members to resist the Bush Administration's energy policies, and GM released a plug-in hybrid prototype. Things seem a bit off... Oh well, I guess I'll just try and focus on politics to bring me back to reality. Umm, that won't work... especially not with Charlie Rangel smiling back at me in a glowing article about his impending chairmanship.

Craziness abound. Craziness indeed.

MW

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Daily Briefing – 1/8/07
665 days until the NEXT election… and global warming is an integral part of our nation’s agenda!

Key Issues in the News
Global Warming
- NYT Letters to the Editor on Climate Change
- The Ununited States… at least on weather
- Car boom puts Europe on road to smoggy future
- The world’s top security problem?
- Might our fate be already sealed?
- Getting to the truth
- Gore mobilizes activists
- Grist: A brand new, mass protest climate movement for 2007
- From The Simpsons
- Polar Bear Club may have to cancel the season
Washington/Legislation/Politics/People/etc.
- The 100 hours begins now
- President will address the nation Wed. night on Iraq
- It’s Rangel’s turn now
Potential ‘08ers…
- Gore (will he or won’t he?), Edwards (he’s always on), Biden (officially running), McCain (backing the troop surge), Giuliani (questioning his client roster), Richardon (working on Darfur), Romney (putting the price at $100 mil), Kerry (gets Deval’s support), Brownback (making it official), Gilmore (starting his exploration), Obama (Inouye thinks its too early), Gingrich (worrying McCain)
- Conservatives are looking for Mr. Right
Other News from the Media
- NRA pressured top resist Bush energy policies
- GM introduces a plug-in electric car
- Northwest residents looking at their trees differently
- Congressional budget delay stymies scientific research
- Japan: Land of rising conservation
- A future with wind
…and the Blogosphere
- The Caucus: And they’re off!
- Pelosi places term limits on committee chairmanships
- Grist:
o One woman’s eco-evolution
Miscellaneous… or just plain weird
- No more bun ladies, librarians getting with the times
- This should help productivity in offices
- Better lineup ladies!
- NYC smells like gas. (Waiting for inevi
- “More than half of US teenagers use social networking sites like MySpace, but girls go online to reaffirm existing friendships, while boys are more often there to flirt”… and the Pope is Catholic… and bears $#% in the woods…
Quotes O’ the Day
“I don't mind what Congress does, as long as they don't do it in the streets and frighten the horses.” ~Victor Hugo