Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Russia, and the European Energy Crisis
Russia’s occupation of its neighbors, and threats to the Nord Stream 2 project, risk a war between Russia and Ukraine.
Category Archives: Politics
Conservative values failing USA as EPA guts fuel efficiency standards, fails with COVID-19 response
The Republican party that’s in control of the Federal Government is stuck in Grover Norquist’s paradigm – that he famously wanted to shrink Government to be small enough to drag into the bathroom and drown in a baththub. What a violent fantasy that is! Yesterday the US Environmental Protection Agency…
Bucharest abandons Oxygen tax, amid high pollution event
Last week, on the eve of instituting a tax on polluting cars entering the central area of Bucharest, the Mayor of Bucharest, Gabriela Firea, abandoned the so-called Oxygen Tax plan. Under the plan cars not meeting the Euro 3 criteria would be banned from the center of Bucharest, and overall…
Trump intervenes to kill EV tax break extension for Tesla and GM
It’s the end of the year and Washington DC is abuzz with end-of-year tax package proposals. One of special interest to us who care about electric vehicles is the Growing Renewable Energy and Efficiency Now act (The GREEN Act) which “extends current renewable energy tax incentives and creates new models…
California defies Trump Administration on lightbulb efficiency standards
Another front of the battle between California and the Trump Administration is the lowly light bulb. Incandescent and Halogen bulbs cannot meet a standard laid out in the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA), and under that law if the Federal Government fails to take action by January 1, 2020, then…
Minnesota defies Trump, joins states using California clean car standards
In the wake of the Trump administration aiming to destroy California’s clean car standards, we have seen other states join the fight. Various US States and environmental organizations have joined the lawsuit against the EPA. But an even stronger step is one like Minnesota took the other day, to adopt…
Trump’s team possibly committing bad crimes over the Biden/Ukraine story
The Biden/Ukraine story is back in the news, and this time it looks like a doozy. This story has nothing to do with clean energy or electric vehicles or anything The Long Tail Pipe normally examines. But this story has been on our pages before, and I’ve reluctantly talked myself…
GOP State Senators in Oregon flee vote on Cap & Trade bill
Oregon was on track to become the second US State to pass a Cap and Trade program that would create a market for carbon credits. However, once the bill passed the Oregon House it went to the Oregon Senate, and Republican Senators fled the Capital rather than vote on the…
Illinois EV tax echos question of road funding when gas taxes shrink
A move in Illinois to increase the annual EV registration fee to $1000 is alarming electric vehicle owners, but EV owners must see this in the context of the bigger picture. How are the roads paid for? When and how will electric vehicle owners pay their fair share of the…
Biden/Ukraine story getting more heat and suspiciousness
As a reminder, this story began in 2014 in the aftermath of what we might think of as a US-backed coup in Ukraine. During 2013 the US/EU was negotiating with Ukraine for the country to shift focus to engagement with the West, but in late 2013 then-Pres. Yanukovych suddenly flipped…
Nepotism bites VP Joe Biden as he starts 2020 Presidential run
Back in 2014 then-Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, was named to the Board of The Burisma Group, the largest privately-held natural gas company in Ukraine. On April 1, 2019, The Hill reported on an event where Joe Biden bragged over having pressured Ukraine, in March 2016, to fire…
Trump Administration cuts off “negotiations” with California over clean air rules
The Trump Administration has broken off negotiations with California over vehicle emission standards and clean air rules. Since before the EPA existed, California has regulated clean air standards, with the California Air Resources Board (CARB) overseeing the process. CARB’s efforts have resulted not only in the rise of electric vehicles,…
Green New Deal outline proposed in US Congress
With the 2018 elections the USA elected a sweeping change in Congress, lots of new Representatives elected in the Democratic Party many touting a proudly Progressive line. Perhaps the boldest one is also the youngest, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the new Representative from Bronx/Queens. One of Ocasio-Cortez’s key proposals is the Green New Deal,…
Toyota avoids seeming conflict of interest by helping the EPA streamline management practices
Toyota has backed off from working directly with the Environmental Protection Agency on improving the EPA’s management processes. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, who has a long history of working so closely with Industry that the word “collusion” comes to mind, said in a Congressional Hearing in December that the EPA…
Gov Brown tells protesters he’ll put them in the ground, that CA should rely on its own oil versus Venezuela’s
The UN Climate Summit, the COP meeting, is currently underway in Bonn Germany. At that meeting California’s Gov. Jerry Brown told a group of native americans protesting his stance on Fracking “Let’s put you in the ground so we can get on with the show here.” That’s caused a bit of…
