News Headline

nytimes.com — The Chinese government plans a further reduction, of up to 30 percent, next year in its quotas for exports of rare earth minerals, in an attempt to conserve dwindling reserves of the materials, the official newspaper China Daily said Tuesday.

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cnn.com — Last week, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar lifted the moratorium on deepwater drilling almost two months before it was set to expire. It was the right decision at the right time, because developments over the last three months, including new rules and regulations, will make deepwater drilling far safer than it was before.

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wonkroom.thinkprogress.org — The Western Climate Initiative — a regional cap-and-trade compact between California, New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, Washington, Oregon, Montana and four Canadian provinces — was established in 2007 and scheduled to go into effect in 2012. There are governors’ races in all the states except Montana and Washington. Republican governors in Arizona and Utah — who are cruising to re-election this fall — have already worked to scuttle their involvement. California’s contribution, the legislation known as AB 32, is under threat both from the Proposition 23 ballot initiative and from Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman. The future of the compact rides on the governors’ races this November in California, New Mexico, and Oregon:

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nytimes.com — Residents of this deeply conservative city do not put much stock in scientific predictions of climate change. “Don’t mention global warming,” warned Nancy Jackson, chairwoman of the Climate and Energy Project, a small nonprofit group that aims to get people to rein in the fossil fuel emissions that contribute to climate change. “And don’t mention Al Gore. People out here just hate him.” Saving energy, though, is another matter.

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washingtonmonthly.com — A decade ago, George W. Bush told voters he'd support a cap on carbon dioxide. Two years ago, the GOP's McCain/Palin presidential ticket supported a cap-and-trade policy.

The Republican hostility towards science and evidence isn't new, but its wholesale, party-wide rejection of all climate data is new.

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thehill.com — The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Action Fund says new poll data shows that voters in regions with competitive House races prefer incumbent Democrats who support legislation to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

The group’s survey looked at 23 congressional districts where the incumbent House Democrat voted in favor of last year’s contentious cap-and-trade bill. However, the survey did not specifically reference that bill or use the term “cap and trade” in questioning.

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dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com — Felix G. Rohatyn, one of Wall Street’s last old wise-men, was sitting in his office at Lazard overlooking the Empire State Building on Monday morning.

At 82, Mr. Rohatyn has quite a history: he helped save New York City from bankruptcy in the 1970s, advised RJR Nabisco on its sale to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts in the 1980s and sold Columbia Pictures to Sony in the 1990s before becoming ambassador to France under President Bill Clinton. In the last decade, he returned to Wall Street, first to Lehman Brothers and now to his longtime home, Lazard.

Mr. Rohatyn, whose revealing memoir, “Dealings: A Political and Financial Life” (Simon & Schuster), comes out in two weeks, is a proud man and has a lot to be proud of.

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huffpostfund.org — Nearly a dozen major banks and hedge funds, anticipating quick profits from homeowners who fall behind on property taxes, are quietly plowing hundreds of millions of dollars into businesses that collect the debts, tack on escalating fees and threaten to foreclose on the homes of those who fail to pay.

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huffingtonpost.com — In the rush to foreclosure, the banks and even government officials have been taking the position that the borrower/homeowners are fully to blame for the situations they find themselves in and that the paperwork technicalities just need to be worked out in order for there to be a just outcome, which is to say, a foreclosure.

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cepr.net — The Washington Post appears to have outdone itself in a discussion of the politics surrounding the foreclosure crisis. For beginners, it told readers that:

"Reviving the economy requires repairing the housing market."

What does the Post possibly think it means by this statement? Does it mean that reviving the economy means re-inflating the housing bubble? That's a novel economic theory. Maybe they should find an economist who won't laugh at it.

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