ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT: Senate calls for more Gore

Senate calls for more Gore

Former Vice President Al Gore returns to Capitol Hill Wednesday to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Sen. John Kerry, who chairs the committee, had kind words for his fellow former Democratic presidential nominee: “Al Gore has been sounding the alarm on climate change for over three decades, and he understands the urgent need for American engagement and leadership on this issue.”

Mr. Gore, who has opted to stay in private life rather than return with the Democratic administration, still has easy access with President Obama’s team.

Shortly before taking office, Mr. Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. held a closed-door meeting with Mr. Gore to discuss climate change and national energy priorities.

Among the books not likely to be discussed at the hearing: “Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don’t Want You to Know,” written by the recently ousted Virginia state climatologist and longtime global-warming skeptic Patrick J. Michaels and published by the Libertarian think tank the Cato Institute

No congressman left behind

Arizona Republican Rep. John Shadegg, long an informal educator on the benefits - and physics - of hydroelectric power, said Thursday he often has resorted to third-grade textbooks to enlighten his colleagues.

Rep. Lee Terry questioned whether Mr. Shadegg was setting the bar too high.

“Next time, don’t use such advanced texts,” the Nebraska Republican advised.

The quip sparked a roomful of laughter from members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and provided a brief respite from the committee’s grueling markup session on the energy and health care provisions in the stimulus bill.

The gas is always greener

Who was that among the many enviros and alternate-fuel types supporting Mr. Gore’s Green Inaugural Ball? The American Gas Association?

Though natural gas is a cleaner-burning fuel, environmentalists like to point out that pockets of natural gas are often found with reservoirs of oil, which they say profit-hungry prospectors are unlikely to leave in the ground.

Nevertheless, oil-turned-wind magnate T. Boone Pickens has said domestic supplies of natural gas are a good transition fuel for a nation looking to wean itself from foreign oil and transition to renewable fuel sources. Ball organizers repeated that tack:

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