Gabrielle Giffords a tireless advocate for solar energy

Military blocked from importing Chinese solar panels
Image via Wikipedia NY Times: The Military appropriations law signed by President Obama on Friday contains a little-noticed “Buy American” provision for the Defense Department purchases of Solar Panels — a provision that is likely to dismay Chinese officials as President Hu Jintao prepares to visit the United States next week. Although there are many big issues to discuss, including concerns about North Korea, trade and economic matters are certain to be high on the agenda. ...

Shameless: Politico.com insinuates the right wanted Giffords dead over green stance
As I noted yesterday in response to the attempted Assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ8), the Mainstream Media has been nothing short of shameless in its attempts to try and insinuate - or outright declare - that it was “the right” who targeted her for Murder. Josh Trevino wrote yesterday numerous times on Twitter about how Politico had joined in on the “Right Wing vitriol” bandwagon. Today, they continue to add to it with their latest extremely irr...

Right was unhappy with Giffords-Petraeus exchange
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords drew the wrath of Conservatives last June after questioning a top U.S. official over how green the country’s Military operations are in Afghanistan, with clips of the exchange prompting some of the heated Rhetoric that local police officials say is to blame for the lone gunman who shot her and 18 others in Tucson Saturday. Glenn Beck, conservative columnists and one of Giffords’ Republican primary opponents piled on after the Arizona Democrat asked Gen. Davi...

Politics: Gabrielle Giffords Is a Green Patriot
But Giffords also took some heat from right-wing opponents over her support of carbon cap-and-trade Legislation, which passed the House in June 2009 before dying in the Senate, although Climate Change legislation has never quite reached the partisan pitch that the battle over Health Care did—in part because energy and Climate Change isn't a high priority on most voters' minds. Those issues did matter to Giffords, however, who not only voted in favor of cap-and-trade—not a popular pos...

Politico: Hey, Maybe Giffords Was Shot Because the Right Didnt Like a Question She Asked Gen. Petraeus?
Glenn Beck, conservative columnists and one of Giffords’ Republican primary opponents piled on after the Arizona Democrat asked Gen. David Petraeus to explain whether he had any plans to use Solar Panels and hydropower to increase Fuel Efficiency in an otherwise dangerous battle zone. Clips of the Giffords-Petraeus exchange during a House Armed Services Committee hearing quickly went viral during the summer, as critics questioned Giffords for bringing up the issue in the first place. At th...

Giffords environmental advocacy
By now you know the basic story: Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head on Saturday while appearing at a "Congress on Your Corner" event in Tucson. The shooting killed six, among them a federal judge and a nine-year-old girl. Giffords herself seems to be responding to stimuli despite being gravely injured. The suspect, Jared Lee Loughner, is in custody, and while we don't know anything definitive about his motives, many Democrats are pointing out that Giffords -- a Blue Dog in a re...

Mary Ellen Harte and John Harte: Addressing Climate Change: Push the Big Push!
What if there was an affordable plan to improve America's health, wealth, and National Security? Not only America's, but the world's. A dream, you say? You bet -- an attainable one. The United Nations Division of Sustainable Development developed one in 2009, nicknamed the Big Push. It's a global and American Dream worth fighting for, not just despite but because of the increasing numbers of new Republicans in Congress determined to do little about Energy Independence or Climate Change, beyond...

District halts plan to install wind turbine
CLAYTON — The Thousand Islands Central School District's plan to install a Wind Turbine on school grounds is a no-go. Instead, the district will spend the Federal Grant money it received last year to install a photovoltaic system. The district was set to buy a 20-kilowatt turbine from a Canadian firm, but the project came to a halt because the structure did not meet one of the stimulus grant's requirements: the product must be made in the United States. "Because of issues with t...

Gabrielle Giffords Shot in the Head
Gabrielle Giffords, who in 2007 became Arizona’s first Jewish congresswoman, was shot in the head Saturday outside of a Tucson, Ariz. Supermarket. As of Saturday afternoon, the congresswoman had survived surgery, and was being transferred to an intensive care unit. The attack took place while Giffords, a Democrat, was meeting with constituents in her home district. She had been sworn into her third term on January 5. According to the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, 18 people were injured...

