Kate Sheppard

Reporter

Kate Sheppard is a staff reporter in Mother Jones' Washington bureau. She was previously the political reporter for Grist and a writing fellow at The American Prospect. She can be reached by email at ksheppard (at) motherjones (dot) com.

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Her work has also been featured in the New York Times' Room for Debate blog, the Guardian's Comment Is Free, Foreign Policy, High Country News, The Center for Public Integrity, the Washington Independent, Washington Spectator, Who Runs Gov, In These Times, and Bitch. She was raised on a vegetable farm in southern New Jersey (yes, they do exist), but has adapted well to life in the nation's capital. She misses trees and having a congressional representative with voting power, but thinks DC is pretty great anyway.

Big Oil's Big Year

—By Kate Sheppard

| Tue Feb. 2, 2010 12:31 PM PST

In case you were feeling sorry for Big Oil now that the Obama administration has proposed cutting their tax breaks, the 2009 lobbying figures for the industry are available. And the industry spent big: $154 million on lobbying last year alone. That's more than any previous year, and more than any other energy interest looking to shape the debate on Capitol Hill.

Lobbying disclosures analyzed by the Center for Responsive Politics found that oil interests spent 16 percent more on lobbying in 2009 than in 2008. ExxonMobil alone spent $27.4 million on lobbying, the second biggest business spender in 2009, while Chevron spent $20.8 million, ranking seventh. Electric utilities followed close behind, spending $134.7 million last year.

By comparison, energy interests categorized as "miscellaneous" spent just $29 million on lobbying. This category includes groups like the American Wind Energy Association, local water districts, ethanol companies, smart grid promoters, and various others. Environmental organizations spent approximately $21.3 million last year on lobbying—which, if you're counting, is just 7 percent of what fossil fuel interests spent.

And this isn't all of it; CRP has only tallied 80 percent of the lobbying disclosure forms, and a more detailed report is expected later this month. It's important to note that not all energy companies are lobbying against climate change legislation. A number of electric utilities have been supportive of measure to cap and reduce carbon dioxide pollution. But the lobbying totals show just how much these industries are spending to influence what that legislation might look like.

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Oil Industry: We Like Our Handouts!

—By Kate Sheppard

| Tue Feb. 2, 2010 8:05 AM PST

As I noted yesterday, one of the more aggressive elements of Obama's 2011 budget is the proposal to eliminate 12 tax breaks for oil, gas and coal companies, which the administration estimates will raise up to $39 billion in the next 10 years.

"All you have to do is look at the record profits of the oil and gas world in the last several years," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told reporters on Monday in announcing the budget proposal. "In my view, you're going to continue to see a great interest in oil and gas because it's a essential part of our economy today. It's expected that it will be, and I know it will be in the years ahead. And so I think the oil and gas industry will do just fine."

Unsurprisingly, the industry is balking at the possible revocation of government handouts. The Independent Petroleum Association of America said in a statement that the budget request would "strip billions of investment dollars from US natural gas and oil production" and "could cripple the American producers that are pivotal in developing US natural gas and oil."

American Petroleum Institute President Jack Gerard also criticized the elimination of tax breaks, arguing that a "robust U.S. oil and gas industry is essential to the recovery of the nation’s economy." "With America still recovering from recession and one in ten Americans out of work, now is not the time to impose new taxes on the nation’s oil and natural gas industry. New taxes would mean fewer American jobs and less revenue at a time when we desperately need both," said Gerard in a statement.

They might have a point. The outcry about revoking Big Oil's tax breaks came on the same day as ExxonMobil reported the lowest earnings in 7 years -- just $19.4 billion dollars.

Negative Energy

A key bloc of Democrats has a climate Plan B: Ditch cap and trade for an energy bill filled with industry giveaways.

—By Kate Sheppard

| Tue Feb. 2, 2010 4:00 AM PST

With the Senate cap-and-trade bill on ice for the foreseeable future, a key bloc of Democrats is agitating for a Climate Plan B: an existing energy policy bill they say would put the US on the path to a clean energy future. Make that a road to nowhere. The bill in question lacks any kind of cap on carbon, and contains so many concessions to the oil, coal, gas, and nuclear industries that one environmental group has dubbed it a "flashback to Bush energy policy."

For months, a gaggle of centrist Democrats has tried to convince the party's leaders that they should abandon their push for a cap-and-trade scheme and instead settle for passing the energy measure that was approved by the Energy and Natural Resources Committee last June. When Republican Scott Brown seized Ted Kennedy's Massachusetts Senate seat in an upset victory, these Plan B proponents saw their chance. Since then, they've been vigorously arguing that capping carbon is a huge political risk that Democrats can't afford to take in an election year. "They're using uncertainty over the Obama agenda as a whole to reinvigorate their push," said Joe Mendelson, director of global warming policy at the National Wildlife Federation.

