When three agencies in President Obama’s Cabinet — DOT, Housing and Urban Development, and the Environmental Protection Agency — banded together to promote "sustainable communities," the initiative sounded promising but somewhat lacking in concrete ideas. Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) attached his green-housing legislation to the recently passed House climate bill. (Photo: AP) Enter a bipartisan […]

Secretary LaHood and Administrator Jackson Watch as Energy Secretary Steven Chu testifies at an April Hearing on Clean Energy.  Photo: Congressman Edward Markey The Senate is taking its first public steps toward combating climate change — and while the U.S. DOT was absent from this morning’s hearing, the chiefs of the Energy Department and Environmental […]

U.S. greenhouse Gas Emissions in 2007.  Image: FHWA Global Warming Brochure Nate Silver’s new analysis of the state of play on climate change in the Senate makes a convincing argument that a carbon cap-and-trade system can become law this year. In fact, it raises the question of whether two senators ranked as unlikely yes votes […]

Late Update: An earlier version of this post used the committee-approved version of the climate bill rather than the final, House-passed version. The climate bill’s identifying number was changed at the last minute, from the original H.R. 2454 to H.R. 2998, which can be downloaded at the fourth link from the top on the House […]