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President Obama announced on Friday the award of $2.3 billion in tax credits for clean energy manufacturing — part of a broader push by his administration to stimulate job growth during the highest period of sustained unemployment in decades. “Building a robust clean energy sector is how we will create the jobs of the future,†said Mr. Obama, according to prepared remarks. The......read more
With gas prices in California hovering toward $5 per gallon, there's plenty of incentive for auto buyers to opt for a fuel efficient vehicle. Now there's even more motivation, with the announcement that buyers of the 2012 Ford Focus Electric -- recently named America's most fuel efficient five-passenger car -- will get a $2,500 state tax rebate. Focus Electric drivers will also have the......read more
The Senate Finance Committee proposed on Wednesday an overhaul of clean energy tax credits, many of them set to expire at the end of the year. The draft, presented by Committee Chair Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), calls for simplifying and extending the messy patchwork of incentives while cutting their $150 billion price tag over the next decade by more than half. The plan would create two broader......read more
Daniel J. Weiss for the Center for American Progress: President Barack Obama’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2014 would eliminate $39 billion of special tax breaks for Big Oil companies over the next decade as part of comprehensive business tax reform. These companies earned billions of dollars in recent years due to high oil and gasoline prices and do not need additional support from......read more
Austrian photographer Klaus Pichler has spent the last three years roaming behind the exhibits at Vienna's Museum of Natural History, shooting photos of taxidermied animals. The results, collected in the ongoing series "Skeletons in the Closet," are simultaneously fascinating, grotesque, and hilarious. Writes Pichler: It all started when I happened to catch a glimpse through a basement......read more
Fully automated electric taxis could dramatically reduce transportation sector's emmisions, a new study finds. By Lindsay Abrams The energy efficient cars of the future will allow the transportation sector to lower its greenhouse gas emissions not just because they’re electric — but because they’ll also be driverless. That’s the forward-looking conclusion of a new......read more
This story was originally published by CityLab and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The federal gas tax that pays for America’s highways hasn’t been raised in decades, but that doesn’t stop some determined lawmakers from trying. The latest effort comes via Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, who has introduced a plan to raise the tax four cents a......read more
Every day, we make lifestyle and consumer decisions that affect how much carbon is emitted into the atmosphere. Where we live, how we get around, and what we eat are but a few of them. These decisions, while personal, have global impact. Economists refer to the public effects of personal decisions as "externalities." How we as a society encourage people to make the right decisions (in this case,......read more
Peter Lehner and Cas Holloway at Huffington Post: In acting this week to complete a $60-billion package of emergency aid for victims of Hurricane Sandy in the New York region, Congress came face-to-face with the rising costs that climate change is imposing on the nation.The region badly needs the assistance, and Congress did the right thing to provide it. Sixty billion dollars is a hefty price......read more
From the LA Times: Mitt Romney, who opposed government subsidies for clean power and thought all energy production technologies should compete equally in the free market, did not win the election. That's the good news. The bad news is that his backward policies are still popular among many congressional Republicans, posing a threat to a wind-energy tax credit that is creating jobs and......read more
