Using Executive Authority to Achieve Greener Buildings

Van Ness Feldman, P.C. for the US Green Building Council / by Tomás Carbonell, Shelley Fidler and Douglas Smith http://www.usgbc.org/ShowFile.aspx?DocumentID=7187 [From Climate Wire]  The White House can retrofit its tools for dealing with energy efficiency, in many cases without asking Congress for money or permission, according to a report released yesterday. The analysis found $72 [...]

Auto Industry: Lessons Learned from Cash for Clunkers Program

General Accounting Office http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d10486.pdf [From summary] Members of Congress and administration officials articulated two broad objectives for the CARS program: (1) help stimulate the economy and (2) put more fuel-efficient vehicles on the road. The program achieved these broad objectives; however, the extent to which it did so is uncertain. For example, nearly 680,000 consumers [...]

ToxRefDB : EPA’s Toxicity Reference Database

US EPA. National Center for Computational Toxicology and Office of Pesticide Programs www.epa.gov/NCCT/toxrefdb/ http://actor.epa.gov/toxrefdb/faces/Home.jsp [Website] ToxRefDB was developed by the National Center for Computational Toxicology (NCCT) in partnership with EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP), to store data from in vivo animal toxicity studies. The initial focus was populating ToxRefDB with pesticide registration toxicity data [...]

A European Strategy on Clean and Energy Efficient Vehicles

The European Commission http://tinyurl.com/2vssxmh [Yale Environment 360] The European Union has unveiled a strategy to become a world leader in the green vehicle market, including a framework for common standards for electric cars across Europe by 2011 and the development of a network of charging stations continent-wide. Calling this a defining stage for the automotive [...]

Energy for a Sustainable Future

Advisory Group on Energy and Climate Change (AGECC) http://tinyurl.com/27rhqvz [From Press Release] A report issued today by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Advisory Group on Energy and Climate Change calls for expanding energy access to more than 2 billion people, and for scaling up efforts to increase energy efficiency and clean energy initiatives to meet [...]

Nature Communications, an Online-Only Multidisciplinary Journal from Nature

Nature Publishing Co. http://www.nature.com/ncomms/index.html [H/T: ResourceShelf] Word from Nature Publishing Group that their new online-only journal, Nature Communications, has gone live. Eleven articles were published. From the About Page: Nature Communications is an online-only, multidisciplinary journal dedicated to publishing high-quality research in all areas of the biological, physical and chemical sciences. Papers published by the [...]

Green Jobs : Hope or Hype Redux

National Center for Policy Analysis / by by H. Sterling Burnett and James Franko (Brief Analyses no. 702) http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba702 [From Press Release] President Obama has identified Spain and Denmark as having benefited from subsidized green job creation. However, in Spain, a 2009 study from Madrid’s King Juan Carlos University showed that for every green job [...]

National Security Implications of Climate Change for U.S. Naval Forces : Letter Report

National Research Council http://tinyurl.com/2895grt [Summary] The leaders of the U.S. Navy, Coast Guard, and Marine Corps have recognized the potential impact of climate change on naval forces’ missions and have positioned their organizations to make adaptive changes. This report is the first component of a study to assess the implications of climate change for the [...]

Briefing Memo : “Clean Energy Policies That Reduce Our Dependence on Oil”

US House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Energy and Environment Subcommittee http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20100426/Briefing.Memo.ee.04.26.2010.pdf [Excerpt] …But if Congress now nullified EPA’s finding that greenhouse gas pollution endangers the American public, that action would remove the legal basis for a federal greenhouse gas emissions standard for motor vehicles. Eliminating the EPA standard would forfeit one quarter of the [...]

U.S. Tsunami Preparedness : NOAA Has Expanded Its Tsunami Programs, but Improved Planning Could Enhance Effectiveness

Government Accountability Office http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d10490.pdf [Summary]  In June 2006, GAO reported a number of concerns about the level of U.S. tsunami preparedness. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) leads U.S. efforts through three key programs: the Tsunami Program, which focuses on detection and warning activities; the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program (NTHMP), which is a [...]