Americans hate taxes. Why else would McCain, Clinton and Obama all have tax-cuts as part of their presidential platforms? But the House of Representatives won't have to worry about backlash from their constituents for repealing tax breaks -- and few Americans will be shedding a tear for the prosperous oil industry -- after lawmakers voted yesterday to repeal billions in subsidies

The bill passed easily, 236-182, likely aided by record high prices, as oil hit $102 per barrel yesterday. The legislation revoked subsidies for oil companies, worth over $18 billion over 10 years, and instead allocated that money to extend renewable energy tax credits that are set to expire this year, and offer new credits for energy efficient changes made to homes, plug-in hybrid-electric vehicles, and fund renewable energy bonds to fund clean energy investments by rural electric co-ops.

House Republicans and the White House bristled over this unfair treatment of the oil industry, claiming it will reduce their incentive to look for new oil and gas deposits in the U.S. Looking out for your best interest, Republicans also claimed that consumers would have to pay even more at the pump. The reality is that the repealed subsidies will cost the 5 biggest oil companies 2 percent of their revenue, and even if they try and pass that on to the consumer, it won't cost us more than one penny per gallon.

Anyway, the GOP ought to go check their notes, since two years ago, back when oil was only $55 a gallon, President Bush said that subsidies for oil and gas exploration were no longer necessary.

In an eloquent defense of the wronged, Rep. Jim McCrery (R-LA) said the bill, "Punishes the oil and gas industry. This is wrongheaded. It's spiteful and wrong."

The bill is expected to face tougher opposition in the Senate, where it had previously fell one vote short of the 60 votes needed to block a fillabuster, so leaders will wait until after the March 4 primaries to introduce the legislation.

The hallmark of our democratic, open government is also one of the reasons it takes so darn long for anything to get done: The public comment period.

In what we hope will be the first in a continuing series of federal documents open for public comment, we invite you to take a look at the 800-page pdf that the U.S. Climate Change Science Program released this week on Coastal Sensitivity to Sea Level Rise: A Focus on the Mid-Atlantic Region.

For those of you who have never been bored/drunk enough or obligated by academic assignment to take part in a review of federal documents before, here is a quick primer.

1. Read document looking for inconsistencies/missing information.

2. In a *constructive* manner, point out said failings and how they should be remedied.

3. Sit back and bask in the glow of civic duty fulfilled, which one typically only feels after voting or making a citizen's arrest.

Don't be intimidated. The report is surprisingly easy to read, with most of the prose no more sophisticated than: "A rise in sea level implies that land that is now barely above sea level will end up below sea level if no shore protection measures are taken to prevent it from being submerged."

And there are lots of colorful pictures throughout.

The report does discuss important issues, such as deciding which coastal areas are most worthwhile to protect, how sea-level rise will affect your ability to go to the beach, and institutional barriers keeping governments from taking proactive steps to address sea-level rise.

But, please, keep your comments concise, as the office has previously been criticized for taking too long to get these reports out of draft status and available to decision makers. And we want this report publicized before the east coast is already underwater.

Alaskans who were born the year that the Exxon Valdez slammed into a reef in Prince William Sound have now graduated from high school, but that doesn't mean lawyers have finished fighting about it all. It has, however, finally reached the highest court in the land.

One month before the 19th anniversary of the infamous oil spill, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments this morning over whether the $2.5 billion award of punitive damages to victims of the Exxon Valdez disaster is too high.

We were a bit stunned to hear that ExxonMobil, the world's largest company by revenue ($404.5 billion for FY 2007), is still fighting this. We're even more stunned to learn that the company has argued it should pay no more than $25 million in punitive damages, or about $2.25 for each of the 11 million gallons of crude oil that spilled into the sound.

Granted, the company already has paid about $3.4 billion in fines, penalties, cleanup costs and other expenses resulting from the worst oil spill in U.S. history. Then again, they also hired a drinking alcoholic to take the helm of a supertanker.

The attorney for ExxonMobil told justices today that under the principles of maritime law, ship owners cannot be hit with punitive damages for the actions of their ship captains. You might not have heard of the Amiable Nancy case cited as precedent, because it was argued in 1818.

But a lawyer for the 33,000 commercial fishermen and business owners harmed by the spill said the company repeatedly overlooked reports that Captain Joseph Hazelwood had a drinking problem.

Court observers said it was unclear who the justices appeared to side with during the 90-minute hearing. But because Justice Samuel Alito owns ExxonMobil stock and has recused himself from the case, we could be looking at a tie. And a split decision would favor the plaintiffs.

If ExxonMobil is forced to pay the full award, plus more than $2 billion in accrued interest, it would be the largest-ever punitive damage payment.

Hopefully this doesn't take another 19 years to work itself out.

At this time last year, most in the know assumed California would be granted its application for a waiver to impose a 30 percent reduction on CO2 emissions from vehicles in the state? After all, it had special status under the Clean Air Act that allowed officials to impose stricter regulations, thanks to the state's astoundingly poor air quality.

Filed way back in 2005, it took several lawsuits and appearances before Congressional committees to explain why the EPA took so long to reach a decision. The Supreme Court even got involved, ruling last year that the EPA had the authority to regulate CO2 as a pollutant, removing the final roadblock in EPA's path to grant the waiver. Before the ruling ever came out, leaked documents showed EPA had determined that "there is no legal or technical justification for denying the waiver.

