Environmental Politics

New Jersey is pulling out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, and three other states may follow. Why is RGGI on the ropes and who is throwing the punches? RGGI is made up of 10 northeastern states stretching from Maine to Delaware. In 2008, they banded together to form a carbon-trading program for power plants --- a market mechanism that enables utilities to buy and sell emission credits so they can meet caps on the amount of carbon they're allowed to put into the air.

The rise of the 'tea-party' movement has caused House Energy Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R=MI) to transform himself from a green advocate to an anti-EPA standard bearer.

"Judging from an annual survey by researchers at Yale and George Mason universities, the American public is roughly as fractured in its attitudes toward climate change today as it was last year."

"A report says the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was “not forthcoming” with other commissioners in his decision to have the agency’s staff wind down the review of an application for a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada."

"The environmental group's global campaign against the toy maker prompts the El Segundo company to tell its suppliers to stop buying products from the Singapore company accused of clear-cutting in Indonesia's rain forest."

"President Barack Obama today announced his intention to nominate Rebecca Wodder to be the next Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks for the Department of the Interior."

"Bruce Babbitt says Obama has failed to defend against Republican and industry attacks on environmental safeguards."

"Greenpeace accuses Mattel of using paper from Indonesian rain forests to package Barbie dolls. Activists hang a large banner on Mattel's headquarters in El Segundo. Police arrest 10 protesters."

"Cable news audiences are getting a steady stream of attacks on U.S. EPA's climate program but hearing relatively few arguments for the greenhouse gas regulations, according to a report released this morning by the liberal watchdog group Media Matters."