New Energy Bill passed the Senate

What a fantastic victory for our environment!

On Thursday, 21 June, the U.S. Senate passed an energy bill that would greatly improve the fuel economy of our nation's cars for the first time since 1975 -- cutting America's oil dependence and
global warming pollution in the process.

By a 65 to 27 vote, the Senate adopted a measure that would require cars, trucks and sport-utility vehicles to get 35 miles per gallon by 2020 -- compared with a paltry 25 miles per gallon today.

It was a stunning setback for the auto companies, who fought tooth and nail against an energy bill that will drag America out of our gas guzzling past and into a more energy efficient
future.

And what a historic moment for millions of us who have worked so hard -- for so many years -- to break the automakers' stranglehold on Washington for the sake of a healthier planet.

Thousands of you exemplified that can-do spirit yesterday when you received the emergency alert and swamped the Senate with phone calls in opposition to the automakers' latest amendment.

You spoke out for the vast majority of Americans who are sick and tired of our oil habit and the terrible price we pay for it.

And that's why the Senate, after decades of doing Big Auto's bidding, made a sudden U-turn last night.

What a difference five years makes! The last time we fought this battle, in 2002, the automakers barely broke a sweat. But since then, the American people have glimpsed an oil-dependent future of skyrocketing gas prices, catastrophic global warming and unending wars over fossil fuels.

America does not want to go there. You delivered that message to the Senate loud and clear, and the Senate heard you.

We still have to fight this battle all over again in the House before this fuel economy measure becomes law. And we'll be calling on you to make your voice heard in that chamber at the critical moment.

Kneecapping California's Emission Rules

Source: Washington Post

Guess who's trying to kill the Golden State's emissions standards.

THERE IS a bald attempt in Congress to short-circuit California's effort to regulate tailpipe emissions -- with Democrats leading the charge. A bill from the chairman of the House energy and air quality subcommittee, Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va. -- or is that D-Big Coal?), would halt recent moves by states to limit the emission of greenhouse gases that cause climate change. He insists, "This is not an attack on California." Color us unconvinced.

The Supreme Court ruled in April that the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate greenhouse gases. Meanwhile, California has asked the EPA to do something it has done more than 40 times over the past 30 years: waive the agency's emissions rules to allow the state's more stringent regulations to take effect. That would mean a 30 percent reduction in greenhouse gases from car and light truck tailpipes by 2016, starting with the 2009 model year. Eleven other states have signed on to California's bold new standards. The only thing standing in the way is the EPA. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) asked for the waiver in December 2005; he has threatened to sue if it is not granted within six months.

Governors from eight U.S. states on Thursday protested to Congress about possible legislation that they claim will limit their efforts to cut automobile and small-truck emissions.

If passed as written in draft form, the legislation would wipe out California's landmark effort to cut auto and light-truck greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 30 percent by 2030.

California and seven other states are fighting a proposal by Rep. Rick Boucher, a Democrat from coal-producing southwest Virginia, that would prevent the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from allowing California to receive a waiver from federal rules so it could implement more stringent state requirements.

Eleven states have adopted requirements that match California's and six others are considering it, said BreAnda Northcutt, spokeswoman for the California Environmental Protection Agency.

If the EPA grants California's waiver, the other states would be free to implement similar emissions-cutting standards.

Seven states say they want to follow California in requiring that cars and light trucks reduce climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions -- primarily carbon dioxide -- by 18 percent by 2020.

"We urge you to pursue legislation that instead enhances and complements the efforts already under way in our states," the eight governors said in a joint letter to Boucher.

"This bill," the governors said, "will preempt California's passenger vehicles and light duty truck emission standards."

The eight states signing the letter were California, New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Washington, Arizona, Oregon, and New Mexico.

The governors said the bill would deny not only states' rights to adopt California's vehicle emissions standards, a right granted by the federal Clean Air Act, but would also eliminate the EPA's regulatory authority over greenhouse gases as a pollutant.

"This amounts to an about-face reversal of the Supreme Court decision identifying CO2 as a pollutant within the scope of the Clean Air Act," they said.

PETA Wants Hybrid Car Tax Credits for Vegetarians

Source: PETA

SYNOPSIS: A University of Chicago report shows that switching to a vegetarian diet is more effective in countering global warming than switching from a standard American car to a Toyota Prius.

This morning, PETA founder and President Ingrid E. Newkirk dispatched letters to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid urging them to extend vegetarians the tax break currently given to hybrid car owners for purchasing a vehicle with low carbon emissions. Newkirk’s request comes in light of a University of Chicago report showing that switching to a vegetarian diet is more effective in countering global warming than switching from a standard American car to a Toyota Prius. Newkirk also cites a scientific report recently published by the United Nations that concluded that the meat industry generates more greenhouse gases than all the world’s transportation systems combined, including cars, trucks, planes and ships.

"The single best thing that any of us can do to for our health, for animals, and for the environment is to go vegetarian," says Newkirk. "Anyone who buys a hybrid in order to cut down on their contribution to global warming and uses it to drive to the supermarket to buy chicken, steaks, and milk should face up to the fact that there’s no such thing as a meat-eating environmentalist."

For more information, please visit PETA’s Web site GoVeg.com.

Well, I'm a Vegetarian who drives a Toyota Prius.... would I get double tax credits?

Broad Alliance Backs Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS)

A wide-ranging coalition of more than 180 organizations, including wind companies (the obvious usual suspects) but also powerhouse corporations (Google and GE), labor (United Steelworkers), environmental groups (Natural Resources Defense Council, Union of Concerned Scientists, U.S. PIRG, Sierra Club), faith groups (Union for Reform Judaism, National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA), farm groups (Rocky Mountain Farmers Union) and more, lined up last week in support of a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) (also sometimes referred to as Renewable Electricity Standard, or RES). The groups sent a joint letter to U.S. Senate leaders urging adoption of strong RPS legislation as part of an energy bill that will soon come up for debate on the Senate floor.

You can express your support for the RPS through a new action Web site that includes a link to the full text of the letter and its signers.

Oppose the Anti-Wind Energy Section of H.R. 2337

Urge your Representative to oppose the Anti-Wind Energy Section of H.R. 2337
This Anti-Wind Bill Would Strangle Clean Wind Energy Jobs and Rural Development.

Take Action!

Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV) has just introduced a bill (H.R. 2337) that would place enormous, wrong-headed restrictions on America’s growing wind energy efforts. If enacted, the bill would severely hurt farmers, ranchers and other landowners who have – or want to have – clean, income-producing, wind energy turbines on their property. Anti-Wind Energy Section of H.R. 2337, establishes onerous standards for siting, construction, monitoring, and adaptive management that must be satisfied by all wind projects to avoid, minimize, and mitigate adverse impacts on migratory birds and bats despite the fact that wind turbines cause less than 0.003% of human-cause bird mortality.

The bill would impose:

• Imprisonment and a $50,000 fine for placing a wind turbine on private property without first gaining approval from bureaucrats including the head of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

• Impose a heavy-handed “solution” where there is no significant problem:
- The bill claims to protect birds by placing onerous new regulations on wind turbines.
- Meanwhile, vastly more birds – on a scale of 10,000 to less than one – are killed by house cats and plate glass windows than by a single wind turbine.
- The bill completely ignores the most serious effects of continued reliance on traditional fossil fuels, human-induced global warming, which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has associated with mass extinctions of species.

Please email or call your Representative to request that he or she oppose the Subtitle D Anti-Wind Energy Section of H.R. 2337.

Take Action!