How Obama Will Tackle the Environment
Yesterday, enviros were congratulating Obama on his victory. Now, they're looking ahead. Here's some post-election chatter:
—Grist wonders who will fill Obama's environmental cabinet positions. Some names being tossed about include Ed Rendell, Tom Vilsack, Bill Richardson, and Al Gore.
—Dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University, Bill Chameides offers an open letter to Obama about the four most important environmental issues he'll face. They include: Stimulating low-carbon energies, retooling energy infrastructure, moving forward with global warming plans, and becoming an international leader on climate.
—The New York Times' Dot Earth is seeking the 10 best climate proposals, as determined by reader rankings. They will be sent to Obama's transition team. Send 'em in.
—Obama will send his own energy representatives to the UN's climate change talks in Poznam, Poland, in three weeks.
—Ian Bowles, secretary of energy and environmental affairs in Massachusetts, offers Boston.com five environmental ideas for Obama. Number 4: "Re-establish the 'Roadless Area Conservation Rule' in order to preserve the last remaining wildlands in our national forest system. This rule, adopted by the U.S. Forest Service in 2001 but undermined throughout the Bush administration, protects 58.5 million acres of unspoiled land in 39 states and preserves them for public access and recreation, including hiking, fishing, hunting, camping and mountain biking."
—Bradford Plumer of the New Republic does not want Obama to pick Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.
—As far as energy issues are concerned, there may be a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, which clean-energy analysts New Energy Finance have deemed a "rotating Clean Energy 60," says the Wall Street Journal.
—And if you were wondering, here's how you can recycle your leftover political signs.
—Finally, Obama's decision to adopt a puppy from a shelter is seen as a good first green step.
Tags: energy policy | presidential election 2008 | Barack Obama | environment | global warming
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Reader Comments
engery and enivieroment
i glad he trying help save engery and an adopting an animail form the helter i hope he keeps his word about things. na i hope he protects the en fdanger spies list , i dont lkke palin, also. as president i hope he cares moe about how we live also
Double Duty Plans!!!
All President Obama's plans should attempt to be multi-functional keeping the economy in mind while performing other functions. IE. acclerate use of energy saving devices which will aid the economy by increasing retail sales, promoting a hydrogen fueling infrastructure to spur the auto industry while cleaning the air with zero-emission vehicles, stop the outsourcing of American jobs by supporting American Green Industry, etc... America must reap a benefit from every plan set forth preferrably financial. DOE and the oil companies have had plans to build a hydrogen infrastructure for years yet have met only roadblocks from our current administration which we should free up to help the economy, auto industry, environment, fuel cell industry, etc!!!
Climate Change Impacts - President Elect Obama
COMMERCIAL FISHING CALLS FOR CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT
WE, THE PEOPLE, legal residents of the United States and members of the commercial fishing community, to achieve a more sustainable fishery and fishing industry, request formal congressional oversight hearings on the National Marine Fisheries Service’s (NMFS) stewardship, which we find to be grossly deficient, causing severe economic harm, and in which we proclaim our vote of no confidence.
Fishery resource assessments, diligently conducted by marine scientists, are only part of the data equation needed to establish credible optimum yield estimates and develop true ecosystem based management. Marine fisheries, due to their primitive nature and extreme sensitivity to climatic changes, are at the vanguard of global warming economic impact.
NMFS has failed to promulgate any comprehensive methodology for assessing the impacts of such environmental variability on reproductive patterns, migration routes and ecosystem relationships. NMFS instead has placed the entire onus of resource depletion on commercial fishermen with constraints recklessly causing severe harm and suffering to the fishing community. Fishermen, who have obeyed NMFS regulations, now find themselves and their fishing communities on the brink of economic disaster.
Federal court recently has rebuked our government for its gross lack of comprehensively addressing the impacts of global warming, and as corroborated in a September 2007 report by the Government Accountability Office. U.S. fisheries already must operate in an unfair competitive arena of fisheries subsidized by other nations, from where imports now greatly surpass U.S. harvests. Our fisheries no longer can sustain more elitist federal disregard. That the U.S. demands the destructive discard of all inadvertent by-catch in the face of world hunger only manifests a nation’s arrogance. NMFS’s expedited resource recovery plans will turn the small fisherman, unable financially to sustain more constraints without due compensation, inhumanely into the ultimate by-catch. .
No industry could reasonably operate in a business manner under such a constant barrage of abrupt emergency actions and regulatory changes by NMFS for over a decade. Immediate congressional oversight of NMFS’s assessment methodology, not its simple consideration of environmental variability, is the next logical action to the findings of the federal court and the GAO. Taking no action only would condone the present suffering of our fishing communities and set dangerous federal precedent for placing other sectors of our nation’s agricultural communities in similar jeopardy of economic distress and increased foreign dependence. We trust our federal government to have both the will and the wisdom to take rightful action and stop this bleeding.
(There are signers from twenty-one states)
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