Climate Change

At a panel discussion yesterday at the Copenhagen climate summit, American policymakers and transit experts delivered a clear message: Walkable urban development must be part of any effective plan to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. Thanks to the magic of live webcasts, I can relay a few highlights for Streetsblog readers.

Acting under a Supreme Court mandate, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ruled today that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and contribute to the harmful environmental effects of climate change, paving the way for pollution regulations under the Clean Air Act.

The trouble with broad analysis pieces on campaign cash is that they often go for eye-popping numbers while obscuring uncomfortable political realities. For example, GreenWire reported this morning that the 27 senators who remain undecided on the chamber's pending climate bill took "more than $20 million ... over the past two decades from energy interests with a direct stake in pending legislation."

Democratic lawmakers are discussing the possibility of a one-year stopgap transportation bill but have yet to reach consensus on how to pay for the measure, Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) said today.

I'll be leaving in ten days for Scandinavia, and will be sending reports to sf.streetsblog on the upcoming Climate Change conference (known as COP15) and the massive demonstrations that are expected to surround it. I've been to Copenhagen (my mother was born there) so I'm excited to return to a place where bicycles reign and the political culture is surprisingly reasonable compared to anything here in the U.S. COP15 will be joined by most of the world's nations, while outside its perimeter, a range of political organizations and ad-hoc political cultures will also converge, bringing memories of Seattle a decade ago, and the half dozen other dramatic confrontations between protesters and police at G8 or IMF summits since then.

As reported here yesterday, transportation is a close second to electric power generation in the not-so-great race to become the nation's fastest-rising source of emissions.

The climate change bills being considered by Congress treat electric utilities very well, giving more than a third of the revenue generated by CO2 regulation away -- for free -- to power providers. This move pleased coal country Democrats while seeking to lock down benefits for consumers by averting electricity rate hikes.

The Senate's propensity for filibusters, delay, and fruitless attempts at bipartisan deal-making is earning it quite the reputation these days. And climate change legislation, with its big-ticket implications for transit and urban development in general, is becoming increasingly caught up in the Senate's peripatetic politics.

The Senate environment committee approved its climate change bill today on an 11-1 vote, shrugging off a boycott by all of the panel's Republicans but missing out on the chance to consider amendments to the lengthy legislation.