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As of Monday, the average price of gasoline in the U.S. was down to $2.22 a gallon, brushing up against $1.50 in some places. The price of oil was under $60/bbl.

When gas and oil prices fall, there...

It's frequently suggested that Obama appoint a Republican to his cabinet to demonstrate his bipartisan (or is it post-partisan?) bona fides. When it comes to Secretary of State, he reportedly has Sens. Chuck Hagel and Richard Lugar on his short list.

Of course nothing's wrong with post-bipartisanship, but it's...

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In March 2007, Democratic primary contender John Edwards released an ambitious climate and energy plan, calling for greenhouse gas reductions of 80 percent by 2050, a cap-and-trade program with auctioned permits, and a ban on conventional dirty coal plants.

At that point in the race, conventional wisdom was that...

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(This is the third in a three-part series -- part one, part two -- but it summarizes the others, so you can probably skip 'em.)

Obama is stuck in a peculiar political moment. In substantive terms, he knows that our dire climate and energy situation requires huge and...

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I'm of two minds about this Politico piece on green jobs. On one hand, it's nice to see the notion getting into the political bloodstream. On the other hand, it does a woefully bad job of distinguishing the candidates and contains one horrific and fundamental error of fact.

First,...

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In a post yesterday I drew attention to an emerging battle over macroeconomics. To put it crudely: does the financial crisis mean the next president will need to trim his ambitions and focus on reducing the deficit? Or does it call for substantial public spending to get...

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I'm no expert in macroeconomics. You probably aren't either. But there's a battle over macroeconomics shaping up, and everyone keen on shifting the U.S. toward sustainability has a vested interest in how it turns out. (Which is why I keep writing about it.)

The question is how to react to...

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It's worth closely reading this Avery Palmer piece in CQ Politics: "The price of being green." It puts the frame around American energy/environmental politics in particularly crystalline terms.

To wit: environmentalists want to raise the cost of energy while everyone else wants to lower it.

Or more specifically:...

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There's heated debate in green circles about the Gang of 20 Senate energy bill -- the New Energy Reform Act of 2008 -- which would open up some offshore drilling in exchange for modest support for alternatives, paid for by closing tax loopholes that benefit the oil...

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In her Friday interview with Charlie Gibson, Sarah Palin said that Alaska "produces nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy." McCain has said the same thing -- in an interview with Univision that aired Friday, he said, "Alaska supplies 20 percent of America's...

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Newt Gingrich's American Solutions for Winning the Future is an astroturf group funded largely by Republican billionaires. In the short-term, it's designed to staunch Republican electoral losses in November by creating a new wedge issue: drilling for oil. In the medium term, it's taking on a