Lots of good news for the climate this week, from Obama renewing his commitment to send a representative to the climate talks in Poland to Alaska Senator, convicted felon, and generally regressive policy booster Ted Stevens losing his bid for reelection. But perhaps the best news we heard was that Rep. Henry Waxman (D–CA) had successfully challenged Rep. John Dingell (D–MI) for the chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. This is a game-changer.

Obama may have signaled his clear intent to join with the rest of the world in implementing the most effective policies for tackling global warming, but he will need an equally committed Congress to help craft all the policy that will be necessary. And the House Energy and Commerce Committee will be key to getting that done. There are two reasons why Waxman ousting Dingell is most welcome news.

For one thing, Dingell has acted as little more than a lobbyist for the auto industry even while he was in a powerful position from which he could have affected real change. Says the New York Times: “Mr. Dingell, who represents a suburban Detroit district, has been the industry’s most stalwart defender in Congress, having slowed or blocked many safety and environmental standards that the auto companies argued they could not meet.” Those environmental standards, by the way, might have been tough to implement, but in the long run they would have kept the automakers solvent in today’s energy-conscious marketplace while also helping lower emissions from vehicles and therefore our national carbon footprint. It’s a textbook example of failed leadership.

And for another thing, Waxman is one of, if not the, biggest champions of global warming legislation in Congress. He wrote the Safe Climate Act, the best global warming bill to come out of either house of the 110th Congress, and he got 152 of his fellow House Representatives to sign onto his open-letter Global Warming Statement of Principles. Greenpeace USA’s deputy director of campaigns, Carroll Muffett, puts it well in this press release:

Rep. Waxman was a key figure in passing some of the country’s most important environmental and public health legislation. We applaud his appointment as Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. From the Community Right to Know Act to the Clean Air Act to the Safe Drinking Water Act, he has been a leading voice for the public interest and one of the country’s most effective legislators.

Rep. Waxman has shown the same dedication to solving global warming, the biggest environmental and public health crisis of our time, by demanding strong, science-based solutions and building support for action in Congress.

Tackling the global warming crisis demands the full commitment of our government, and with Rep. Waxman’s leadership 152 members of Congress have already taken an important step by outlining a blueprint for success. Now we need Congress and the new presidential administration to come together and turn these ideas into action by passing comprehensive, science-based legislation as soon as possible.

Under his leadership, we are confident the Energy and Commerce Committee can move quickly to turn that blueprint into a workable, effective bill to solve the climate crisis. We urge Congressional leaders and our new president to work with Chairman Waxman to turn that bill into law in 2009.

Finally, leadership we can believe in.

Not even two weeks have gone by since the presidential election in which Americans voted decisively for change. Incredibly, despite a national mood rife with hope and optimism, our "leaders" are already lowering expectations on what we can accomplish:

WASHINGTON: Congress will not act until 2010 on a bill to limit the heat-trapping gases blamed for global warming despite President-elect Obama's declaration that he will move quickly to address climate change, the chairman of the Senate Energy Committee predicted Wednesday.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., said that while every effort should be made to cap greenhouse gases, the economic crisis, the transition to a new administration and the complexity of setting up a nationwide market for carbon pollution permits preclude acting in 2009.

We've said it several times over the past couple weeks: The election results may bode well for our cause, but the real work has only just begun. We're gonna have to stay on top of these people in a big way if we want to really tackle global warming before it's too late.

Many, many disastrous policies were put in place by the Bush administration. But none will have more far-reaching an impact than those policies that were adopted as a means of delaying serious action on global warming.

Choosing how to go about rolling back all of Bush’s harmful policies is a monumental task, to be sure. Luckily, according to the Washington Post, Obama already has a team working on it:

Transition advisers to President-elect Barack Obama have compiled a list of about 200 Bush administration actions and executive orders that could be swiftly undone to reverse White House policies on climate change, stem cell research, reproductive rights and other issues, according to congressional Democrats, campaign aides and experts working with the transition team.

Obama has signaled his desire to undo one of the least rational of Bush’s policies:

The president-elect has said, for example, that he intends to quickly reverse the Bush administration's decision last December to deny California the authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles. "Effectively tackling global warming demands bold and innovative solutions, and given the failure of this administration to act, California should be allowed to pioneer," Obama said in January.

