Obama Joins Global Warming Deal : NPR

However, their goals are nonbinding, and it's far from clear they will be met.

How Big A Deal Is The Alabama Biofuel Scandal? - Environment and Energy

...Well, turns out the whole thing was too good to be true. Not only were Cello's promises overblown, but an Alabama jury just found the start-up guilty of fraud, ordering the company to by $10.4 million to one of its investors, pulpmaker Parsons & Whittemore. At Earth2Tech, Josie Garthwaite sorts through the court documents and points out that most of Cello's backers, including P&W and noted Silicon Valley venture capitalists Khosla Ventures, didn't really do due diligence on Cello at all. (A lot of venture capitalist are lavishing money on next-generation biofuels, and Khosla is one of the most hyperactive.)

Anyway, if this was just a case of a few investors losing their shirts, it would be mundane news. But there's a policy angle, too. It turns out the EPA may not have done its due diligence, either. The EPA's Renewable Fuel Standard, which is currently being updated, mandates 36 billion gallons worth of biofuel to be produced in the United States by 2022 (up from 9 billion this year). As part of the revised standard, the EPA is expecting 100 million gallons worth of cellulosic ethanol to be produced in 2010. But, as Garthwaite reports, the agency was counting on 70 million of those gallons to come from… Cello Energy. And Cello's not going to get anywhere near that amount—a best-case scenario is about 20 million gallons, assuming the technology even works.

Hot Air » Blog Archive » China, India reject climate change restrictions

Obama may plan to return home, waving a piece of paper over his head to the adoring masses of the White House press corps, claiming a victory for climate change in our time, but that’s as far as it will go without the two most populous nations on Earth exempting themselves from it. Obama will push for the limitations in other ways, though, through Congress and the EPA, while China retains its economic advantage over the US, and India builds one.