With the risk of a Senate filibuster and/or defeat of the energy bill looming, it may seem premature for me to applaud House Speaker Pelosi, Michigan Representative Dingell and all the other key players who were instrumental in the passage of the energy bill by the House yesterday. Nevertheless, their efforts are much appreciated.

Here's a body of lawmakers who, in effect, have snubbed their collective nose at President Bush and his lackey Allan Hubbard. By a vote of 235 to 181, the House passed a bill that would accomplish the following:

• raise CAFE Standards to an average 35 mpg by 2020, a 40% increase in efficiency over today's standards
• require 15% of electricity to come from renewable energy sources by 2020
• provide tax incentives for developing ethanol as a motor fuel, and require 36 billion gallons of it to be produced on an annual basis by the year 2022
• impose new light-bulb standards that would effectively eliminate the incandescent bulb by 2015
• finance tax incentives for hybrid cars, ethanol production and renewable-energy development
• rollback $13.5 billion in tax breaks for the five largest oil companies

It's not perfect, and there are bound to be some changes made if/when the Senate takes up debate. But if nothing else, the House has sent a clear message to the White House that it's time for action. The President's bluff has been called.

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Al Gore sent me an email appeal yesterday, and I can't imagine I was the only one on his mailing list.

The appeal: to sign a petition calling on the U.S. government to assume a new leadership role in solving the climate crisis.

The plan: in eight days, Al will address the UN Conference on Climate Change in Bali to urge the adoption of a visionary new treaty to address global warming — he wants to deliver a petition with millions of signatures to the conference delegates.

The message: the American people want a visionary treaty to address climate change and for the U.S. government to play a positive leadership role in its development.

I did what Al asked — twice: I signed the petition, and I'm urging you to do so as well.

THANKS!

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A while back I ranted about the game of high stakes poker the White House was playing with the energy bill. The impetus was a mid-October letter from Allan Hubbard to Nancy Pelosi.

Hubbard, the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Director, National Economic Council, wrote to the Speaker of the House, outlining the "basic framework for an energy bill that would not compel the President's senior advisors to recommend a veto."

Well folks, as Congress moves ever closer to passing a meaningful energy bill — one that includes many items the President opposes — it seems as if the President's lackey is writing letters to Nancy Pelosi once again.

According to the Washington Post:

Efforts by members of Congress to pass an energy bill hit another bump yesterday when the White House suggested that President Bush might veto the bill, but Democratic leaders said they would not alter the package assembled last week after intense negotiating over fuel efficiency standards.

Allan B. Hubbard, director of the National Economic Council, said in a letter yesterday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) that the energy package failed to meet criteria he set out in October and that "it appears Congress may intend to produce a bill the President cannot sign."

Who is this guy? And why is an economist in charge of the President's point of view on what is fundamentally an environmental issue.

As I said back in October:

While I don't think Hubbard (or Bush) is bluffing, I do think the administration is hoping that this year's energy bill stalls in Congress, rather than on the President's desk. And that is one of the most cynical examples of political poker that I can recall.

We need leadership. And all we get is politics.

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It all depends whose rating it is.

As y'all know, for as much as I like the New York Times for its news coverage, I'm troubled by their focus on luxury when it comes to travel. A case in point is the story that ran last Sunday, titled The Ski Issue — Going Green, Luxuriously.

The premise of that story: Can luxury and green mix?

Yes, all those snowmaking guns and high-speed lifts soak up untold amounts of energy, but thanks to eco-friendly capital improvements, skiers can schuss down the mountain this winter with a somewhat clearer conscience. Snow guns are using oil-free air compressors, mountaintop restaurants are being powered by solar panels, and carbon offsets can be purchased as part of your lift ticket. Ignore the S.U.V.'s crammed in the parking lot, and skiing might also seem like a sustainable sport.

The NYT piece then went on to inventory green improvements to many ski resorts across the U.S. and Canada … as well as resort real estate developments it likens to the Las Vegas strip.

Jackson Hole Mountain Resort was touted at the conclusion of the story, for two reasons: 1) offsetting 100 percent of its energy usage with wind, biomass and other renewable energy sources, and 2) Hotel Terra — the first in a collection of green hotels launched by the Terra Resort Group.

The Times' piece got me wondering: on an objective scale, how green are the resorts they mentioned?

