From the Wonk Room.

After a presentation on opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, CNN anchor Ali Velshi hosted a discussion between Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ). Velshi started the interview by making the startling admission that Bachmann joined him on his expedition to northern Alaska:

Congressman [sic] Bachmann, I want to talk to you first about this because those pictures we just showed, we took from an airplane. You were with us on that airplane. You went up there to get a sense for yourself about the impact of drilling in ANWR.

Watch it:

From the Wonk Room...

The same old men that propelled George W. Bush into office in 2000 and 2004 are behind Newt Gingrich's multimillion-dollar front group, American Solutions for Winning the Future (ASWF). ASWF has capitalized on the energy crisis caused by the Bush presidency to promote a "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less" campaign. Although the campaign's priorities are just a rebranding of an oil-company agenda, ASWF's well-funded drill-drill-drill message has achieved significant success.

So who is behind ASWF? The key funder is right-wing casino kingpin Sheldon Adelson, who has pumped over $3 million into the organization since its beginning in 2006. Adelson is flanked by 56 other such donors who have given at least $10,000. Donors can give unlimited amounts to this 527 corporation, making it an ideal mechanism for the superrich to influence the presidential season.  In the first of a Wonk Room series, we discuss the seven right-wing billionaires bankrolling this "non-partisan" organization:

From the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, this stellar video describes how Dominion Resources, with the full support of Virginia governor Timothy Kaine (D), is breaking ground on a $1.8 billion coal-fired plant in Wise County, VA. On June 26, officials recently appointed by Kaine to the Virginia Air Pollution Control Board unanimously granted air quality permits to Dominion Virginia Power, a subsidiary of Dominion Resources.

Watch it:

Originally posted at the Wonk Room.

The traditional media rarely discusses extreme weather events in the context of global warming. However, as the Wonk Room Global Boiling series has documented, scientists have been warning us for years that climate change will increase catastrophic weather events like the California wildfires, the East Coast heatwave, and the Midwest floods that have been taking lives and causing billions in damage in recent days.

Today, the federal government has released a report that assembles this knowledge in stark and unequivocal terms.

From the Wonk Room.

The extreme storms and record-breaking floods that have devastated the Midwest, killing dozens, disrupting the nation's infrastructure, causing billions of dollars in damage, and sending food prices skyrocketing, are consistent with the effects of global warming on the region predicted eight years ago.

In 2000, the National Assessment Synthesis Team of the US Global Change Research Program published "The Climate Change Impacts on the United States: The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change," with regional overviews of possible and likely changes due to global warming.

In the Midwest overview, the authors noted the effects of climate change that were already evident in the region:

From the Progress Report.

The evidence for the consequences of global warming is appearing with alarming frequency. Deadly weather has fills the airwaves: the four Boy Scouts in Iowa and two people in Kansas killed by tornadoes on Wednesday, as well as 19 deaths from the East Coast heat wave and 11 deaths from the violent storms earlier in the week.  States of emergency have been declared in Minnesota, California, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Michigan because of floods and wildfires. Counties in Iowa, Indiana, Illinois,  South Dakota, and Wisconsin have been declared disaster areas due to the historic flooding.  This tragic, deadly, and destructive weather is consistent with the changes scientists predicted would come with global warming, and yet we are doing nothing to prepare ourselves for the future.

From the Wonk Room.

Recently, United States Senate has taken several votes on building a green economy that moves away from fossil fuel dependence, creates new green industry, and addresses global warming. Each time a minority of senators blocked the way. On Friday, 38 senators filibustered mandatory greenhouse gas reduction legislation. This morning, Mary Landrieu  joined 41 Republicans to filibuster the Consumer-First Energy Act, which would have given consumers relief by placing a windfall tax on oil companies. Then 44 Republican senators blocked consideration of the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act to extend renewable energy and other tax incentives.

Meanwhile the signs of the looming climate crisis abound. Extreme weather of all kinds - freak snowstorms, extended droughts, heat waves, flash floods - are causing havoc around the nation, and conservative neglect is leaving us unprepared and unable to rebuild:

From the Wonk Room.

On May 27, the Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote about the Climate Security Act:

Warner-Lieberman would impose the most extensive government reorganization of the American economy since the 1930s.

A week later, Sen. Jim Inhofe changed "reorganization" to "expansion," writing in the Wall Street Journal that the climate legislation "will create the largest expansion of the federal government since FDR's New Deal."

Crossposted from the Wonk Room.

Email correspondence from the Pentagon document dump reveals Gen. David Petraeus was "happy to" participate in its "puppet" TV military analyst program in 2005. The "talented" military officer was promoted by President Bush to lieutenant general in 2004, with the public mission of training Iraqi military forces. At the behest of Larry Di Rita, Rumsfeld's "right-hand man" in the Pentagon, Petraeus took on another, secret mission that year, giving retired generals positive spin about Iraq.  Although in fact Petraeus failed to establish an independent Iraqi army, in 2007 Bush rewarded him with a promotion to four-star general overseeing the surge, adding another 20,000 American soldiers.

From the Wonk Room.

As primaries are held today in the coal-rich but job-poor states of Kentucky and West Virginia, CNN -- whose presidential debates have been sponsored by the coal industry front group ACCCE -- is spending significant air time promoting coal-industry spin. The Wonk Room has previously highlighted CNN senior business correspondent Ali Velshi's exploitative promotion of coal-to-liquids technology. Today, Velshi brought the rest of the CNN team into his coal-propaganda orbit.

