In the News

By SEEC Co-Chair Gerry Connolly Since the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Congress has failed to strengthen regulations on offshore drilling. Why would we risk such an incident, which would wreak havoc on Virginia’s coastal economy, for only a few months’ worth of our nation’s energy supply?

The cost is more than just the emergency relief packages Congress approves after major disasters. Yet shockingly the Federal government provides no single estimate for how much we spend on disaster-related assistance each year. That is why we are introducing the DISclosing Aid Spent To Ensure Relief (DISASTER) Act.

Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.), the chairman of the Sustainable Energy & Environment Coalition’s climate task force, said he was encouraged to hear that EPA would not seek to pre-empt California’s climate laws. Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.), a co-chairman of the coalition, said the meeting with Podesta stayed on general topics. But he said part of the discussion focused on the positive economic impacts the rule could have.

Science and national security experts visited Capitol Hill last night to brief an audience of congressional staffers on the toll climate change is already taking on public well-being, at home and around the world. It was sponsored by the Senate Climate Action Task Force and the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition.

President Obama's top two climate advisers yesterday met with Democrats in the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition to discuss his carbon emissions agenda, focusing on a new White House data initiative. John Podesta and Dan Utech, Obama's climate advisers, met with 19 of the coalition's 56 members to share details about the White House-centered elements of the president's government-wide Climate Action Plan, according to a source briefed on the meeting. The sit-down "primarily" looked at the Climate Data Initiative, a project unveiled last week to allow easy visualization of government scientists' projections for sea-level rise and other global warming effects at Climate.Data.gov (Greenwire, March 19). Agency actions, such as U.S. EPA rules for power plant emissions that are expected to advance to the next stage in their regulatory process within weeks, were "a part of" the meeting, but the White House played the central role in Podesta and Utech's discussion, the source explained, speaking on condition of anonymity. The coalition is eyeing future meetings with the European Union commissioner for climate action and the Bureau of Land Management.

Rep. Henry Waxman’s decision to retire at the end of the year has left greens wondering who will step in as House Democrats’ moral compass on environmental issues. But it might not be just one lawmaker who emerges as the chamber’s loudest voice on climate change and other hot-button topics. The House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition has built a caucus of 56 Democrats who are vowing to carry on Waxman’s legacy. “We’re not just leaving it to a handful of individuals,” Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), the co-chair of the coalition, told POLITICO in a recent interview.

Eighth District Democratic U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan has joined a “Green” group of lawmakers — the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition. The coalition has 56 House members, all Democrats. The coalition has strong views about global warming/climate change that are fully agreed to by the congressman.

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy met today with the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition and discussed issues like fracking and climate change, Co-Chairman Gerald Connolly said afterward. The group, which Connolly calls the “green dogs” caucus, also talked about regional issues like Chesapeake Bay, Puget Sound and the California drought. He said about two-thirds of the caucus’s 55 members attended. On fracking, members suggested that given the congressional “antipathy towards any regulation, however rational,” EPA should highlight states’ best practices, Connolly said. He said the members were surprised when McCarthy said that’s what EPA intends to do.