Everyone has one. The one piece of technology that makes it official for you that you’re living in the future. Whether it’s a Roomba vacuum, Skype, the iPhone or something else – there’s something floating around in your mind that, when you see it in real life, you’ll know you’ve reached the future.
For [...]

TIMES crunches the numbers and comes up with some encouraging data…
The initial data released by Department of Transportation, however, shows that so far cash for clunkers has been a green success. The clunkers averaged 15.8 m.p.g., compared with 25.4 m.p.g. for the new vehicles purchased, for an average fuel-economy increase of 61%.
On the whole, [...]

A new website for the controversial, popular program is up and it includes some things you need to know if you’d like to take advantage.

Your vehicle must be less than 25 years old on the trade-in date

Only purchase or lease of new vehicles qualify

Generally, trade-in vehicles must get 18 or less MPG (some very large [...]

Thanks to Justin and company for welcoming me on here as a regular contributor. I will be posting on a number of issues, but one area you can expect that I will regularly be tracking is technology related developments and how they interact with the political world and policy. I also live less than ten [...]

Congressional Republicans have been telling voters that the cap and trade energy policy that’s set for a vote on Friday will cost each household about $3,100.
CBO puts the lie to those numbers and shows that they’re nearly 20 times the actual costs…in 2020.
From Reuters:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Climate change legislation pending in Congress would cost U.S. [...]

This is an extreme example, but I can’t help but think car companies can easily hit the 35 MPG mileage standards Obama is about to lay out if the following is possible for a street ready car.
From Green Car:
Volkswagen’s CEO, Martin Winterkorn recently confirmed the company is working on a car that will get 235 [...]

On my final day at the Offshore Technology Conference, I attended a panel on climate change. Now, you might expect an oil and gas industry convention would prefer not to discuss the effects of CO2 emissions. But the panel included three scientists who all gave mini-lectures intended to convince the audience that global warming is [...]

Today at the Offshore Technology Conference (which I am at on sponsorship by the American Petroleum Institute), I attended a panel discussion titled: The Case for Access to Oil and Gas Resources on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf. As the title and graphic to my post probably reveal, the panel was less reasonable than the [...]

From today through mid-week, I’m in Houston attending the Offshore Technology Conference. I’m here on the sponsorship of the American Petroleum Institute which has brought in a cadre of bloggers, presumably to help generate coverage and discussion of petroleum issues. Since I believe energy and climate change policy will be some of the most important [...]

Take a look at the following at see how many of these you agree with.
From ABC:
Support for gay marriage, legalizing illegal immigrants and decriminalizing marijuana all are at new highs. Three-quarters of Americans favor federal regulation of greenhouse gases. Two-thirds support establishing relations with Cuba.
But hold tight.
If some views that may be perceived as liberal [...]

A glimpse of the future today.
This isn’t necessarily related to politics, but the following tech is pretty huge if you’ve been following the organic light-emitting diode (OLED) space.

So yeah, they’re cool, but what could be the most significant thing about these displays is that they don’t require a backlight and so they use significantly less [...]

Could be true.
Mounting evidence suggests a supervolcano located in modern-day Siberia may have killed 90% of life on Earth by wrecking havoc on the planet’s climate. The event happened 250 million years ago at the end of the Permian era.
The theory is the supervolcano’s magmas intruded on massive coal fields and turned the volcano into [...]

This should be welcome news for all of you Federalists.
From NY Times:
WASHINGTON — President Obama will direct federal regulators on Monday to move swiftly on an application by California and 13 other states to set strict automobile emission and fuel efficiency standards, two administration officials said Sunday.
The directive makes good on an Obama campaign pledge [...]

When Big Oil executives “advised” the Bush administration on energy policy, a lot of people were rightfully upset over the obvious conflict of interest. So, should we also be upset that Barack Obama is getting environmental advice from those who stand to profit from increased regulation and green investment? Well, Al Gore is in Chicago [...]

Remember folks, these are loans and we could actually make money on the deal…the same way we did last time when we helped a car company out and mandated they increase their CAFE standards.
From NY Times:
WASHINGTON — Faced with staggering new unemployment figures, Democratic Congressional leaders said on Friday that they were ready to provide [...]

This is one of those things that you can’t believe exists, but there it is nonetheless.

Note to self: do not mess around with Mother Nature…ever.

Christopher Beam of Slate talks about the recent seismic shift in the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Out: Rep. John Dingell of Michigan, the tough, cantankerous eminence grise of the House Democratic caucus (he’s 82), who was so deferential to Detroit as chairman of the House energy and commerce committee that Lee Iacocca once said he [...]

As always, the entire thing. Today’s was particularly good, with T. Boone Pickens making an appearance.

Thoughts?

Hey, this is Danielle Ivory from the American News Project, with our first report on the Obama transition.
Here’s a first look at Jay Inslee, who appears on the shortlists for Prez-Elect Obama’s Secretary of the Interior and Secretary of Energy..