Politico gets it exactly backward in calling for a more civil tone
In the aftermath of the Tucson massacre, Politico's Glenn Thrush and Carol E. Lee write one of the most inane responses imaginable: Of all the unfulfilled campaign promises President Barack Obama made in 2008, the one that bothers the president most isn’t any squandered policy priority - it’s his failure to re-civilize what he views as an increasingly savage partisan climate. His failure? The president who reached out to the Republicans on the stimulus, who allowed Republican...

What good does this do Brian Terry and Gabrielle Giffords?
Brian Terry was the Border Patrol agent who was killed by Mexican bandits a few weeks ago on the Arizona-Mexico border. Gabrielle Giffords is the congresswoman who was seriously shot Saturday in Tucson by a gunman. Not much was made of Brian Terry’s Murder. There was a Funeral. Janet Napolitano came to the funeral and chided Terry’s family for complaining that their son was not kept safe enough and that was the end of it. When it surfaced that the reason Terry was killed was that Nap...

Twitter roundup
BrendanNyhan Jan 11, 2011 at 2:37pm Matthew Dowd: "If the jobs #s don't improve... the president could locate his HQ on Mars & it wouldn't make a difference" https://j.mp/fpEz8S The Over/Under for 2012 - Matthew Dowd - Politics - The Atlantic Obama will need better numbers to win BrendanNyhan Jan 11, 2011 at 2:21pm Much credit to @ezraklein for retracting his attack on Joe Lieberman's motives https://j.mp/dE7rmx (original post on it: https://j.mp/gp9Qpa) Ezra Klein - A good...

No foreign solar panels for U.S. military
WASHINGTON, Jan. 10 (UPI) -- The U.S. Military is now required to buy only American-made Solar Panels, precluding Chinese products just before Chinese President Hu Jintao visits Washington. The appropriations bill signed Friday contains a "Buy American" clause for Pentagon purchases of Solar Panels, The New York Times reports. Green-energy technologies are likely to be an issue in Hu's talks with President Barack Obama. China produced at least half of the world's solar panels last year, and its ...

California utility adds to its renewable portfolio
Southern California Edison continues to add to its renewable-energy portfolio, announcing Monday that it signed contracts for more than 800 megawatts of electricity generated from solar photovoltaic plants being built in three California counties. The utility is now the nation’s largest provider of renewable power, deriving about 19% of its  supply from renewable sources, according to Mike Marelli, the company's director of Renewable Energy contracts. Marelli sa...

News Bites: Alaska oil pipeline operator seeks to end shutdown, farm lobby takes on EPA, utility merger could hurt big coal, and
There’s a plan for restoring the flow of oil through Alaska’s massive Pipeline. “The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System operator is installing a bypass to restore the line that carries 15 percent of U.S. crude output after a leak forced its closure three days earlier,” Bloomberg reports. The American Farm Bureau Federation is at odds with EPA over Water Pollution policy. “A major farmers group filed a federal Lawsuit Monday to block the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's most a

EU trumpets energy efficiency
BRUSSELS, Jan. 10 (UPI) -- It is critically important for the European community to have a unified energy strategy with efficiency at the top of the agenda, an official said. European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told lawmakers that the EC had done a lot already in energy matters but more work was needed, specifically in terms of Energy Efficiency. "In fact, energy efficiency is the best source of energy we have. The European Union can and must do better," he said in a statement. "I ...

Yes to turbines
Milwaukee's lakefront may in some ways indeed be sacred to local residents. Its natural beauty is a defining characteristic of the city and the region. But it is not so sacred that worthwhile projects can't be developed for the lakefront. One such project that deserves serious consideration is placing one to three Wind Turbines near the Lake Express car Ferry Terminal to provide renewable power for the Port of Milwaukee administration. It also is designed to demonstrate the city's commitment r...

