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 February 3, 2012 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Solving Global Warming
In their latest attack on vital clean air safeguards, three senior House Republicans are trying to stop the Environmental Protection Agency from doing its job under the Clean Air Act to protect Americans from dangerous carbon pollution from new power...continued→
Posted February 2, 2012 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Solving Global Warming
The Washington Post reported last December that “enviros, clean-coal advocates make strange bedfellows.” It seems that my organization, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and a coal and utility lobby group called the American Council for Clean Coal Electricity inhabit the...continued→
Posted January 15, 2012 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Solving Global Warming
When EPA released the first comprehensive “right-to-know” data on America’s biggest carbon polluters last week, there was a curious reaction from the one of the biggest industries involved. As expected, the 2010 data show that coal-burning power plants are the...continued→
Posted December 22, 2011 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Solving Global Warming, U.S. Law and Policy
Smithsonian Magazine has posted some unusual portraits of jolly Saint Nick and asked readers to vote for the Scariest Santa. Here’s my choice: Smithsonian Institution Archives of American Art It’s a 1939 Christmas card from a Hungarian-born American artist named...continued→
Posted December 15, 2011 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment, Solving Global Warming, U.S. Law and Policy
AFP reports that “Astronomers have spied a giant gas cloud with several times the mass of Earth accelerating toward the supermassive black hole at the centre of our own Milky Way galaxy.” “‘It is not going to survive the experience,’...continued→
Posted December 9, 2011 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Solving Global Warming, U.S. Law and Policy
The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington issued its decision today in cases challenging EPA's September 2010 Clean Air Act standards for dangerous pollution from more than 100 cement plants across the nation. The Court largely rejected industry challenges to...continued→
Posted November 25, 2011 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Solving Global Warming
I just posted a report on the latest meeting of the parties to the Montreal Protocol, in Bali Indonesia. Let me add a personal reflection, as this is the Thanksgiving holiday weekend back home in America. Bali is a beautiful...continued→
Posted November 24, 2011 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Solving Global Warming
The parties to the Montreal Protocol resumed their debate this week in Bali, Indonesia, on whether they can do more to protect the climate under the world’s most successful environmental treaty. In other posts, I’ve explained how the Montreal Protocol...continued→
Posted November 15, 2011 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Solving Global Warming
The Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation are expected to formally propose new carbon pollution and fuel economy standards this week, implementing the Obama administration’s third historic Clean Car Peace Treaty reached last July. The new standards will...continued→
Posted October 21, 2011 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Solving Global Warming
There's been a lot of news recently about the holes in the ozone layer at the North and South Poles. Here's an update of a post from May 20th, with new information, images, and links. The 2011 Antarctic Ozone Hole:...continued→
Posted September 28, 2011 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Solving Global Warming
Long-time climate denier Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) thinks he’s really got the goods this time. He is trumpeting a “procedural review” by the Environmental Protection Agency’s Inspector General asserting that – depending on how you read a definition in an...continued→
Posted August 4, 2011 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Solving Global Warming
Some quiet progress on climate protection is being made this week in the home city of Montreal Protocol, the world’s most successful example of environmental cooperation. In addition to saving the ozone layer, the Montreal treaty has already provided huge...continued→
Posted August 2, 2011 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Moving Beyond Oil, Solving Global Warming
Last Friday, President Obama announced another historic clean car agreement, supported by car companies, the auto workers union, environmental organizations, and states, that by 2025 will double new vehicles’ miles per gallon and cut their carbon pollution nearly in half. ...continued→
Posted July 29, 2011 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Moving Beyond Oil, Solving Global Warming, U.S. Law and Policy
Today President Obama will announce a third historic agreement to bring us cleaner cars and trucks, dramatically cutting carbon pollution and raising fuel economy for new cars, SUVs, minivans, and pick-ups built between 2017 and 2025. The latest Clean Car...continued→
Posted July 22, 2011 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Solving Global Warming
It’s in 102° in the Nation’s Capital this afternoon. At 2PM the heat index in Washington was 119°. (Update: heat index at hit 121° at 3PM at Washington Reagan National Airport.) And it ain’t just Washington: 132 million people in 29...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.
