On November 8th, US midterm elections will take place with all House seats, 35 Senate seats and 36 governor seats up for election. Forecasts are close with Republicans favored to win the House, while Democrats are favored to keep the Senate. Results will strongly impact what President Biden can achieve in the coming two years.
by Georgia Fulton What Was The Fracking Ban Vote? Liz Truss, former British Prime Minister, declared her resignation from the post just one day after the Labour opposition tabled a motion in the House of Commons to ban fracking. Conservative whips initially said that the vote (which took place on 19 October 2022) was being...
This paper analyses the framing of the leading state-level climate change mitigation policy in the USA, renewable portfolio standards, in top newspapers from all fifty states.
The Senate represents the individual states with 2 senators per state. Currently, the Senate is evenly divided between political parties with Democrats dominating coastal areas and Republicans dominating the interior. Filibustering is the major obstacle to passing legislation in the senate, and by extension Congress.
The House is one of the legislative chambers in Congress and drafts and proposes legislation. Representation in the House is based on population size: states with a larger population have more representatives making it the more democratic of the two chambers. Work is largely done through standing committees, each having a specific policy area such as agriculture, natural resources, etc.
The United States passes a climate action bill with unified Republican opposition. The Inflation Reduction Act reduces climate-warming emissions, spurred by significant investments in decarbonization. Carbon-intensive drilling projects are authorized and expanded under the bill as well.
We’ve put together a comprehensive glossary booklet to help you understand the jargon around EU climate policy. The first section covers general terms, the second one (from p. 21 onwards) proposal related terminology.
The proposal for a Methane Regulation seeks to address and mitigate emissions of the greenhouse gas known as methane across the EU’s energy sector, tying into the EU’s broader climate objectives. It would be the first EU legislative proposal of its kind, imposing a range of obligations on the oil, gas, and coal sectors in the EU. It sets obligations on energy companies to monitor, report and reduce methane emissions but does not set reduction targets.
The US Supreme Court has limited EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases, but leaves open options for the EPA to fight climate change. The ruling came as part of a series of rulings led by the new conservative supermajority. The basis of the ruling was the “major questions doctrine” which leaves other regulations potentially vulnerable.
The legislative proposal seeks to find a middle ground between guaranteeing competition and encouraging private investment through a hybrid regulatory approach (market and non-market mechanisms). Regulatory principles utilised in gas and electricity markets can not be transposed onto hydrogen markets, and cross-subsidisation is not a viable long-term option. Market volatility means higher or possibly inaccessible costs to consumers. The proposal seeks to address this by adopting an integrated EU-wide approach to storage.