Monday, February 25, 2008

OTTAWA - The average Canadian would see a 50 per cent income tax cut if the federal government phased in a new tax to crack down on activities that produce the pollution linked to global warming, a new report said Monday.

"There is a lingering misconception that a carbon price is nothing more than a tax grab," said the report, Pricing Carbon: Saving Green - a carbon price to lower emissions, taxes and barriers to green technology.

February 15, 2008

President Bush's positions on the environment and the development of clean energy technologies have evolved during his seven years office. In his last year, he seems determined to be remembered as a leader who fostered more renewable energy while pushing the traditional fuels to be cleaner.

In his State of the Union address to the nation, the president said that the country would invest $2 billion over three years into a global energy fund to advance new technologies to slow the growth of global warming emissions. Since Bush took office, the federal government has committed nearly $18 billion to research, develop and promote clean and efficient technologies and help get them to market, his office says. The private sector has responded in kind with significant investments, ranging from corporate research and development to the venture capital markets.

January 11, 2008

California is flexing its muscle. It is now suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for preventing it from strengthening its standards for tailpipe emissions in cars.

It's a classic case of whether federal laws should supersede those of the states when the two come into conflict. Typically, conservatives prefer to give localities greater say as they are the ones closer to the communities that will be regulated while liberals tend to like centralized power at the federal level. In this latest test, the opposite is occurring. So, California officials have vowed to challenge the Bush administration's ruling in the federal courts to forge ahead with its tougher air pollution rules.

New Energy Law to Phase Out Today's Common Incandescent Lamps, Probe-Start Metal Halide Ballasts

by Craig DiLouie, Lighting Controls Association
Posted January 2008

On December 19, President Bush signed H.R. 6, the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, into law.

The legislation is the result of a year-long legislative process that resulted in several modifications before congressional passage in December, and a final product that would receive White House support.