Today in climate news:
At yesterday’s press conference, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs offered a little bit of hope that climate legislation could make a comeback this year. “I don’t think the bill is essentially dead for the year,” said Gibbs. “The House passed a very strong and very comprehensive energy bill last year. The Senate is going to take up a version that is more scaled down but still has some important aspects, particularly dealing with how we deal with oil spills in the future. But I don’t think that closes the door—once a bill passes, each House doesn’t close the door to having some sort of conference.”
Nate Silver also argues that cap and trade legislation might be revived, but as a deficit-reduction measure.
Even if a federal cap and trade program faces an uncertain future, regional programs are trudging forward. On Tuesday, the Western Climate Initiative, a group of seven states and four Canadian provinces, rolled out a blueprint for its regional program, slated to begin in 2012.
And in oil disaster news:
This will go over well: BP wants a $10 billion tax deduction on what the company spends on oil spill clean up. The company said yesterday that it has set aside $32.2 billion to deal with the Gulf disaster.
A team of federal investigators—”the BP squad”—is focusing their Gulf probe on BP, Transocean, and Halliburton, as well as the relationship the companies had with regulators.
The Senate Foreign Relations hearing on BP’s role in the freeing of the Lockerbie bomber scheduled for Wednesday had to be postponed because none of the current or former British and Scottish officials or the BP executives asked to testify would agree to show up.
Louisiana can’t catch a break. On Tuesday morning, a tugboat hit a well head near Mud Lake, causing oil and natural gas to spew 100 feet into the air.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) is continuing his crusade to build barriers that are harmful to the long-term health of the Gulf Coast but good for his political career.