The Plan B crowd includes Democratic senators Jim Webb, Mary Landrieu, Evan Bayh, Ben Nelson, Kent Conrad, Byron Dorgan, Mark Pryor, and Blanche Lincoln. It could also potentially pick up the Republicans who voted the energy measure out of committee: senators Lisa Murkowski, Sam Brownback, Bob Corker, and Jeff Sessions.

Talk of a climate about-face intensified as news outlets reported last week that senators John Kerry, Lindsey Graham, and Joe Lieberman—who are working to assemble a cross-party coalition to support climate legislation in the Senate—are planning to scrap a cap on carbon altogether. Graham, who was already on the record condemning the House and Senate cap-and-trade bills, declared in an interview with the New York Times that "some massive cap-and-trade system that regulates carbon in a fashion that drives up energy costs" is "dead." "Realistically, the cap-and-trade bills in the House and the Senate are going nowhere," he added.

[Read the full article]

Obama Budget Scales Back Expectations for Climate Bill

—By Kate Sheppard

| Mon Feb. 1, 2010 1:02 PM PST

The most significant thing about the Obama administration's 2011 energy budget is what it doesn't contain. Last year's budget projected that a cap and trade system would raise $79 billion from the auction of carbon credits in 2012, and $605 billion from the sale of credits over the following decade. This time around, the Obama administration hasn't named a dollar figure for expected revenue from cap and trade, or even noted when it expects to see a carbon cap in place.

Sadly, this is perhaps a more realistic approach. There is no new cap-and-trade law to speak of yet, and it's not clear whether there will be one this year. And the bill that passed the House last June auctioned off very few of the pollution permits—roughly 85 percent of the permits would be given away for free in the early years.

The Obama administration's $3.8 trillion 2010 budget does still call for legislators to establish a "comprehensive market-based climate change policy" that would cut emissions in the range of 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and by more than 80 percent by 2050. It says the administration expect cap-and-trade to be deficit neutral, and that some of the proceeds would be used to "compensate vulnerable families, communities, and businesses during the transition to a clean energy economy." It also notes that there will be "investments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including support of clean energy technologies, and in adapting to the impacts of climate change, both domestically and in developing countries." There aren't, however, any dollar figures to flesh out those expectations.

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

Beyond the Immediate Needs in Haiti

—By Kate Sheppard

| Fri Jan. 29, 2010 2:58 PM PST

In the days since the January 12 earthquake pummeled Haiti, aid has poured in from around the world through governments, the United Nations, and non-governmental organizations. And while the immediate relief work has been difficult and at times frustrating, workers on the ground there have made one thing clear: We should be thinking in terms of decades, not days, when it comes to assisting the tiny nation.

In a call with reporters on Thursday, staffers for a number of NGOs in the country emphasized the need for long-term support. The outpouring from private citizens has been substantial; InterAction, a coalition of U.S.-based NGOs focusing on global poverty, this week reported that Americans have given $350 million to support relief work. Much of that is helping meet immediate needs for food, water, medical supplies, and shelter. But with the devastation already retreating from the headlines, the needs for the next months, years, and possibly decades should not be forgotten, they said.

"We're not talking years as in 2, 3 or 5... but more of the long-term solutions for Haiti," said Amy Gaver, director of international response and programs at the Red Cross. "Haiti has needed a global solution for systemic problems for a very long time." The relief work, said Graver, should include planning for sustainability, with a focus on the long-term and a plan for organizations within the country to assume control of rebuilding.

Mario Flores, director of disaster response field ops at Habitat for Humanity International, said as many as 200,000 houses were severely damaged, and 1.2 to 1.5 million people face displacement. "Haiti had a lot of problems before the earthquake; the earthquake has only exacerbated those problems," said Flores. NGOs and governments working in the country, he said, should take the time "to really think through what the long-term recovery is going to look like."

The quake and resulting exodus from Port-au-Prince is also stressing other areas of the country as an estimated one million city dwellers return to the countryside. George Packer explains the country's long-term needs vividly in a piece in the New Yorker this week as well.

The country's extreme poverty and fraught politics, of course, have both intensified the impacts of the natural catastrophe. "The situation before earthquake was quite precarious," said Kathryn Bolles, director of emergency health and nutrition at Save the Children. Relief, then, must also seek to address the bigger challenges in the nation. And it's also compounded by concern that this recent quake may be a prelude to more extreme seismic catastrophes in the region, and the ever-present danger of severe tropical storms.

As the long-term challenges begin to become clear, the greatest need is still for monetary donations. Here's a list of some of the most effective NGOs to give to.