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.

Blowing In The Wind

John Kerry is leading the climate fight in the Senate. So why won’t he support a major renewable energy project in his own backyard?

—By Kate Sheppard

| Fri Dec. 4, 2009 4:00 AM PST

Cape Wind, the bitterly contested proposed offshore wind farm in Massachusetts’ Nantucket Sound, is approaching a critical juncture. After eight years of delays, the project will likely be approved or denied before the end of 2009. If it proceeds, the 24-square-mile, 130-turbine wind farm could generate enough electricity to power 420,000 homes—and kick-start an offshore wind industry in the United States.

But opposition to the project has been fierce, and Cape Wind needs all the help it can get. So where is the state's senior senator? John Kerry is among Capitol Hill's most ardent advocates of addressing climate change, but he has refused to weigh in on one of the most significant debates over the future of alternative energy—and one that’s occurring in his own backyard.

[Read the full article]

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Robert Byrd: Tough on...Coal?

—By Kate Sheppard

| Thu Dec. 3, 2009 4:00 PM PST

Throughout his long political career, 92-year-old Robert Byrd has been one of the coal industry's staunchest defenders. But in a significant shift, he's now arguing that the industry needs to face facts and "embrace the future."

"[T]he time has come to have an open and honest dialogue about coal’s future in West Virginia," Byrd wrote in an op-ed on Thursday. Byrd acknowledged that coal-industry jobs had been declining in the state, that mountaintop removal mining comes with environmental and health problems, and that some regulation of carbon dioxide emissions is inevitable.

Byrd took aim at the industry's denial of climate change. "To be part of any solution, one must first acknowledge a problem. To deny the mounting science of climate change is to stick our heads in the sand and say 'deal me out,'" he wrote. "West Virginia would be much smarter to stay at the table." Coal-producing states "hold some powerful political cards," he continued, and can play a part in shaping policy—but only if they are "honest brokers," he wrote.

Byrd also hit back at the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce's attempt to get him to block health care legislation until the Obama administration eases regulations on the coal industry. "I believe that the notion of holding the health care of over 300 million Americans hostage in exchange for a handful of coal permits is beyond foolish; it is morally indefensible," he wrote. "It is a non-starter, and puts the entire state of West Virginia and the coal industry in a terrible light."

This is a major change of heart for Byrd, who just last year was the only Democrat to vote against even proceeding to debate a climate bill. In the past, he's opposed most climate legislation, usually out of concern for coal interests. While he still sees a major role for coal, he's recognizes that it's not going to be as abundant or as cheap as it has been in the past. "West Virginians can choose to anticipate change and adapt to it, or resist and be overrun by it," he concluded. "The time has arrived for the people of the Mountain State to think long and hard about which course they want to choose."

GOP Exploits ClimateGate

—By Kate Sheppard

| Thu Dec. 3, 2009 12:00 PM PST

Republicans in Congress are trying to use the recent release of hacked emails written by UK climate scientists to delay government action on climate change—despite the fact that nothing in the emails challenges the science of global warming. A group of GOPers wrote to the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday asking it to "conduct a thorough and transparent investigation into the questions raised by the disclosure of emails from Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia" and to halt all work the agency is doing to address greenhouse gas emissions.

The letter comes from GOP Reps. Darrell Issa (Calif.) and James Sensenbrenner (Wisc.), and Senators John Barrasso (Wy.) David Vitter, all well-known climate-change skeptics. They want the EPA to withdraw a finding that greenhouse gases are a threat to human health, new emissions and fuel economy standards for automobiles, and a proposed rule on the scope of greenhouse gas regulations "until the Agency can demonstrate that the science underlying these regulatory decisions has not been compromised."

And because scientists involved in the leaked emails contributed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—the preeminent scientific panel assessing global climate change—the Republicans want a reassessment of the entire body of climate science. They're also demanding that the EPA turn over "all documents and records related to the communications or other interactions" with the Climate Research Unit dating back to March 2007.

In an excellent post on the email incident (now being called ClimateGate or Swifthack, depending on where you stand) Kevin Drum makes the essential points: the emails don't challenge climate science, and skeptics are getting way more mileage out of this affair than it merits. And with the topic surfacing in both Senate and House climate hearings yesterday, ClimateGate isn't going away anytime soon.

How Do You Say "Astroturf" In Danish?

—By Kate Sheppard

| Thu Dec. 3, 2009 9:02 AM PST

Americans for Prosperity, a "grassroots" group funded by a dirty energy conglomerate, has been travelling around the US this year to protest cap and trade legislation. Next week, it's taking its show to Copenhagen.

AFP President Tim Phillips and policy director Phil Kerpen will be broadcasting live from the United Nations Climate Change Conference on the day that Barack Obama plans to attend the summit. They worry that the US is bowing to "international 'green' pressure," said Phillips in a press release, and intend to call attention to "international global warming alarmism."

AFP's "Hot Air Tour" has made 75 stops in the US to date, complete with an actual hot air balloon. But this is the group's first foray into an international forum. Christopher Monckton, one of the world's more zany climate change deniers, will be joining Phillips and Kerpen. (See also this piece I wrote about Monckton's appearances before Congress earlier this year.) And for those back home in the US, AFP is also planning "grassroots" viewing events around the country.

But there's nothing particularly "grassroots" about AFP. It's funded largely by Koch Industries, the oil and gas industry giant. Back when the organization was known as Citizens for a Sound Economy Foundation it also received money from ExxonMobil, before changing its name in 2003.

The Story of Cap and Trade

—By Kate Sheppard

| Wed Dec. 2, 2009 7:14 AM PST

Annie Leonard, creator of The Story of Stuff, a popular web video that argues against consumerism, released a new video yesterday on cap and trade. Like her earlier effort, The Story of Cap-and-Trade features engaging narration and cute, easy-to-understand comic sketches to explain an extremely complex issue.

The problem? Leonard vastly oversimplifies cap and trade and its problems. The video blames the current difficulties surrounding cap and trade entirely on the policy itself, not the lawmakers and special interest groups seeking to load the legislation with exceptions and giveaways. The problems she highlights would dog any proposal to address climate change in the US. If Congress suddenly adopted a carbon tax, the coal, oil, and gas lobbies, aided by their favorite senators, would carve out gaping loopholes for their industries. The policy isn't the real villain here—it's the politics.

"The next time somebody tells you cap and trade is the best we’re going to get, don’t believe them," Leonard concludes. But what superior proposal has any kind of meaningful political support? Leonard never attempts to explain this. The reality is that ditching cap and trade now would leave us with no politically viable legislative options to combat climate change at all.

The estimable David Roberts has a thorough take-down of the video at Grist, which I recommend. And here's the video, so you can decide for yourself: