In the News...
Environmental:
- Obama outlines energy policy
- Obama takes steps to reverse Bush climate policies
- Clinton picks climate envoy, in another break with Bush
- President Obama has ordered a review of whether states can set car emission standards, potentially reversing a Bush administration decision which favoured a national standard for vehicle pollution.
- President Barack Obama began reversing the climate policies of the Bush administration on Monday, clearing the way for the government to allow states to set stricter limits on greenhouse gas emissions from cars.
- In a sharp break from eight years of former president George W. Bush, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has picked Todd Stern as her envoy for climate change, a State Department official said Monday.
Property Rights:
- TFB: Constitution change a good first step
- Lawmaker Eyes Land Rights Amendment
- All Too Easy To Condemn
- Governor Perry’s attempt to codify a current eminent domain law into the Texas Constitution is a good first step toward the true reform needed for property owners in Texas, said the leader of the state’s largest farm organization.
- The rights of landowners in the Shenandoah Valley and other parts of Virginia are on the line, say area legislators. And this year's session of the General Assembly will give legislators the chance to help beef up existing land-use laws under an amendment to the state constitution.
- The more time that passes since the U.S. Supreme Court's Kelo v. New London decision, the more immoral the ruling looks.
Energy:
- Pelosi: President Obama Has Set Energy Policies on a Path Led by Science and Innovation
- Legislative panel mulls delay in oil, gas rules
- U.S. fuel-efficiency move puts Ottawa under the pump
- Speaker Nancy Pelosi released a statement on President Obama's signing of two Presidential Memoranda focusing on energy independence and climate change...
- A legislative committee will consider a bill that would delay new oil and gas regulations.
- The move puts Stephen Harper’s Conservative government in a difficult position because it had said it was working toward one continental mileage standard with the United States. Quebec, Manitoba and B.C. are all working on their own rules and may be emboldened by President Obama’s announcement, industry observers said.
National:
- Heatoil steady as supply covers demand
- Obama meets "Senator Bulworth"
- Obama’s Green Agenda: Tough Love for Automakers
- Heating oil differentials in the New York Harbor are seen steady this week amid a tug-of-war between ample supplies and rising demand due to a cold snap in the Northeast, traders said on Monday.
- One of the most important steps Barack Obama has made to reduce corruption in U.S. politics (and by extension help the rest of the world) has received little coverage in the media. Obama has started to clean up what some consider the root cause of much of the ethical sleaze that directly led to the current economic devastation emanating from the U.S.
- President Obama kicked off his green-energy revolution by taking aim at America’s highways. Simply getting better mileage, he said today, “is one of the most important steps to reduce dependence on foreign oil.” So how to get there? The federal government will both lead and get out of the way.
United Nations:
- Supporters Press for U.S. Ratification of Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
- U.S. envoy predicts 'direct diplomacy' with Iran
- U.N. Official Wants to Prosecute Bush, Rumsfeld for Torture
- Nuclear nonproliferation advocates said they hoped that U.S. President Barack Obama would quickly follow through on his promise to push for ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
- The newly installed U.S. ambassador to the United Nations says the Obama administration will engage in "direct diplomacy" with Iran.
- The UN's "Special Rapporteur on Torture," Manfred Nowak, in a message recorded on January 20 for broadcast that evening on Germany's ZDF television, urged the United States to bring charges against former president George W. Bush and former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld for torture and bad treatment of prisoners held at the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay.
Commentary:
- The pork behind the pomp
By Henry Lamb - Coal, Glorious Coal!
By Alan Caruba - The "Golden Era of Obama"
By Fred Geilow
- Hidden well behind the spectacular pomp and historic circumstance of inauguration week, the wheels of government continued the relentless grind, oblivious to the party in power at the moment. From deep within the bureaucracy, the USDA moved closer to taking control over every livestock animal and the land on which they roam. With a callousness hardened by expanded majorities, Congress moved closer to taking control over another 2 million acres of land and the resources it contains.
- I began 2009 praising carbon dioxide as the gas, along with oxygen, upon which all life on Earth depends. Now I praise coal and for reasons the mainstream press and other media will studiously avoid telling you. Coal, as you may recall, is on the Obama hit list because its use, according to the environmental loonies, will doom the Earth to a global warming that is not happening.
- We have now entered the "Golden Era of Obama," where everything good that befalls us will be the result of the President's wise and prudent rule, and everything bad will be the result of the fumbling, bumbling, and stumbling of George W. Bush and the evil Republicans. This perspective will be woven into media stories for the next six months. Or twelve. Or 48.
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