EJToday: Top Environmental Politics Headlines

"When the Senate backed a massive budget package this week, it set off a monthlong sprint by committees to divide up $3.5 trillion among a host of domestic programs with a major focus on climate change."

"A senior US climate official has warned Australia’s targets are “not sufficient” and the country should be considering a 50% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, given the urgency of the threat outlined this week in a landmark report."

"The Senate took a major step early on Wednesday toward enacting a sweeping expansion of the nation’s social safety net, approving a $3.5 trillion budget blueprint along party lines that would allow Democrats to fund climate change, health care and education measures while increasing taxes on wealthy people and corporations."

"A new report makes the case that the oil and gas industry is trying to sell you a story — one that casts these companies as paragons of sustainability and seeks to delay policies that would address climate change."

"The dire picture of the global climate crisis depicted in Monday’s United Nations scientific report is widely expected to permeate U.S. energy and environmental regulations, as well as litigation challenging them."

"The chief executives of the world’s biggest automakers gathered with President Barack Obama at the Washington Convention Center in 2011 to announce they had agreed to double the average fuel economy of their vehicles to 54.5 miles per gallon -- the largest increase in history."

"The Climate Leadership Council and its advocacy arm, Americans for Carbon Dividends, has suspended Exxon's membership in the group. The move comes in the the wake of a leaked video in which senior Exxon lobbyist Keith McCoy says the oil giant has only come out in favor of a carbon tax for public relations reasons."