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Bill Introduced Requiring 80% Reduction in US Greenhouse Gases

A new global warming bill introduced in the House on Tuesday, June 20, calls for bold cuts in heat-trapping emissions on the scale needed to solve the global warming problem. The Safe Climate Act, introduced by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and co-sponsored by 14 fellow House members, would set targets for greenhouse gas reductions and require the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Energy to establish national standards that will freeze greenhouse gas emissions in 2010 at the 2009 levels. Beginning in 2011, emissions would be cut by roughly 2 percent a year until 2020. After 2020, the reduction targets would increase to 5 percent each year until 2050, when emissions would be reduced from 1990 levels by 80 percent. This is a similar goal to that announced by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The bill would allow a cap and trade program to create an overall reduction in emissions as well as require specific increases in electricity generated by renewable energy sources and use of energy efficiency technology. It would also require the EPA to set new fuel economy standards for automobiles that are at least as stringent as California standards, which are […]

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Boom in Ethanol Reshapes Heartland Economy

By Alexei Barrionuevo, June 25, 2006 This article was reported by Alexei Barrionuevo, Simon Romero and Michael Janofsky and written by Mr. Barrionuevo. Dozens of factories that turn corn into the gasoline substitute ethanol are sprouting up across the nation, from Tennessee to Kansas, and California, often in places hundreds of miles away from where corn is grown. Once considered the green dream of the environmentally sensitive, ethanol has become the province of agricultural giants that have long pressed for its use as fuel, as well as newcomers seeking to cash in on a bonanza. The modern-day gold rush is driven by a number of factors: generous government subsidies, surging demand for ethanol as a gasoline supplement, a potent blend of farm-state politics and the prospect of generating more than a 100 percent profit in less than two years. The rush is taking place despite concerns that large-scale diversion of agricultural resources to fuel could result in price increases for food for people and livestock, as well as the transformation of vast preserved areas into farmland. Even in the small town of Hereford, in the middle of the Texas Panhandle’s cattle country and hundreds of miles from the agricultural heartland, […]

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