Does the Death of GM’s Hybrid Malibu Bode Badly for Volt? - Environmental Capital - WSJ

Turns out, there was a very simple problem with the hybrid Malibu. From the WSJ story: “A base Malibu, carrying a four-cylinder engine, costs about $22,300, and a hybrid version, which uses a battery to help propel the vehicle, is about $4,000 more. Both models achieve 34 miles-per-gallon in highway driving, according to GM.”

Making the case for hybrids’ bigger price tag is hard enough when they’re actually more fuel-efficient. It’s obviously a lot tougher case to make when the extra $4,000 gets you nothing but a six-letter piety plate on the trunk. At least turnabout was fair play—if customers were getting a raw deal, so was GM, since it was losing “substantial” amounts of money on each hybrid Malibu, the paper notes.

Green lawsuit in California seen as warm-up for future climate litigation « Green Hell Blog

The lesson here — especially for USCAP’s business members — is that while businesses may feel like they can deal with seemingly “mainstream” green groups (like USCAP’s Environmental Defense Fund and Natural Resources Defense Council) in crafting a survivable climate bill, in the end the more extreme green groups will come along and try to scuttle the deal in favor of more extreme regulation.

Climate Progress » Blog Archive » Boucher predicts “I think we’ll do far better than” the 218 votes needed to pass Waxman-Markey, GOP’s Walden agrees passage likely

One of the key coal-state Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA), yesterday “predicted sponsors would have little trouble crossing the 218-vote threshold,” as E&E News PM (subs. req’d) put it. Boucher said, “I think we’ll do far better than that.”