Just a few things in the news today:
As I mentioned, two of Obama's nominees who will be directly involved in Climate Change policy testified before the Senate yesterday: both Chu and Clinton vowed that addressing climate change would be a top priority, for national security reasons as well as environmental reasons.
In Senator Clinton's hearing it was interesting to hear that both her and John Kerry spoke about climate change in their openning statements, but once it came down to questions -- which were limited to only 10 minutes per Senator -- no Senator put climate change as a high enough priority to ask about it.
Although I didn't watch or listen to any of Chu's hearing, it is interesting to look at the media follow-up to it. Most of the spin given by the newspapers, like the WaPost or the NYTimes, is that he is backpedalling from statements he made about coal and the price of gasoline before he was nominated. Of course he would moderate his statements: he has to answer to politicians now, not to scientists. It seems that the only way you can avoid controversy is to not take a serious position on anything. But, I guess that's just where our political system is right now.
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