Posted in solar, tagged obama, public citizen texas, renewable energy, solar, Texas, tyson slocum on October 8, 2010 |
Tyson Slocum
The following is a statement by Tyson Slocum, Director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program
As the White House finally rights a wrong and installs solar panels to heat and energize the East Wing, the Obama administration will have to determine if the installation is merely a symbolic gesture or a signal of robust leadership on climate and energy policy. (more…)
Posted in Global Warming, tagged austin to copenhagen, citizen energy, climate voice, fossil of the day awards, grist, Public Citizen, tck tck tck, Texas, tyson slocum, wonk room on December 9, 2009 |
Its already getting tough to keep tabs on everything happening in Copenhagen, so for now I’ll just share what I’ve been reading. Here’s today’s Copen-digest:
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By promoting cleaner energy, cleaner government, cleaner cars, and cleaner air for all Texans, we hope to provide for a healthy place to live and prosper. We are Public Citizen Texas.
Posted in Global Warming, tagged clean air act, climate change, Coal, copenhagen, corporate interest, energy program, Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, greenhouse gas emissions, house of representatives, oil refineries, polluters, power plants, Public Citizen, Texas, tyson slocum on November 18, 2009 |
Statement of Tyson Slocum, Director, Public Citizen’s Energy Program
*Note: Tyson Slocum is delivered this statement today at a public hearing held by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on regulating greenhouse gas emissions from new and existing industrial facilities under the Clean Air Act.
As we approach the 40th anniversary of the Clean Air Act, it is appropriate for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to use this law for the agency’s most important and challenging task yet: solving climate change. Decades of success using the act to make America’s communities cleaner and safer can serve as a model of how to tackle climate change.
Public Citizen supports the development of strong, science-based regulations to sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, oil refineries and other “smokestack” emitters responsible for 70 percent of our nation’s emissions of pollutants that cause climate change. The EPA has emerged as the only arm of the federal government with the credibility to solve climate change, as Congress thus far has produced deeply flawed legislation that provides billions of dollars in financial giveaways to polluters while failing to fix our corporate-controlled energy system, which contributes to unsustainability and pollution.
Most unsettling is the fact that climate legislation passed by the House of Representatives would end the ability of the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. Public Citizen understands why polluters’ lobbyists have tried to eviscerate the EPA’s authority: Because they know that the agency now is largely shielded from the influence of corporate special interests and can therefore concentrate on formulating the regulatory solutions to climate change based on science, not politics.
As world leaders prepare to meet in Copenhagen next month to discuss how nations can work together to solve climate change, the eyes of the world will look not to Congress, but to the EPA for leadership. Public Citizen strongly supports the agency’s efforts to use the full extent of the Clean Air Act to implement science-based regulations to sharply reduce America’s greenhouse gas emissions from new and existing industrial sources.
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By promoting cleaner energy, cleaner government, cleaner cars, and cleaner air for all Texans, we hope to provide for a healthy place to live and prosper. We are Public Citizen Texas.
Posted in Global Warming, tagged carbon credits, climate change, climate change bill, climate change legislation, Coal, Democracy Now!, emissions, giveaways, greenhouse gasses, house energy and commerce, industry, Nuclear, oil, Public Citizen, Texas, tyson slocum on May 22, 2009 |
As expected, the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved climate change legislation last night and sent it along in the legislative process. We strongly urge lawmakers to make major overhauls to this bill or go back to the drawing board.
The problem? Oil, coal and nuclear industries had far too much say in its shaping, and it shows.
Now more than ever, Public Citizen needs you to tell your representatives that climate change legislation should not be weakened by the corrupting influence of big money.
Those who say this bill is the best the legislative process can produce are wrong: The American people demanded strong climate legislation, and polluters are subverting these goals.
Public Citizen supports strong, effective climate legislation, but this bill won’t achieve it. We can talk about hoping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly, but this bill won’t do it.
It creates a legal right to pollute for industries and gives away credits for free to allow companies to meet those targets without having to pay for them. That is not going to spur the kind of investments we need.
We must act fast to influence lawmakers to fix this piece of legislation. Please take action so that our voices can be heard loud and clear over those of the oil, coal and nuclear industries.
For more information about the climate change bill and how it needs to be fixed, visit our Web site and watch Tyson Slocum explain Public Citizen’s position in an interview on Democracy Now!
Take action today, and let your representatives know you want them to put interests of consumers above those of the energy industries.
Posted in Global Warming, tagged auction, charlie rangel, clean energy bank, climate change, coal and oil industry, Congress, energy and commerce, energy prices, Environmental Protection Agency, ferc, fossil fuels, Global Warming, goldman sachs, highly regressive, james hansen, john wellinghoff, Obama administration, pollution allowances, Public Citizen, renewable energy, sustainable energy, temple of doom, Texas, tyson slocum, Waxman, ways and means on May 18, 2009 |
Over the weekend we had a little more time to look over the language in the American Clean Energy and Security Act, and have found it wanting. Check out this thoughtful statement from our Energy Program Director for the skinny on the bill and what went wrong:
The climate change legislation that will be debated this week is a huge disappointment. Not only will it prove a boon to energy industries, but it won’t protect consumers and may very well not even curb global warming. The first draft, penned months ago, was on track to accomplish these goals, and we applauded it as a great start. Since then, however, lawmakers have met in secret with representatives of the coal and oil industries and facilitated industry efforts to gut the bill.
The Obama administration got it right when officials released a budget that would auction 100 percent of pollution allowances. As long as pollution allowances are auctioned, the government will have the revenue necessary to mitigate energy price increases through rebates while having money to invest in the sustainable energy infrastructure we need to end our reliance on fossil fuels.
This was further reinforced by President Obama’s selection for the new chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Jon Wellinghoff, who said that “we may not need any” new nuclear or coal power plants because we have yet to harness the capacity of renewables and energy efficiency.
But the House of Representatives has not followed the administration’s lead.
When Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) released a draft climate bill in March, we praised it as a great first step but noted that it needed to be improved during the committee mark-up process.
But instead of a transparent process involving debate and voted-upon amendments, committee leadership conducted closed-door negotiations with polluters. The result: The bill was radically altered to accommodate the financial interests of big energy corporations while giving nothing new for the environment or for working families. This is hardly the transformation this country needs to jump-start its economy and curb climate change. This is more of the same old wait-and-see, special-interest-bailout approach that has gripped Washington for ages. (more…)
Posted in Global Warming, tagged colbert, Global Warming, Stephen Colbert, Texas, tyson slocum on September 17, 2008 |
Many of us here at Public Citizen love The Colbert Report. We had to give a brief shout-out to our very own Tyson Slocum who works in our DC office for appearing on Stephen Colbert’s eponymous Report last night.
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/184943/september-16-2008/tyson-slocum
Listen to Tyson explain how energy companies are fleecing us while people run amock at the Department of the Interior. Also, stick around for the Threatdown and how global warming is getting rid of the threat from icebergs……
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