I'm the policy director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's (NRDC) Climate and Clean Air Program, and our chief global warming lawyer. I rejoined NRDC in March 2001 after serving for eight years in the Clinton administration, where I was director of climate change policy at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and, before that, counsel to the head of the EPA's clean air program. I also served for a year at the Council on Environmental Quality. This is my second stint at NRDC -- I first started here in 1978 and worked on clean air issues for the next 14 years, helping to win the Montreal Protocol to stop depletion of the ozone layer and the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990. Now we're working to cut the pollution that causes global warming here at home, and to reach agreement on global emission cuts.
Posted May 10, 2013 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Solving Global Warming
Carbon dioxide concentrations have hit 400 parts per million for the first time in at least three million years, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced today. That’s 40 percent more than the CO2 level in the air at the start...continued→
Posted March 26, 2013 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Solving Global Warming, U.S. Law and Policy
Virginia’s attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, last week asked the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out the Environmental Protection Agency’s scientific finding that carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping air pollutants are driving dangerous climate change. This is the “endangerment determination” that...continued→
Posted February 14, 2013 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Solving Global Warming
A panel of automotive engineers has forcefully reaffirmed the safety and acceptability of the new car air conditioning refrigerant called HFO-1234yf, also known as R1234yf. The panel’s strongly-worded findings this week rejected safety claims raised last fall by German car...continued→
Posted February 5, 2013 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Solving Global Warming
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today released plant-by-plant data on 2011 emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping air pollutants. The data show once again that power plants are the number one source of the carbon pollution that drives climate...continued→
Posted January 28, 2013 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment, Solving Global Warming
The Texas company seeking to build a power plant to burn a coal-like fuel in Corpus Christi gave up ghost last week, done in by more competitive natural gas and wind alternatives. The developer of the proposed Las Brisas Energy...continued→
Posted December 21, 2012 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Solving Global Warming, U.S. Law and Policy
Good news today from Brussels, as the European Community holds firm and rejects last-minute pressure from by Daimler, maker of Mercedes-Benz, to block the introduction of a climate-friendly refrigerant in car air conditioners. As I’ve written here and here, the...continued→
Posted December 20, 2012 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Solving Global Warming, U.S. Law and Policy
The full U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington today rejected petitions from industry and state challengers to revisit a three-judge panel’s unanimous ruling last June, in Coalition for Responsible Regulation v. EPA, upholding the Environmental Protection Agency’s landmark endangerment finding and...continued→
Posted December 14, 2012 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution
I wrote earlier this week about Daimler's push to block European requirements to replace the "super greenhouse gas" HFC-134a now used in car air conditioners, by raising dubious last-minute safety issues with the alternative, HFO-1234yf, which has a 360-fold lower impact on the...continued→
Posted December 13, 2012 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Solving Global Warming, U.S. Law and Policy
How do you kill a zombie power plant lawsuit? It’s easier than shooting it in the head. You just grant the motions to dismiss. That’s what the Court of Appeals in Washington did today, issuing a one-paragraph order dismissing the...continued→
Posted December 12, 2012 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Solving Global Warming
Almost every new car has air conditioning. Almost every car air conditioner uses a refrigerant called HFC-134a, a “super greenhouse gas” with 1430 times the global warming punch, pound for pound, as carbon dioxide. In a welcome move, the auto...continued→
Posted December 9, 2012 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Environmental Justice, Health and the Environment, Solving Global Warming, U.S. Law and Policy
Last week, NRDC proposed an innovative plan showing how the President can slow climate change, save lives, create jobs, and grow the economy by using the Clean Air Act to cut the dangerous carbon pollution from the nation’s power plants....continued→
Posted December 6, 2012 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Solving Global Warming, The Media and the Environment
Fox News did a hatchet job Tuesday on NRDC’s innovative proposal showing how the President can create jobs, grow the economy, slow climate change, and save lives by using the Clean Air Act to cut the dangerous carbon pollution from...continued→
Posted November 19, 2012 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment, Solving Global Warming
As living standards rise for tens of millions of people, India is on the verge of an enormous expansion in room and vehicle air conditioning that could strain the country’s electric grid and magnify the impacts of global warming. Choices...continued→
Posted November 16, 2012 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Solving Global Warming
The 25th anniversary meeting of the Montreal Protocol, the treaty that has saved the ozone layer and slowed the pace of climate change, winds up today in Geneva with small signs of progress on proposals to phase down the “super...continued→
Posted November 11, 2012 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment, Solving Global Warming
Back for their lame duck session, the House Republican leadership has scheduled a floor vote on the Asthma Inhalers Relief Act of 2012 (H.R. 6190), sponsored by Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX), a bill designed to put back on the market...continued→
Switchboard is the staff blog of the Natural Resources Defense Council, the nation’s most effective environmental group. For more about our work, including in-depth policy documents, action alerts and ways you can contribute, visit NRDC.org.
