On Wednesday, John McCain told Fox News' Sean Hannity that his VP pick Sarah Palin is "probably one of the foremost experts in this nation on energy issues," and reaffirmed his desire to put her in charge of energy policy in his administration.

But on Thursday, Palin once again mangled the facts about energy issues, wrongly asserting to a crowd in Wisconsin that there's some sort of congressional ban on oil exports.

A crowd member told her he had heard that 75 percent of Alaska's oil is being sold to China, and if that's true, he wanted to know why.

"No. It's not 75 percent of our oil being exported," Palin said, suggesting that some of Alaska's oil is going abroad, but not that much, according to the Associated Press.

"In fact, Congress is pretty strict on, um, export bans of oil and gas especially," she continued.

The AP reporter fact-checked the assertion:

No Alaska oil has been exported since 2004, and little if any since 2000, according to the Energy Information Administration and the Congressional Research Service.

And Congress has never imposed outright bans on oil exports. Congress prohibited exports of Alaska oil in 1973 when the Alaska oil pipeline was built. But that ban was lifted in 1996 when there were large volumes of Alaska oil coming down from the North Slope and U.S. demand was soft.

The Alaska ban has never been reinstated.

Last night, the PBS program Frontline hosted a sneak preview of its new global warming documentary, "Heat," which will air on Oct. 21. The film covers both the science and the politics of climate change, and we'll have more on that for you soon.

More interesting for political junkies, though, was the panel afterward, which featured Obama climate and energy adviser David Sandalow, who is also a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a senior policy adviser for John McCain. The two began their remarks by noting how great it is to have two presidential candidates who agree that climate change is real, human-caused, and needs to be addressed.

"We have in this presidential campaign two candidates, both of whom have publicly committed to a cap-and-trade solutions to carbon and greenhouse gas emissions to address global warming." said Holtz-Eakin. "That's a sea change for the United States, and sadly not too well understood by the public."

Plugging for his own candidate, Holtz-Eakin continued, "McCain has worked on this issue, introducing legislation on this issue beginning in 2003, with the Climate Solutions Act with Joe Lieberman [...] He believes deeply that we need to do this."

Sandalow also pitched his candidate: "For Sen. Obama, this is at the core of what he's going to be doing should he be elected president. We just heard in the last debate on Tuesday the priority he attaches to the energy issue, which is at the core of his climate-change program."

But then moderator Judy Woodruff asked, if they're both in agreement about this issue, what is the difference between their plans, and then the "Kumbaya" period was over.

"I guess I could sum that up in two words: Sarah Palin," said Sandalow. "I really do applaud Sen. McCain for getting out in front in 2003 on this issue, but, you know, just two months ago he chose as his vice president somebody who is in the papers within the past week questioning the validity of the science of global warming."

An environmental action group founded by former vice president Al Gore is accusing ABC of censoring an advocacy ad the group paid to air on the network.

The Alliance for Climate Protection late Wednesday sent an e-mail blast to supporters with the ominous subject line, "ABC won't air our ad."

"Did you notice the ads after last night's presidential debate? ABC had Chevron. CBS had Exxon. CNN had the coal lobby," wrote Alliance CEO Cathy Zoi. "But you know what happened last week? ABC refused to run our Repower America ad -- the ad that takes on this same oil and coal lobby." The message sent readers to to a web page where they could send a form letter to the network.

The ad in question, which was aired by several other networks, is a 30-second spot that starts off with a call to "Repower America," with images of a little girl, windmills and solar panels. Then music in the ad gets more intense, as the narrator's voice asks, "So why are we still stuck on dirty and expensive energy?"

The offending image in the ad.

"Because Big Oil spends hundreds of millions of dollars to block clean energy," it says. "Lobbyists, ads, even scandals, all to increase their profits, while America suffers."

The Alliance had arranged to run the ad during the Sept. 26 airing of the news magazine 20/20, the same night of the first presidential debate. The group said it submitted the ad seven days before it was scheduled to run. According to representatives from the campaign, on Sept. 25 ABC sent an e-mail notifying them that the ad had been rejected. The network's stated reason? The one frame of the ad showing the Capitol building violated the network's guidelines.