Tidal power plant proposed for New York's East River
Here's exciting news for anyone who's been watching the fledgling efforts to promote tidal power in the U.S.: A New York energy company that has been testing tidal power in the East River has filed a formal application to install 30 underwater power turbines in the East Channel of the river. If approved, the company, Verdant Power, said in making the recent announcement, the project would be the first tidal Power Plant in the U.S. licensed to transmit energy onto the National Grid. Basically, ti...

Before Yemen, Clinton lauds green UAE
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates, Jan. 11 (UPI) -- The Clean Energy partnership between Abu Dhabi and the U.S. Department of Energy is one of the most important for a green future, said Hillary Clinton. Clinton, the U.S. Secretary of State, before making an unannounced visit Tuesday to Yemen, met with Sultan Al Jaber, the Emirati Special Envoy for Climate Change, and Adnan Amin, the interim director for Abu Dhabi's International Renewable Energy Agency. "The partnership that we have established b...

Hawaii expands push to fuel hydrogen cars
Hawaii may be the First State in the nation to successfully build a fueling infrastructure that will support thousands of hydrogen fuel cell cars. In December, the Detroit auto manufacturer General Motors, in partnership with the Honolulu-based utility the Gas Co., announced they are partnering with 10 additional companies, government agencies and universities to help implement a plan that would tap into Oahu's 1,000-mile utility Pipeline and supply hydrogen to the many fuel-cell vehicles expect...

James M. Gentile: The Leadership of Gabrielle Giffords
For many of us in Tucson, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was a cherished friend long before Saturday's stunning Assassination attempt made her a household name. Our prayers go out to her and to all of the shooting's survivors - for their speedy and full recoveries - and to the loved ones of those who perished. Words simply cannot express the sadness of such a devastating loss. The media coverage of the shootings has rightly highlighted "Gabby" Giffords' extraordinary personal traits: her co...

Solar industry praises Giffords as 'one of the strongest advocates for solar in Congress'
The solar industry praised Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) this weekend as “one of the strongest advocates for solar in Congress.” Giffords and 19 other people were shot Saturday in Tucson, Arizona. Six people were killed. Giffords remained in critical condition Monday, but doctors say they are “cautiously optimistic” that she will survive. In a letter to the group’s members shortly after news of the shooting broke, Solar Energy Industries Association President Rhone Resch

Eagles' owner gets a high rating from Obama on environmentally friendly stadium
PHILADELPHIA -- Regardless of how the Philadelphia Eagles fare in the National Football League Playoffs, Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie already got a congratulatory phone call from the president. President Barack Obama's comments a few weeks ago commending the team for giving a "second chance" to Quarterback Michael Vick drew more attention, but the president actually phoned Lurie to praise the Eagles for their pursuit of an Environmentally Friendly stadium. Lurie and his wife, Christina Weiss Luri...

Ford Supercharges Electric Vehicle Plan, Unveiling New C-MAX Energi and C-MAX Hybrid Products
DETROIT, Jan. 10, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --   C-MAX Energi targets more than 500 miles (800 kilometers) of driving range using the battery and engine, more than any other plug-in or extended-range vehicle. It also targets AT-PZEV status and delivers better charge-sustaining fuel economy than Chevrolet Volt Ford today revealed two next-generation Hybrid Vehicles - including its first production plug-in hybrid Electric Vehicle - at the 2011 North American International Auto Show, bring...

Chevy Volt, Ford Explorer Get Auto Show Honors
The 2011 Chevrolet Volt got another marketing jolt Monday, when it received the North American Car of the Year. The car that runs on electricity for 40 miles before a backup gas engine kicks in beat out the Nissan Leaf, another electric, and Hyundai Sonata in the annual ceremony on the first day of media previews for the Detroit auto show. The Ford Explorer won the truck of the year, the third year in a row the Dearborn-based automaker nabbed the honor. Truck finalists were the Dodge Durango, th...