Tmyers

A new, left-wing group called ALEC Exposed has popped up taking aim at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) noting that the organization brings legislators from across the country together to, surprise, exchange ideas about legislation. ALEC Exposed is also unhappy that businesses have a seat at the table during discussions.

This year, Washington state became one of nine states to ban a compound known as bisphenol-A or BPA, from a number of children's products. The ban was justified based on concerns that BPA caused a range of problems from hormone disruption to obesity. The concern is that BPA contained in food containers would be ingested and lead to these problems.

Update at end of blog (July 11, 9am)

Over at the Sightline Institute, they're unhappy with the Seattle Times story on the weather, lamenting that the Times "won't link it to climate change." Washington is warming, Sightline says, and we're already feeling the impact.

Tonight, KCTS is running a story about the impact of diesel emissions in Seattle on cancer rates in the Puget Sound Region. To promote the broadcast, one of the contributors to the story, Investigate West, sent out this tweet earlier in the week:

@invw + @KCTS9 report "Breathing Uneasy": #PugetSound region is in top 5% for #air #toxins in US. http://bit.ly/lbEb5s

Today's Seattle Times features a story with the headline "Study of 800-year-old tree rings backs global warming." The article notes that snowpack loss in the Western United States has been more severe in recent decades than in the last millennium based on studies of tree rings. There are two key claims here.

One of the most significant problems with current climate policy is that costly failures have been difficult to eliminate. Even when it becomes clear that a policy isn't achieving the promised environmental goals, special interest groups that financially benefit from the policy prevent it from being eliminated.

The best example of this is biofuel policy. Even Al Gore now admits the real damage caused by biofuel subsidies, both to the environment and the federal budget. He admitted:

Last week, the Joint Legislative Audit & Review Committee (JLARC) released its report on the state's green buildings requirements. The title of the report indicates that the "Impact on Energy Use is Mixed." A casual look at the report shows that the word "mixed" is a generous assessment.