"Per our Guidelines, national buildings may be used in advertising provided the depictions are incidental to the advertiser's promotion of the product or service," said the e-mail, which was provided to Grist by the Alliance. "Given the messages and themes of this commercial, the image of the Capital building is not incidental to this advertising. Please replace the image with one that is not of another national building or monument. Thank you."

Alliance communications director Giselle Barry told Grist it should be clear that the image of the Capitol building is pertinent to an advertisement about the lobbying power the fossil fuels industry has in Washington, D.C.

Grist's repeated requests for comment from ABC and Disney were not returned. Meanwhile, the Alliance said its letter-writing campaign had yielded more than 128,000 e-mails to the network within the first 24 hours of sending out their e-mail blast. The group is hoping that public pressure will convince the network to air the ad during tonight's episode of 20/20.

In an interview Wednesday with Fox News' Sean Hannity, Republican presidential candidate John McCain again suggested that he's willing to reevaluate his opposition to allowing drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

"At least because Gov. Palin is so persuasive, I would like to come to Alaska. I haven't been there in many years anyway, and maybe I'll agree to go visit that area and have a look," said McCain, responding to a question from Hannity about the differing opinions on ANWR that the running mates have put forward.

McCain has consistently opposed drilling in ANWR because, as one of his campaign advisers said, "some places ... are simply so special" that they need to remain protected. His support for protecting ANWR has been a green feather in McCain's cap for years.

McCain's new running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, has said previously that she would like to change McCain's mind about ANWR. Yet even before adding Palin to the ticket, McCain told a crowd that he would be "more than happy" to reexamine his views on the region.

In the Hannity interview, McCain also reaffirmed previous assertions that Palin would head up energy policy in a McCain administration. "She's probably one of the foremost experts in this nation on energy issues," said McCain in the interview. Yet her rhetoric on energy issues has already gotten her in trouble on the campaign trail, as she misstated the importance of Alaska in the country's overal energy portfolio. And while both McCain and Palin tout the natural gas pipeline she worked to secure, it still exists only on paper.

The two Republicans repeated claims that rivals Barack Obama and Joe Biden are against nuclear energy, "clean coal," and drilling. (See our previous debunking of those claims -- clean coal, drilling, and nuclear power.) Neither mentioned that McCain himself once opposed offshore drilling before changing his position in June.

Here's the video of the Hannity interview, with a transcript of relevent portions below the fold:

Say what you may about last night's debate, but it was anything but boring for enviros. Even if the candidates largely recycled preexisting talking points on energy and climate, the mere fact that both issues got top billing in a presidential debate was an historic first.

"What strikes me as important is that energy has risen to the top of the list in terms of issues that people are concerned about right now. It's really energy, the economy, health care, and the war that are dominating the conversation," said Gillian Caldwell, campaign director for 1Sky. "And energy is of course so connected to the conversation that we're having about the economy and the war, and it even has substantial health implications when you think about particulate matter and hot spots and the disproportionate impact on low-income communities."

The most heralded portion of the debate was the question from Ingrid Jackson asking the candidates what they would do in their first two years in office regarding climate change.

"After the millions of questions with zero focus on global warming, we got a really good one," said Jamie Henn, co-coordinator for 350.org. "I think that what the questions emphasized, and what was exciting about it, was the need for speed. We don't just want ambitious plans, we want something to get started right away."

Henn said the candidates didn't look like they were expecting any questions on climate change last night.

"It seemed like it almost caught them off guard a bit. They got warmed up as they were talking about it, but it's understandable. They haven't gotten any questions from the media on global warming lately," he said.

Henn thought that both candidates handled it well in the end, giving him faith that enviros could work with them on the issues. "I think once they got going, it was way better than what we've heard in the last 8 years," said Henn. "We have an opening to really push them on it, but it's going to take some pressure to get both of the candidates to where we want them to be."

