ON TAP TUESDAY I: Alberta Premier Alison Redford will make the rounds in Washington, D.C., to lobby for White House approval of the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline.
Her busy day includes meetings with the State Department, the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the Environmental Protection Agency and various lawmakers.
{mosads}Click here for more on Redford’s visit.
ON TAP TUESDAY II: The Senate Commerce Committee is poised to advance White House nominees for climate and energy posts.
The committee will vote on Kathryn Sullivan, the pick to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which plays a leading role in federal climate monitoring and research.
Also up for a vote is Robert Simon, a longtime former Capitol Hill Democratic aide, to be associate director for environment and energy at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Simon is the former Democratic staff director on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Typhoon in focus at climate talks: Reuters reports from Warsaw, Poland, that the devastating storm that hit the Philippines became an immediate topic at United Nations climate negotiations.
“The Philippine delegate at U.N. climate talks began a fast on Monday in protest at a lack of action on global warming that he blamed for fuelling a super typhoon that has killed an estimated 10,000 people in his country,” the news service reports.
A note of caution on climate-typhoon link: TIME magazine’s Bryan Walsh, in a Monday item, notes that “The warming of air and sea temperatures—which is well underway—should on the whole give more power to tropical cyclones, in part because warmer air can hold more water vapor.”
He adds, however: “But the reality is that the science around increasing greenhouse gas emissions and tropical cyclones has become muddier in recent years.”
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT ON E2-WIRE. . .
US Chamber urges backing for bill to thwart EPA climate rules
The powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce is trying to build political momentum behind legislation that would greatly scale back Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) carbon emissions rules for new power plants.
The bill it’s backing would also halt planned rules for existing power plants unless Congress votes to let them take effect. Click here for the whole story.
Ag Secretary Vilsack: ‘I don’t know’ whether ethanol helps climate
The Associated Press has a big new investigation concluding that U.S. ethanol policy is taking a heavy toll on U.S. lands and waters while offering dubious climate benefits.
Among the morsels in AP’s story: Pro-ethanol Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack doesn’t try to make the case that the fuel helps battle climate change.
“I don’t know whether I can make the environmental argument, or the economic argument,” Vilsack tells AP. “To me, it’s an opportunity argument.”
Click here for the whole E2-Wire story about it.
The AP story was initially slated for publication on Tuesday, Nov. 12, but leaked early. It has been pulled from a number of sites ahead of the formal launch, but a version of the leaked story is still available here.
The ethanol industry is strongly pushing back against the AP story.
Please send tips and comments to Ben Geman, ben.geman@digital-stage.thehill.com, or Laura Barron-Lopez, laurab@digital-stage.thehill.com.