This is not an energy policy. This is money laundering: we borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas tanks. When the summer is over, we will have increased our debt to China, increased our transfer of wealth to Saudi Arabia and increased our contribution to global warming for our kids to inherit.

It's all around you, but you don't see it. You use it every day, but you don't know it. It may have saved your own family seventy-five years ago when your grandparents joined with millions of others to build it. It's California???s public landscape of the New Deal ??? schools, hospitals, parks, roads, sewers, airports, amphitheaters, bridges, golf courses, aqueducts, power stations, city halls, art works, and more ???constructed by a half dozen federal agencies. They were created by President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal to lift the country out of the Depression. We have been enjoying and prospering from this legacy ever since. California???s Living New Deal Project is a collaborative venture documenting and interpreting the impact of New Deal programs on the State. We invite you to join the California Historical Society, the California Studies Center, and U.C. Berkeley's Institute for Research on Labor and Employment Library in identifying and discussing these indispensable public buildings and sites. Through this rediscovery, we will explore the history of the New Deal and consider timeless questions of civics in a living democracy. Learn more.

World Bank president Robert Zoellick noted last week that world food prices had risen 80% over the past three years, and warned that at least 33 countries face social unrest as a result.

With concerns about climate change mounting, the era of coal-fired electricity generation in the United States may be coming to a close. In early 2007, a U.S. Department of Energy report listed 151 coal-fired power plants in the planning stages in the United States. But during 2007, 59 proposed plants were either refused licenses by state governments or quietly abandoned. In addition, close to 50 coal plants are being contested in the courts, and the remaining plants will likely be challenged when they reach the permitting stage. What began as a few local ripples of resistance to coal-fired power plants is quickly evolving into a national tidal wave of opposition from environmental, health, farm, and community organizations as well as leading climate scientists and state governments. Growing concern over pending legislation to regulate carbon emissions is creating uncertainty in financial markets. Leading financial groups are now downgrading coal stocks and requiring utilities seeking funding for coal plants to include a cost for carbon emissions when proving economic viability. On March 11, 2008, Representative Henry Waxman of California introduced a bill to ban new coal-fired power plants without carbon emissions controls nationwide until federal regulations are put in place to address greenhouse gas emissions. If Congress passes this bill, it will deal a death blow to the future of U.S. coal-fired power generation. Yet even without a legislative mandate for a moratorium, the contraction in financial support for new coal-fired power plants is escalating toward a de facto moratorium. The timeline that follows is witness to what may well be the beginning of the end of coal-fired power in the United States.

Persistence isn't using the same tactics over and over. That's just annoying. Persistence is having the same goal over and over.

In the first such program in California, and perhaps the United States, Bay Area air pollution regulators are proposing to charge an annual fee to thousands of businesses based on the amount of greenhouse gases they emit. The fee - 4.2 cents per metric ton of carbon dioxide - would affect everything from oil refineries to power plants, and landfills, factories and small businesses like restaurants and bakeries. "The climate is changing, and we think that everybody needs to help with the solution and pay their fair share to reduce greenhouse gases," said Jack Broadbent, executive officer of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District in San Francisco. "This is the next step in addressing the problem. The public is demanding that we be part of the solution."

GM???s Bob Lutz: Global Warming Is A ???Crock Of Shit???

GM PR executive Dee Allen was on hand. Unfortunately, we don’t know what might have gone through her mind at that moment. Allen later said that Lutz’s comment was a personal opinion, rather than a reflection of GM’s values.

Lutz also said that hybrid cars like those made by Toyota ???make no economic sense,??? because their price will never come down, and diesel autos like those touted by Chrysler are also uneconomic.

Lutz has overseen an increased focus on the development of low carbon vehicles at GM, BusinessGreen reports.

Yesterday, on GM’s Fast Lane blog, Lutz responded to the criticism his words have raised in a blog post titled “Talk About a Crock…”

“An offhand comment I made recently about the concept of global warming seems to have a lot of people heated, and it???s spreading through the Internet like ragweed,” Lutz wrote. “But I think that the people making big deal out of it are missing the real point. My beliefs are mine and I have a right to them, just as you have a right to yours. But among my strongest beliefs is that my job is to do what makes the most business sense for GM. Never mind what I said, or the context in which I said it. My thoughts on what has or hasn???t been the cause of climate change have nothing to do with the decisions I make to advance the cause of General Motors. ”

Lutz might be focusing on the wrong part of the story. What’s most interesting here is his seeming surprise that when GM’s vice chairman tells a group of reporters that global warming is a crock of shit, people are going to talk about it.

Auto Industry Spent $62 Million On Lobbying In 2007

Major U.S. automakers and industry trade associations spent $62.6 million on lobbying in 2007, compared with $50.3 million in 2006, according to a Free Press analysis of federal disclosure forms. The energy bills and the Bush administration’s efforts to craft new fuel rules dominated their spending.

GM’s total, its highest ever, likely places it among the top 10 spenders for 2007. Of the six top U.S. automakers, five spent more in 2007 than 2006. Ford’s spending declined from $9.1 million in 2006 to $7.1 million in 2007.