Some enviro observers were disappointed that there was not much time for follow-up questions allotted in last night's debate, and though the candidates repeatedly talked about energy, they left a lot of questions about their policies unanswered. Dan Weiss, director of climate strategy for the Center for American Progress Action Fund, said someone should have asked John McCain about why his cap-and-trade plan doesn't force polluters to pay for carbon credits.

For the first time in this year's presidential debates, the two candidates were asked point-blank about what they would do to address climate change in the first two years of their administration.

Ingrid Jackson asks the candidates about environmental issues.

This morning, Grist caught up with the young woman who asked the question -- Ingrid Jackson, 30, a senior psychology major at Tennessee State University in Nashville and a Children Services Officer for the Tennessee Department of Children Services. She said that while she "kind of leaned toward Obama" prior to last night's debate, his answer to her question confirmed her inclinations.

"I'm for Obama now," said Jackson. "I think McCain, really when he answered my question, he just kind of went through his same spiel, and brought the focus back to offshore drilling, which is not going to help the environment."

"I liked Obama's response, just because he seemed to agree that it was a very important issue," she said. "McCain, his response was good, but I feel like he was just giving the same thing ... he used it to plug his offshore drilling."

The second 2008 presidential debate included a single, pointed question on global climate change from an audience member, but that didn't stop both candidates from working the issue of energy independence into their responses to all sorts of questions throughout the 90-minute faceoff.

By and large, John McCain and Barack Obama stuck to their scripts on energy, arguing that the nation must invest more in alternative and renewable energy sources ... and rely on traditional oil and coal sources. McCain repeatedly mentioned nuclear power, while Obama made the now-obligatory nod to "clean coal."

But for a few minutes in the middle of it all, the debate touched specifically on climate change with a question from an audience member that produced very different answers from the candidates.

The question came from Ingrid Jackson: "Sen. McCain, I want to know, we saw that Congress moved pretty fast in the face of an economic crisis. I want to know what you would do within the first two years to make sure that Congress moves fast as far as environmental issues, like climate change and green jobs."

McCain's response nods at the importance of addressing climate change, but then goes on to stress that the United States needs to invest in a broad range of energy sources, particularly nuclear power. Here's his response in full:

Well, thank you. Look, we are in tough economic times; we all know that. And let's keep -- never forget the struggle that Americans are in today. But when we can -- when we have an issue that we may hand our children and our grandchildren a damaged planet, I have disagreed strongly with the Bush administration on this issue. I traveled all over the world looking at the effects of greenhouse-gas emissions, Joe Lieberman and I.

And I introduced the first legislation, and we forced votes on it. That's the good news, my friends. The bad news is we lost. But we kept the debate going, and we kept this issue to -- to posing to Americans the danger that climate change opposes. Now, how -- what's -- what's the best way of fixing it? Nuclear power. Sen. Obama says that it has to be safe or disposable or something like that.

Look, I was on Navy ships that had nuclear power plants. Nuclear power is safe, and it's clean, and it creates hundreds of thousands of jobs. And I know that we can reprocess the spent nuclear fuel. The Japanese, the British, the French do it. And we can do it, too. Sen. Obama has opposed that. We can move forward, and clean up our climate, and develop green technologies, and alternate -- alternative energies for -- for hybrid, for hydrogen, for battery-powered cars, so that we can clean up our environment and at the same time get our economy going by creating millions of jobs.

Obama, in his response to the same question, called for public investment in finding solutions to climate change, including support for wind, solar, and geothermal energy. He challenged McCain on his votes against renewables during his time in the Senate and directly countered the notion that drilling offshore is a solution to the nation's energy concerns:

This is one of the biggest challenges of our times. And it is absolutely critical that we understand this is not just a challenge, it's an opportunity, because if we create a new energy economy, we can create 5 million new jobs, easily, here in the United States. It can be an engine that drives us into the future the same way the computer was the engine for economic growth over the last couple of decades.

And we can do it, but we're going to have to make an investment. The same way the computer was originally invented by a bunch of government scientists who were trying to figure out, for defense purposes, how to communicate, we've got to understand that this is a national security issue, as well. And that's why we've got to make some investments and I've called for investments in solar, wind, geothermal. Contrary to what Sen. McCain keeps on saying, I favor nuclear power as one component of our overall energy mix.