California had sought permission from the Environmental Protection Agency to require that greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles be cut by 30 percent between 2009 and 2016, effectively mandating that cars achieve a fuel economy standard of at least 36 miles per gallon within eight years.

California arrived at these regulations in a very bipartisan way. Such prominent Republicans as Arnold Schwarzenegger were the most vocal supporters of California’s auto emissions standards. Bush's opposition is an example of his extreme anti-environmentalism even in the face of overwhelming evidence that we must impose just such regulations on emissions in order to effectively combat global warming.

If Obama does in fact reverse this decision it will be a welcome change. And it will make a real difference: 17 other states had committed to following California’s lead on auto emissions, for instance. All told, these 18 states represent nearly half of the U.S. automobile market. Aside from their obvious impact on our total greenhouse gas emissions, bold, proggressive standards like California’s will help spur innovation that could reshape the entire auto industry in America.

The WaPo article also notes that Obama has said he “favors declaring that carbon dioxide emissions are endangering human welfare, following an EPA task force recommendation last December that Bush and his aides shunned in order to protect the utility and auto industries.” Take a look at sales by foreign companies like Toyota and Honda, who offer a variety of hybrid and other fuel-efficient models, versus the Big 3 American auto manufacturers, who proudly brought us the Hummer, and you will realize Bush in fact was not doing them any favors.

We cannot adequately address global warming by trying to pretend the problem doesn’t exist. We need fresh ideas and a new era of innovation to combat the enormity of the problem, and for that we need real leadership. Judging from early reports like this WaPo piece, the Obama administration appears poised to provide that leadership. It comes none too soon: we wasted the last eight years, and time is running out.

We recently put out a new edition of our Energy [R]evolution plan (here's the full report, and here's the executive summary) and the timing could not have been better. We are faced with two major crises right now: global warming and the economic meltdown. Investing in renewable energy can solve both of these crises, and the Energy [R]evolution shows how.

The report provides a practical blueprint for rapidly cutting energy-related CO2 emissions in order to help ensure that greenhouse gas emissions peak and then fall by 2015. A major means of reaching this goal would be to aggressively invest in renewable energy. According to the report, renewable energy could more than double its share of the world’s energy supply – reaching up to 30% by 2030 – given the proper leadership to promote the large-scale deployment of existing technologies. Meanwhile, the total fuel cost savings for the global energy industry would reach $18.7 trillion by 2030, or $750 billion of annual savings that could be passed on to consumers.

The technologies exist to make an energy revolution a reality. What we’re lacking is the political will to get it done. Thankfully, there is a growing body of evidence that supports the basic assertion of the Energy [R]evolution that we can solve both the climate crisis and the economic crisis at the same time.

I wrote a post a couple weeks back about a UC-Berkeley report that found that California’s green policies have created 1.5 million jobs over the past three decades, and now there is even more evidence that solving global warming by investing in the clean energy sources of the future will create jobs and revitalize our ailing economy. This time the evidence is more anecdotal than scientific or data-driven, but it is nonetheless convincing. On Nov. 1 the New York Times published a lengthy piece entitled “A Splash of Green for the Rust Belt” that examined the phenomenon of the renewable energy industry breathing new life into factory towns that had been left for dead when manufacturers closed down their operations and moved out of town:

From the faded steel enclaves of Pennsylvania to the reeling auto towns of Michigan and Ohio, state and local governments are aggressively courting manufacturing companies that supply wind energy farms, solar electricity plants and factories that turn crops into diesel fuel.

This courtship has less to do with the loftiest aims of renewable energy proponents — curbing greenhouse gas emissions and lessening American dependence on foreign oil — and more to do with paychecks. In the face of rising unemployment, renewable energy has become a crucial source of good jobs, particularly for laid-off Rust Belt workers.

Investing in renewable energy can revitalize a stagnant economy! And also, it's pretty inspiring to read about the sense of patriotism and purpose that comes from working in renewables; one guy quoted in the NYT article said, "For 35 years, I pounded my body to the ground. Now, I feel like I’m doing something beneficial for mankind and the United States," while another said, "I feel I’m doing something to improve our country, rather than just building a washing machine." But it’s one thing for small municipalities to recognize how good renewables are for our country and our planet, and a whole other thing for us to realize this on a national scale. We need leadership on this issue. Here’s hoping that whatever the results, tomorrow’s elections will, at last, provide America with that leadership…