Articles by Kate Sheppard

Green groups and Obama's Energy Sec. mark National Day of Service

Groups around Washington, D.C., marked Martin Luther King Jr. Day and inauguration eve with a national day of service. One service effort was the kick-off to the installation of solar panels at Sousa Junior High School in the southeastern part of the city.

The efforts were led by the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Standard Solar; SunPower, Wal-Mart Inc., Waste Management Inc.; and Washington Gas Energy Services, along with the city's government. They distributed home weatherization kits to families in the neighborhood as well.

Grist couldn't make it out for the event, but apparently incoming Secretary of Energy Steven Chu stopped by and spoke to volunteers: "What you're doing today is the single most important thing we can be doing in the coming decades - promoting energy efficiency and renewable energy," Chu said. "Years ago, communities came together to raise a neighbor's barn. In the future, I hope that communities will come together, like you are today, to weatherize each other's homes, to conserve energy, make homes more comfortable, save money, and save the planet."

The groups are installing $20,000 worth of solar panels and equipment, donated by Standard Solar, Washington Gas Energy Services, and SunPower. The installation is being completed by IBEW electricians at John Kelly & Sons Electrical Construction. The panels should be up and running in a few weeks, according to the groups.

"What we did today foreshadowed the incredible economic potential of President-elect Obama's plan to create hundreds of thousands of jobs by investing in clean, renewable energy," said LCV President Gene Karpinski at the event.

Dueling green galas on the eve of the inauguration

The New York Times reports on the competing green balls that will welcome in the new president tonight. There's Al Gore's green gala and another ball put on by the International Conservation Caucus Foundation. (A third green ball, hosted by Planet Green, already took place on Saturday night.)

Tonight's dueling balls showcase an interesting dichotomy within the green movement. Gore's ball, which has more of an activist bent, is co-hosted by the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Earthjustice, the Vote Solar Initiative, and Youth for Environmental Sanity, among many other groups and businesses. Wal-Mart, KPMG, and the American Gas Association are also on board, but these and other corporate sponsors have incorporated green practices into their businesses, say the Gore folk. The organizers are decorating with tree seedlings, using recycled-fiber carpet, recycling and composting waste, and offsetting their carbon emissions. The food is going to be organic, and cooked across the street, to lower the carbon footprint, natch. Will.i.am and Maroon 5 will serenade the crowd.

The International Conservation Caucus Foundation's ball is hosted by The Nature Conservancy, Conservation International, and WWF, among others, and will be just a few blocks down the street. "Roses will be flown in from Ecuador. Marinated beef is being flown in from Texas to Virginia, where it will be grilled and then trucked to the auditorium," reports the Times. "We are not into symbolism," said caucus president David H. Barron. "We are focused on a much bigger impact." As the Times puts it, "the caucus gala sticks to its philosophy that the environment and wildlife are most effectively protected by governments and businesses." To that end, sponsors include ExxonMobil, Chevron, International Paper, and Wal-Mart (which appears to be hedging its bets). Famous anticipated guests include Robert Duvall, Bo Derek, and Ed Norton.

I'll be reporting from the Gore gala this evening, so you'll get the inside scoop. (Don't worry, I'll be taking public transit and recycling my prom dress.)

What Obama's green team has to say about coal

Here at Grist, we like to say that coal is the enemy of the human race. But what do Obama's environmental nominees have to say about the dirtiest of all fossil fuels? Here's what we heard at their confirmation hearings:

Steven Chu, nominee for secretary of energy: "I am optimistic we can figure out how to use those resources in a clean way. I'm very hopeful that this will occur and I think that we will be using that great natural resource."

Lisa Jackson, nominee for EPA administrator: "Coal is a vital resource in this country. It is right now the source of generation of about 50 percent of our power. And I think that it is also important for us to say in the same sentence that it is -- the emissions from coal-fired power plants are -- the largest contributor to global warming emissions. So we have to face square-shouldered the future and the issues of coal and then move American ingenuity towards addressing them."

Ken Salazar, nominee for secretary of the interior: "Coal is a controversial subject. The fact of the matter is it powers today much of America, and there are lots of jobs it creates ... The challenge is how we create clean coal ... I believe that we will move forward with the funding of some of those demonstration projects so we can find ways to burn coal that don't contribute to climate change. I will certainly be an advocate of making that happen."

Did the Obama team ax funding for mass transit in the stimulus bill?

When the House rolled out its stimulus plan on Thursday, the set-aside for mass transit had fallen significantly from the proposal outlined last week by House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chair James Oberstar (D-Minn.).

Oberstar had called for $30 billion for roads and bridges and $17 billion for mass transit, which would give mass transit 36 percent of all the transportation funding in the stimulus package. But in the plan unveiled yesterday, while the road money stayed the same, the public transit portion was reduced by 25 percent, which includes cutting operation assistance funds entirely. As for intercity rail, for which Oberstar wanted $5 billion, its funding was reduced to $1.1 billion -- a 78 percent cut.

Whose decision was it to ax so much mass-transit funding, considering that the House committee chair responsible for it has been so pro-public-transit? Sources on the Hill say that the incoming administration's economic team was very involved in the drafting of this final proposal. Are they responsible for reducing transit so significantly, despite repeated claims that reducing oil use and investing in public transit is going to be top priority?

Oberstar's office says the cuts were the product of the House speaker's office, the Senate majority leader, and the Obama transition team. "How those decisions were made, I don't know," Jim Berard, communications director for the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, told Grist. "It's disappointing that our recommendation was not accepted on the whole, but at the same time we got a good deal for transportation infrastructure and we want to keep the momentum going for this bill."

Berard says that at this point it's not likely transit advocates in Congress will make too big a deal out of the cuts. "We don't want to get into a family squabble at this point. I think the imperative is to get a bill going and get it going fast, and get it enacted quickly," he continued. "I think there's a lot of arguments to be made for more funding in every category on there. So to slow the process down by lobbying for more money for one particular sector or another may not be productive."

Transit activists, of course, are not happy.