Lobbyists Swarm Washington Touting Energy Ideas

By Anne C. Mulkern

With climate change and energy legislation in the works, lobbyists are lining up to influence the federal government’s decisions There’s a green gold rush on Capitol Hill. With Congress plowing toward legislation on energy and climate, lobbyists and their clients are swarming House and Senate offices. They are booking up conference rooms, shaking hands and submitting proposals for financial help and policy changes.

There are hundreds of hired guns now working on the energy issues. They represent a swath of diverse and sometimes conflicting interests, from small companies turning algae into oil to traditional utilities and big corporations, including Google, United Parcel Service and Safeway.

“What’s happening in energy and carbon, what’s being contemplated is nothing short of transformational,” said Steve McBee, CEO of McBee Strategic Consulting, a lobbying firm with 31 clients interested in energy. Bills planned on energy and climate in Congress, he said, represent “an attempt to fundamentally shift the market.”

“There’s enough momentum and political will,” McBee said, adding that Congress and President Obama “have a fighting chance of getting it done.”

READ THE FULL STORY HERE.

States Anxious as Obama Shapes Climate Policy

By Peter Henderson and Timothy Gardner

(Reuters) - U.S. states have spearheaded moves to curb global warming and are not ready to pass the leadership baton
to President Barack Obama.

Regional markets to trade air pollution credits, aimed at
cutting emissions that heat the planet, could be overshadowed
by a federal system Obama sees as central to his environmental
policy.

But states plan to proceed with their own emission control
programs until the White House and Congress pass a credible
federal market mechanism such as “cap-and-trade” to meet
Obama’s targets for greenhouse gas cuts.

State officials say the federal program might never happen, or
be too weak to help reduce the chances of catastrophic
droughts, floods and heat waves from global warming.

“There is no guarantee that this federal program will in fact
come into existence,” said the California Environmental
Protection Agency’s Michael Gibbs.

“We need to continue to press ahead,” said Gibbs, the top state
official working in the Western Climate Initiative, a group of
11 U.S. states and Canadian provinces that plan to start
trading in 2012.

READ THE REST OF THE STORY HERE.

Natural Gas, Suddenly Abundant, Is Cheaper

The decline in crude oil prices gets all the headlines, but the
first globalized natural gas glut in history is driving an even
more drastic collapse in the cost of gas that cooks food, heats
homes and runs factories in the United States and many other
countries.

Six giant plants capable of cooling and liquefying
gas for export are due to come on line this year just as the
economies of the Asian and European countries that import the
most gas to run their industries are slowing. Energy experts
and company executives say that means loads of gas from Qatar,
Egypt, Nigeria and Algeria that otherwise would be going to
Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Spain are beginning to arrive in
supertankers in the United States, even though there is a gas
glut here, too.

READ THE REST OF THE STORY HERE.

 State Lawmakers Ready for More Debate
on Oil and Gas Rules

By Judith Kohler (Associated Press)

DENVER — A plan to give Colorado landowners more say when
energy companies want to drill on their property has riled the
industry but heartened property owners who say their voices
haven’t been heard. “I think there are a lot of protections for
mineral rights owners,” said Richard Goodwin.

A bill the Colorado Senate will consider Tuesday is “a giant
step forward” in creating more balance, said Goodwin, whose
subdivision in southern Colorado is in the middle of a gas
field.

Giving landowners the right to appeal approval of a drilling
permit “is a lever available to throw up a monkey wrench,”
leaving projects in the lurch, attorney Ken Wonstolen told a
legislative committee last week. He represents the Colorado Oil
and Gas Association, a trade group.

READ THE REST OF THE STORY HERE.

Carbondale is Solar Happy

By Scott Condon

Solar power isn’t just a convenient way for hippies to get
electricity to their backwoods cabins anymore. It’s gone
mainstream, and no place in the Roaring Fork Valley has
embraced the renewable energy source like Carbondale.

The town is on a solar electric, or photovoltaic, binge.
Numerous systems have been installed in the last year, ranging
from a 147-kilowatt mini-solar farm at the Colorado Rocky
Mountain School campus to the 1.68 kW system that resident Dan
Richardson included in his new house.

Carbondale Mayor Michael Hassig believes solar electric has
been embraced by residents because it is a relatively easy step
that pays immediate rewards for the environment and themselves.

“It’s got the same appeal that growing stuff in the garden does,” he said.

READ THE REST OF THE STORY HERE.