From the Wonk Room.

One week ago, Tropical Cyclone Nargis struck Burma, tracing an unprecedented path of devastation. On May 6, right-wing hack Jeff Poor wrote a story entitled, "Al Gore Calls Myanmar Cyclone a 'Consequence' of Global Warming," which was subsequently linked on the Drudge Report. Poor claims:

Using tragedy to advance an agenda has been a strategy for many global warming activists, and it was just a matter of time before someone found a way to tie the recent Myanmar cyclone to global warming.

Poor wrote Gore said in an interview on National Public Radio, "The year before, the strongest cyclone in more than 50 years hit China – and we're seeing consequences that scientists have long predicted might be associated with continued global warming."

In fact, the audio clip has been doctored and the headline "Al Gore Calls Myanmar Cyclone a 'Consequence' of Global Warming" is false:

From the Wonk Room.

Yesterday, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) chaired a hearing of the Environment and Public Works oversight subcommittee investigating the politicization of science at the Environmental Protection Agency.

The administration witness was Dr. George Gray, Assistant Administrator for the Office of Research and Development at the EPA. At the hearing, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) described Gray's misuse of the English language as "Alice in Wonderland," telling Dr. Gray, "You have tried to defend the indefensible and you have failed." Sen. Whitehouse described the EPA's actions as "Orwellian" and concluded the hearing with the sarcastic salute:

I have to applaud Dr. Gray for his ability to say what I found to be preposterous things with a completely straight face throughout.

Here are excerpts from the Conservative's Dictionary Of Scientific Language discovered by the Wonk Room to help you translate Gray's tortured testimony...

From the Wonk Room.

Yesterday, the Environmental Protection Agency dismissed Midwest regional administrator Mary Gade, one of ten such officials appointed directly by EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson. Gade -- a lifelong Republican and a prominent supporter of George W. Bush's pursuit of the presidency in 2000 -- told the Chicago Tribune, "There's no question this is about Dow." Gade was locked in a battle with Dow Chemical over the cleanup of dioxin poisoning from its world headquarters in Michigan. As former EPA official Robert Sussman writes in the Wonk Room, "To remove a Regional Administrator because of a disagreement over policy at an individual site is unheard of."

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) just spoke on the Senate floor about Gade's firing:

From the Wonk Room.

Alberto Gonzales brought disgrace to the Department of Justice as Attorney General, putting loyalty to the President above duty to the country, until the weight of numerous scandals forced his resignation in August 2007. As the New York Times described, he left "a Justice Department that has been tainted by political influence, depleted by the departures of top officials and weakened by sapped morale."

Now all eyes are turning to Stephen L. Johnson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) -- set up by President Nixon in 1970 to be an independent watchdog for the health of the environment and the American people. It has become clear that Johnson has subverted that mission, in contravention of science, ethics, and the law. What Gonzales did to Justice, Johnson is doing to the EPA.

Originally posted at the Think Progress Wonk Room.

The American Petroleum Institute (API), the trade organization for the oil and natural gas industry, has just begun running a feel-good commercial that argues "America's future" lies in drilling out domestic reserves of oil and natural gas. Watch:

Cross-posted from the Wonk Room.

Bush's global warming speech:

If we fully implement our strong new laws, adhere to the principles I've outlined, and adopt appropriate incentives, we will put America on an ambitious new track for greenhouse gas reductions. The growth in emissions will slow over the next decade, stop by 2025, and begin to reverse thereafter, so long as technology continues to advance.

At the White House press briefing today, Bush's enviro advisor James Connaughton heaped praise on Bush's plan:

I would just observe, Europe as a union has stated a mid-term goal. They are working on how they're going to implement that in each member state. Canada has stated a mid-term goal. The United States has now stated a mid-term goal.

We are the only three that have done that so far, but we know that all of the other major economies are working on it, and so we're giving our own signal about how we're structuring what we're going to do...

Let's review:

From the Think Progress Wonk Room.

According to the Washington Times, "President Bush is poised to change course and announce as early as this week that he wants Congress to pass a bill to combat global warming, and will lay out principles for what that should include." Dana Perino claimed it's just a coincidence this announcement comes as we near Earth Day.

Conservatives are now focusing on the possibility that "runaway" global warming legislation will cause a "disaster" and a "nightmare." Perino warned today of a "regulatory train wreck." Perino all but admitted this leaked announcement is a trial balloon to try out new right-wing talking points -- when she was asked when the Bush plan would be released:
"It could be never."

The National Wildlife Federation's blogger says Lieberman-Warner is "a really strong bill" that "falls just short" of their goal "of an 80% cut in carbon emissions by 2050." When I point out that L-W only achieves about a 60% cut, NWF responds:

80% cuts in carbon emissions will save the planet.

60% cuts in carbon emissions will destroy the planet.

How does that logic work?

Notwithstanding the fact I never said anything of the sort, here for your reading pleasure is the difference between the targets in Lieberman-Warner and the targets recommended by the NWF itself.

If the U.S. and other industrialized nations achieve reductions of 25-40% by 2020 and 80-95% by 2050, we have a good shot of limiting long-term warming to 2°C above pre-industrial levels.

If, instead, the U.S. achieves only the L-W targets, we will be committing ourselves to long-term warming of at least 2-4°C, which will have many unavoidable catastrophic effects, such as widespread to mass extinction (which one would think the NWF would care about).

This is explained (with tables and charts) below the jump.