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Congress Narrowly Avoids a Crisis It Created

After dominating news cycles for the last week, the infamous fiscal cliff was finally vanquished… for two months, at least. As Andy Borowitz tweeted, "praising Congress for the fiscal cliff deal is like giving an arsonist an award for putting out his own fire."

Welcome back to the Week in Green Politics, where I know that most of you are sick of politics by now. So I'll keep it quick.

Obviously the most timely issue in the climate world is Hurricane Sandy. If you're on the East Coast, I hope you're staying safe.

From a political point of view, one pressing question is whether the candidates will mention climate change in the context of extreme weather. And that brings us to our first headline:

Lawmaker Proposes Carbon Pricing Bill

The big news this week: Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) introduced legislation that would…wait for it…tax carbon emissions. McDermott's plan, the Managed Carbon Price Act, would set a price per quarter-ton of CO2, creating an economic incentive to cut pollution. Of the revenue produced, 25 percent would go toward deficit reduction, and 75 percent would go back to the public.

Clean Air Act Regulations Upheld

On Tuesday, a Washington, D.C. federal appeals court upheld EPA's finding that greenhouse gases are a threat to public health and should therefore be regulated. The Washington Post has the story:

The opponents, including Virginia’s attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli II (R), argued that EPA rules setting emissions standards for cars and light trucks, and requiring construction and operating permits for the nation’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases, such as coal-fired power plants, were based on a faulty interpretation of the Clean Air Act, and therefore capricious and heavy handed.

But the court rejected the challenge, calling EPA's interpretation "unambiguously correct." In particular, the judges scorned the opponents' complaint that EPA relied on climate science to make a decision about… climate science. In an amusingly sarcastic opinion, the court said, "This is how science works. EPA is not required to re-prove the existence of the atom every time it approaches a scientific question."