But you know what happens when you assume -- you make an ass out of you and California.

Getting in under the wire of its promise to have the issue resolved by the end of 2007, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson came out on December 19, 2007 and denied California's request. In an odd coincidence, Johnson made his decision the same day President Bush signed new CAFE standards into law, because what's the point of having a 36 mpg CAFE in 2016, when you can wait until 2020 for 35mpg?

Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) is convinced the White House is responsible for pressuring Johnson into his denial -- and in a move that is sure to please Ranking Member James "Global Warming is the Greatest Hoax Ever" Inhofe -- has promised to investigate Johnson's decision.

Nearly a million people in South Florida lost power this afternoon, a blackout that officials are blaming on a substation failure that subsequently caused both nuclear reactors at Florida Power & Electric's Turkey Point plant to go offline.

Perhaps most notable is that the outage knocked out all but four of Miami-Dade County's 2,670 traffic lights, leading to -- and we're just guessing here -- 2,666 scenes like the above photo from the Miami Herald.

The failure occurred early this afternoon and knocked out power to customers north of Miami on both the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. The "significant equipment failure" at the substation triggered the automatic shutdown of both nearby nuclear reactors.

According to the AFP, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said in a statement it was "monitoring the widespread power outages in Florida" and looking into possible violations of federal rules as it consulted with other US agencies. By late this afternoon, power had been restored for the majority of Floridians.

The Arizona desert near the sleepy town of Gila Bend stands to become home to the world's biggest solar plant in 2011, but only if Congress votes to renew the clean energy tax credit due to expire at the end of this year.

The Solana project, to be built by Spain's Abengoa engineering group and forecast to produce 280 megawatts at peak, is just the largest of the solar and renewable energy projects put at risk by the expiration of the tax credit. More than 40,000mW worth of clean power, not to mention the jobs and economic growth it will stimulate, also hang in the balance.

The burgeoning solar and renewable industry depends on the tax relief offered by the Production Tax Credit (PTC) and the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) to offset the price of still-new technology and build capital. Abengoa CEO Santiago Seage put it bluntly in an interview with the Arizona Republic: If the tax credit is not renewed, the plant “will not happen.”

Now is one of the best opportunities for citizens to significantly affect America's energy policy and progress towards renewable energy. You can add your signature to a petition being prepared by the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE), and contact your senator. That goes double for all you Arizona EnviroWonks, because your senator, John McCain, has been absent from two successive votes that might have ensured that these projects are funded, and we can't afford for him to play hooky on another.

According to ACORE, the credits need to be extended by March 1, 2008, to avoid putting these projects at risk.

For someone who captured all of 0.38 percent of the popular vote in 2004 presidential election, Ralph Nader still manages to command a disproportionate amount of media attention.

One needs to look no further than yesterday morning, when the producers of "Meet The Press" cleared some prime Sunday morning real estate with Tim Russert for Mr. Consumer Advocate to announce that he's running yet again for president.

It's rhetorical to even ask whether, say, the Libertarian Party candidate would have been afforded the same cherished media platform, but it's not as outlandish as it sounds. Nader received 465,650 votes in 2004. Libertarian candidate Michael Badnarik received 397,265 votes, or about 0.32 percent.

Eight years after the fact, the Nader brand still resonates in large part due to the popular belief that he alone is the reason we aren't nearing the end of the Al Gore presidency. Paradoxically, Nader manages to keep this belief alive by continuing to deny it, saying that Democrats have only themselves to blame for the 2000 debacle.

We could talk all day long about whether or not Nader is to blame for two terms of George W. Bush, but it's counterproductive and, honestly, irrelevant. But it's also the only hook Nader has at this point, and the media continues to let itself be snagged. Nearly all of today's stories about Nader make note of the 2.8 million votes he won as the Green Party's candidate in 2000. Only a couple note the 1.4 million fewer votes he won four years later as an independent.

It's almost as if 2004 didn't happen. Nader, who turns 74 this week, hasn't done anything in the interim to convince us that 2008 will be anything different. In fact, we predict Nader checks in with less than 0.2 percent of the popular vote in November. Despite a well-intentioned platform, we don't see how Nader makes himself a relevant force in this race.

Not sure how we missed this earlier in the month, but thanks to climate change, the long term outlook for Antarctica's king penguin population isn't looking so good. A PNAS study published two weeks ago warns that the two million breeding pairs face the possibility of extinction because the marine life they depend on for food aren't faring well in the warming waters of the Southern Ocean.

Because of their position near the top rung of the food chain on the seven sub-Antarctic island groups where they live, king penguins are a good indicator of any changes to the ecosystem. While increases in air temperature and melting ice have hurt other species on the continent, it's the warming waters that are of greatest concern to scientists studying this species of bird.

The scientists, who studied more than 450 penguins for nine years, said the warmer temperatures can reduce the numbers of small fish and squid the penguins eat, making it harder for the birds to survive and feed their chicks.

Researchers found even small bumps in ocean temperature have a large impact on the species. An increase of just 0.25 degrees Celsius (0.45 degrees Fahrenheit) in surface sea temperature translated into a 9 percent decline in an adult bird's chance of survival. Given current global warming predictions call for a 0.4ºC ocean temperature rise over the next two decades, the scientists conclude that the penguins face a "heavy extinction risk".