The Ski Area Citizens Coalition issues an annual rating called The Ski Area Environmental Scorecard, and claims it's a non-industry, independent mechanism that gives skiers and boarders a way to assess the environmental performance of their favorite resorts. While this scorecard is only applied to western ski areas, I thought it would be interesting to see how some of resorts the Times covered held up when they were rated according to these criteria:

• Impacting Roadless Areas
• Logging Old Growth Forests
• Purchasing clean, renewable wind energy
• Using cleaner burning, biodegradable biodiesel.
• and much more

Aspen and Park City earned "A" ratings. Crystal Mountain and Crested Butte earned "Ds" and Breckenridge earned an"F". How about our local resort? Jackson Hole Mountain Resort earned a solid "B."

With ratings in hand, I went back to to see why the Times even included Crystal Mountain, Crested Butte and Breckenridge in the story? I wasn't surprised to see that it was "style over substance" in each case:

• Crystal Mountain renovated its cafeteria-style Summit House from a chili-and-cheeseburger joint into a fine-dining establishment, serving up Swiss fondue and amazing views of Mount Rainier.
• Crested Butte's moldy gothic building has been torn down and will be replaced by a 92-room luxury studio and retail complex called the Cimarron. And a former Club Med has been turned into a slopeside luxury hotel with spa.
• Breckenridge's new children's learning school, Mountains of Discovery, combines traditional ski lessons with an Amazing Race-style hunt for slopeside landmarks.

To be fair, in its coverage of Breckenridge, the Times points out:

• the new BreckConnect gondola, which opened last December, is saving some 20,000 gallons of fuel each season by reducing shuttle usage between Main Street and Peak 8.

But that's the only green improvement mentioned for any of the three resorts — no wonder they scored so poorly on the Ski Area Environmental Scorecard.

One can only wonder why the Times felt compelled to mention these resorts in its coverage of green ski resorts. I also wonder how the non-western resorts mentioned in the Times story would rate on the Ski Area Environmental Scorecard?

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With a number of national and international decision points on the horizon over the next couple of weeks (Congress/energy bill, Senate/Lieberman-Warner and the U.N. Bali Climate Conference) this is a crucial and exciting time in the fight against global warming.

No less exciting is the progress being made on the ground in cities across the United States. Take San Francisco as an example. After its voluntary plastic bag recycling program achieved less than the desired results (only 5% recycling rate), the city banned plastic bags in large grocery stores last month and in large pharmacies by April.

And just last Friday, the New York Times ran a story on San Francisco's converting its entire array of diesel vehicles — from ambulances to street sweepers — to biodiesel.

The city’s diesel vehicles now all use a fuel known as B20, a mix of 20 percent soy-based biofuel and 80 percent petroleum diesel fuel, which reduces toxic emissions of carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons and other pollutants that lead to global warming.

A spokesman for the mayor, Nathan Ballard, said the goal was to cut such emissions to 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

Here's hoping our national and international lawmakers show as much vision in making tough choices as the city of San Francisco has.

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Finally, it looks like a 35 miles per gallon fleet average will become law, raising fuel efficiency of American-made cars and light trucks by 40% by the year 2020. After months of back and forth, the two bull-headed players in this House debate, Speaker Pelosi and Michigan Representative Dingell, have reached a compromise that should enable the full House to vote on the energy bill next week (the Senate passed a 35 mpg CAFE Standard last June).

Of course, there are sure to be a few more twists and turns as other portions of the energy bill are discussed, but this is clearly a major breakthrough!

For more on this topic, here are links to New York Times and Washington Post stories as well as David Roberts' commentary on Grist.

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As usual, Treehugger provided a link to timely holiday shopping stats from a survey called the 2007 Cone Holiday Environmental Study.

Consider these tidbits from the Cone report:

• Nearly half of Americans (48 percent) will try to buy fewer gifts or holiday products this season because they are concerned about the effect their consumption may have on the environment.
• Almost six in ten (59 percent) say they are more likely to buy "green" products this year than in the past.
• More than half of Americans (54 percent) say they would be willing to pay more for a holiday gift or product if it is environmentally responsible, and an equally motivated number (55 percent) say they proactively seek opportunities to buy green gifts and products around the holidays.
• Americans' environmentally sensitive behavior extends beyond gifts, as well. They are purchasing gift wrap made from recycled paper (42 percent) or decorating with energy efficient holiday lighting (32 percent).
• Interestingly, more than half of Americans surveyed (52 percent) say the motivation for green shopping is to alleviate the guilt associated with holiday consumption.

These numbers are certainly encouraging! So was my trip to K-Mart last night.

In search of LEDs to exchange for the regular strings of holiday lights Alisan had mistakenly purchased, I found the shelves chock full of regular lights and almost bare of LEDs. You may wonder how that could be a good thing: just a week ago, fully 1/4 of the shelf space was occupied by LEDs — folks are buying!

Maybe next year K-Mart will devote at least 1/2 of its shelf space to LEDs.

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