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.

Who Gets to Pollute?

—By Kate Sheppard

| Mon Oct. 26, 2009 6:57 AM PDT

Who gets to spew carbon dioxide into the air for free, and who has to pay for the right?

The first draft of the Senate version of the climate change bill left a number of unanswered questions, including the much-discussed allocation of pollution permits under a carbon-pricing plan. Exactly which industries will get pollution permits has been a hot topic among senators who haven't decided how they're going to vote. The fence-sitters got the information they were waiting for late Friday, when Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) released her "chairman's mark." The mark is the version of the bill that Boxer wants the committee to use as a baseline when it considers the legislation, which is cosponsored by Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.)

Boxer's Environment and Public Works Committee will begin hearings on the bill on Tuesday with testimony from a panel of top officials: EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Jon Wellinghoff. Hearings will continue nearly all day on Wednesday and Thursday, and the President will weigh in, too, with a major speech on Friday and another planned for Tuesday. But Boxer's "mark" sets the stage for what everyone will be talking about.

Here's what you need to know:

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

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Obama (Finally) Enters Climate Debate

—By Kate Sheppard

| Fri Oct. 23, 2009 1:36 PM PDT

Barack Obama on Friday gave a speech long-anticipated by advocates for climate legislation, calling for a bipartisan effort to pass legislation that will limit emissions and help transition to a new energy economy.

While the speech put some momentum behind the issue as the Senate committee dealing with the legislation prepares to begin hearings next week, it was scant on specific directives. It did, however, position the legislation as an economic and security imperative.

"There are those who will suggest that moving toward clean energy will destroy our economy—when it's the system we currently have that endangers our prosperity and prevents us from creating millions of new jobs," said Obama, addressing a crowd at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

It seems this is going to be the first of several Obama speeches on the subject. According to a press scheduled released Friday afternoon, Obama will travel to the DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center in Arcadia, Florida on Tuesday for a second speech. That speech falls on the day that the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will kick off legislative hearings on the Kerry-Boxer bill, with a panel featuring a number of administration officials.

This level of attention is something that advocates have long been hoping for from the president, who has thus far focused much of his public speaking on health care. While he did make a big (and rather unimpressive) speech at the UN last month, today's speech was the first aimed at a domestic audience solely on the topic of climate and energy.

In his speech on Friday, Obama praised Senate climate bill sponsor John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), the lone Republican who has signaled he is willing to cooperate on the bill. "This should not be a partisan issue," said Obama. "Everybody in America should have a stake in legislation that can transform our energy system into one that's far more efficient, far cleaner, and provide energy independence for America."

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

Chamber Unleashes Lawyers on Yes Men

—By Kate Sheppard

| Fri Oct. 23, 2009 9:48 AM PDT

After the Yes Men pulled their now-famous prank earlier this week on the US Chamber of Commerce, the Chamber issued a vague threat of "law-enforcement action." The group doesn't appear to have called the cops on the Yes Men just yet, but on Wednesday it issued a Digital Millennium Copyright Act take-down demand notice for the parody site that the Yes Men set up to publicize their fake event, in which the "Chamber" announced that it would support a sane global warming policy after all.

The Chamber's attorney at the intellectual property law firm Kenyon & Kenyon issued a notice to the Yes Men's internet service provider, Hurricane Electric, asking them to take down the site. "The website infringes the Chamber of Commerce's copyrights by directly copying the images, logos, design, and layout of the Chamber of Commerce's copyright-protected official website, located at www.uschamber.com," they wrote.

They ask Hurricane to "take down all such infringing material" and/or end their business relationship with the Yes Men. "Continuing to be the ISP for this material could subject Hurricane Electric to legal liability," the letter states.

"We are certain you can understand our client's concerns, and its need to protect its intellectual property," it continues.

And now the Electronic Frontiers Foundation is jumping in, telling the Chamber to take a chill pill. The site, they say, fits within the accepted fair use and parody rights.

"We are very disappointed the Chamber of Commerce decided to respond to political criticism with legal threats," said EFF staff attorney Corynne McSherry in a statement. "The site is obviously intended to highlight and parody the Chamber's controversial views, which have sparked political debate and led high-profile members to withdraw their support from the Chamber."

Ars Technica has more.

UPDATE: It seems that Hurricane, fearing the Chamber's legal rebuke, pulled the plug on both the Yes Men site and May First/People Link, the group that was directly providing service for the Yes Men. Hurricane was the upstream provider, but a May First/People Link in turn provided service for the Yes Men and 400 other groups. So, for a period last night, all 400 groups had their websites shut down.

The Yes Men issued a press release on Friday stating that May First/People Link was able to get the service reconnected for the other groups. Meanwhile, the Yes Men have relocated the parody site.

It also presented a problem for ticket sales, as the Yes Men's latest film, The Yes Men Fix the World is currently in theaters. The action, say the Yes Men, threatens theaters (which also happen to be small businesses) who may be selling tickets through the Yes Men site.

"The Chamber claims to represent 3 million businesses of every size, yet their actions undermined a fair number of small businesses," said Yes Man Mike Bonanno. "The Chamber is clearly much less interested in actual freedom, economic or otherwise, than in the license of their largest members to operate free from the scientific consensus."

Poll Finds Americans More Confused About Climate

—By Kate Sheppard

| Fri Oct. 23, 2009 8:17 AM PDT

This is, uh, a bit of a concern: A Pew poll released on Thursday finds the number of Americans concerned about climate change has declined—and the number of global warming skeptics has increased.

Thirty-five percent of those polled agreed that global warming was a serious problem—a nine-point drop from April 2008, when 44 percent of respondents agreed. Worse, though, is the number of skeptics. Just 57 percent think that there is "solid evidence" that the earth is warming, down from 71 percent just a year and a half ago. Only 36 percent think that the warming is due to human activity, down from 47 percent.

The decline has been sharpest among people who identify as political independents: Only 53 percent of independents see solid evidence of global warming, down from 75 percent in April 2008. Republicans were already highly skeptical—now only 35 percent of Republicans believe that global temperatures are rising, down 14 percent from the last poll. And that's just the objective question of whether they're rising: only 18 percent think that any warming that may be happening is caused by human activity.

But fewer Democrats think the planet is warming, too—75 percent today compared to 83 percent last year and 91 percent in August 2006. And only 50 percent of self-identified Democrats believe the warming is due to human activity.

Oh, my.

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

Mystery Senator Blocks Obama Pick to Head Key Mining Office

—By Kate Sheppard

| Thu Oct. 22, 2009 10:46 AM PDT

When President Obama nominated Joseph Pizarchik to head the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, critics blasted the choice, charging that Pizarchik has a history of favoring coal industry interests over the well-being of local residents. Still, it appeared Pizarchik would sail to confirmation this week—until an unknown senator placed a hold on his appointment. Here's why the mystery senator might be worried that Pizarchik is the wrong man for the job.

Pizarchik has served as the director of Pennsylvania's Bureau of Mining and Reclamation since 2002. The office, a division of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, oversees mining permits and the enforcement of environmental rules related to mining and waste disposal. And residents of Pennsylvania mining areas are so unhappy with his performance that they're organizing to oppose the nomination. Under Pizarchik's watch, the bureau developed new policies for the "beneficial use" of coal ash, including allowing it to be dumped in old surface mining sites—meaning, essentially, that power plant waste could be left in unlined pits around the state.

[Read more in the MoJo blog]