One of the great perks of working for the Sunlight Foundation is finding out about great new tools for increasing transparency in the political process. These tools range from OpenSecrets, which allows you to find out how money is impacting the electoral process, to Open Congress, where you can find info on the latest bills. [...]

While reading this The Hill article on the Senate’s efforts to pass a broader economic stimulus package, I was surprised to see Sen. Pete Domenici listed as one of the Republicans voting for cloture. Then, I remembered that energy efficiency tax credits were part of the package (more here at TAPPED) . Domenici, if you [...]

Thanks to Stoller for the tip.

To add to what LP said about the energy bill, it’s worth noting that the proposed Renewable Energy Standard falls short of what New Mexico has already adopted: In March 2007, New Mexico passed SB 418, which directs investor-owned utilities to generate 20% of total retail sales to New Mexico customers from renewable energy resources [...]

I’m catching up on some of my feed reading (sorry John, open government is trumping science these days) and started checking the backlog of posts at Waterblogged. That led me to this article on China’s Three Gorges Damn. The plain language is striking: The Three Gorges Dam, then, lies at the uncomfortable center of China’s [...]

Via Jalopnik (via Consumerist): The Marathon station on Fort near Springwells dropped its price to $2.93. That angered Jawad Bazzi, whose regular gas was priced at $2.96. Bazzi walked across the street with a couple of employees to confront the Marathon owner and his posse. The groups argued, then began throwing punches. One of Bazzi’s [...]

Two weeks ago, in a post on biofuels, I mentioned the effects that increased corn production for ethanol is having on other crops, particularly wheat. Kevin Drum offers his own (much more concise) analysis of the situation: Let’s see: (a) environmentally speaking, corn ethanol is a pretty dodgy idea, (b) we’re subsidizing it anyway to [...]

A couple of items today on biofuels. First, from Grist, is a report out from the U.S. Department of Agriculture showing that such fuels will remain firmly within the subsidized realm for quite some time: Then there’s this bit: The analyst doubts cellulosic can be “commercially economical” enough to get beyond 250 million gallons by [...]

Today in Salon, Amanda Griscom Little interviews Gov. Bill Richardson about his energy plan: Bill Richardson likes to play up his image as a horse-ridin’, gun-totin’ man of the Wild West, but don’t be distracted by the cowboy swagger — the Democratic governor of New Mexico also has a serious policy wonk side. That was [...]

Borrowing a page from John’s playbook, here’s a bit of what’s going on with me right now ((I do not get any money from these if you click them. It’s just something I’m doing for fun)): Reading: I finished A Thousand Splendid Suns last night. Like Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini’s first novel, Suns is set [...]

We’ve received call after call the past seven days as Silver City/Grant County residents wonder about the cost of gas. According to AAA New Mexico, our state has enjoyed new record highs every day for the past sixteen days (the state average is $3.38 per gallon for regular unleaded). Under the current administration, rising gas [...]

Matt Yglesias, just entering his stride blogging for The Atlantic, has a post online regarding a recent energy/climate policy speech by Gov. Bill Richardson: I particularly liked his insistence on the idea that most people underplay the role of transportation and land use policy in the energy puzzle. This was appealing because it’s what I [...]