People

Republicans on the Senate environment committee made good on their vow to boycott this morning's first meeting on climate change legislation, leaving Democrats to poke holes in the GOP's insistence on a new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) analysis of the bill.

The injunction that has hung like a pall over San Francisco's efforts to improve bicycle infrastructure for the city's growing number of bicyclists will remain for at least another ten days, and could continue in partial or full form until March 2010 or beyond. A judge today delayed decision on lifting the three-year-old bike injunction, instead ordering both the city and Mary Miles, attorney for Rob Anderson, who first sought the injunction, to submit additional materials by November 12. The judge could then lift the injunction completely, lift it partially for sharrows and bike racks but not bike lanes, or uphold it until a 2010 hearing on the city's environmental review of the bike plan.

A San Francisco judge today delayed a decision on lifting the city's three-year-old bike injunction, and instead ordered both parties to submit briefs by November 12th on his authority to lift the injunction, and then reverse it, if he later determines at a separate hearing that the exhaustive 2,000 page document is not adequate, although that seems unlikely.

Halfway through this afternoon's rally in support of a new federal transportation bill, there came an accidental but telling moment. A group of tourists, attracted by the hundreds of orange flags planted in the National Mall for the rally, walked through the event and whispered questions to attendees about its purpose. Once their curiosity was sated, the group lost interest and ambled away.

Once you start thinking about it, what we don't see is a much bigger category than what we do see. But what we don't see ON PURPOSE is a really interesting category. When you add to the mix mobility, walking or riding or driving through city streets, not seeing can become a mysteriously dangerous stew indeed!

The Senate environment committee released new details of its climate change legislation over the weekend, including the share of "emissions allowances" -- the revenue generated by regulating carbon in a cap-and-trade system -- that the bill would reserve for various sectors of the American economy.

The Senate is leaning towards abandoning the Obama administration's push for an 18-month delay of the next long-term transportation bill and now plans to pursue a six-month extension of existing federal infrastructure law, according to a report from CQ this afternoon:

In a speech much anticipated by those tracking the D.C. environmental debate, President Obama today took on opponents of congressional action on climate change, decrying "naysayers" who "make cynical claims" that ignore scientific evidence of the harm caused by emissions.