Less than a week after President Obama's Inauguration, he issued a Presidential Memorandum Monday that reversed course on one aspect of the federal government's climate policy. In December, 2007, then-President Bush signed into law a bill on energy security that also directed the U.S. Department of Transportation to increase the corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards for new motor vehicle emission exhaust.  Immediately thereafter, Stephen Johnson, then administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, issued a decision denying California's long-standing reques...

Well, we have a new President and a new Congress.  Mr. Obama mentioned climate change a few times in his inaugural address.  When he gets down to the nitty-gritty, let’s hope he can get something done.  Like fix the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).  The National Flood Insurance Program is mired in debt to the tune of more than $17 billion.  A bill that would have forgiven that debt and provided for future solvency of the NFIP passed through both houses of Congress with bipartisan support in 2008, but died in conference when the 110th Congress adjourned for th...

Small Business Energy Efficiency Grants by Frances Ruml Beckley Last year, Maryland offered grants to promote renewable energy business projects.  It was sold out within days.  Pennsylvania has just stepped onto the same path.  It is likely that the Commonwealth’s largess will be tapped just as quickly. On January 12, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection announced that it is accepting applications for Small Business Energy Efficiency Grants, which were authorized as part of Pennsylvania’s Alternative Energy Investment Act passed last summer.  The appli...

With the inauguration today of President Barack Obama, the likelihood of looming federal climate change regulation increased, as expected, but even Mr. Obama’s Inaugural Address left little doubt that his list of near-term priority issues includes energy and climate change, as he referenced these issues three times in his speech. Mr. Obama said that the ways the nation uses energy “strengthens our adversaries and threaten our planet.”  He then said: “For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act - not only to ...