But this is another example where I think it is important to look at the record. Sen. McCain and I actually agree on something. He said a while back that the big problem with energy is that for 30 years, politicians in Washington haven't done anything. What Sen. McCain doesn't mention is he's been there 26 of them. And during that time, he voted 23 times against alternative fuels, 23 times. So it's easy to talk about this stuff during a campaign, but it's important for us to understand that it requires a sustained effort from the next president.

Energy and Commerce Committee Chair John Dingell (D-Mich.) and ranking member Rick Boucher (D-Va.) released a "discussion draft" of their long-awaited climate change legislation today.

"This draft is the culmination of nearly two years of intensive work on climate change by the Committee and marks an important step in our ongoing efforts to address this increasingly serious problem," wrote Dingell and Boucher in a memo to fellow committee members [PDF] today.

"Politically, scientifically, legally, and morally, the question has been settled: regulation of greenhouse gases in the United States is coming," the legislators continued.

The 461-page draft [PDF] calls for emissions reductions of 6 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, 44 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, and 80 percent by mid-century. The emissions cap would cover approximately 88 percent of all emissions in the United States, including power plants, large industrial facilities, and the producers and importers of fossil fuels. (Here's the executive summary [PDF] for those who don't want to slog through the 461-page version.)

But, as Dingell promised months ago, this is a comparatively fossil-industry-friendly bill. It promises to provide "flexibility to emitters" by including cost-containment mechanisms and allowing polluting entities to "bank and borrow" emissions allowances. (Borrowing entails using emissions allowances from future years to cover higher emissions in the present; banking entails setting emissions credits aside for future use.) Emitters would also be allowed to meet a certain percentage of their reductions through offsets. For the first five years of the program, 5 percent of the compliance obligation could come through offsets, scaling up to 35 percent by 2024.

Coal production at the Blacksville No. 2 Mine in Monongalia County, W.Va., came to a halt for one day last week when all the miners stayed home in protest after a National Rifle Association camera crew tried to get them to bad-mouth Barack Obama on film.

The United Mineworkers of America has endorsed the Democratic candidate for president, and union officials were miffed that the NRA was allowed on the property. Here's the story:

Union officials say they took the day to protest after a film crew from the National Rifle Association showed up at the Consol mine last week to interview union workers.

They say the crew tried to get union coal miners to speak out against Barack Obama.

The UMWA has endorsed the Democratic presidential nominee.

"This was a surprise visit," explained VP Local 1702, Safety Chairman Eric Greathouse, "and a lot of the miners felt this was a direct slap in the face of the union because they were trying to coerce our people into saying things against Barack Obama."

"Consol doesn't let anybody on their property -- never," said Safety Committee Member Mark Dorsey, "And for them to let the NRA come on the property and solicit our membership was totally uncalled for. We made our endorsement to our political process and we didn't bother them and they shouldn't be harassing our membership over this."

While we're on the subject of coal miners and Obama, check out this Los Angeles Times piece on race and the election in Virginia, which focuses largely on miners. "Barack Obama Won't Take Away Your Gun," says one flier circulating among coal miners, "But John McCain Will Take Away Your Union."

In August, we brought you the story of Coal River Mountain, one of the last mountains in West Virginia's Coal River Valley that hasn't been destroyed by mountaintop-removal coal mining. Residents are lobbying to build a wind farm on the mountain, but Massey Energy is moving ahead on plans to strip-mine a 10-square-mile area of the mountain, regardless of whether they have the permits to do so.

Yesterday, CNN covered the battle over Coal River Mountain and the plight of the residents of Raleigh County. They also got some great quotes from state Department of Environmental Protection officials and representatives from the office of Gov. Joe Manchin (D) about why they won't step in.

"The governor sincerely believes as a country we can't take anything off the table," Lara Ramsberg, the governor's spokesperson, told CNN.

Here's the segment on Coal River:

Eleven days after their first matchup, John McCain and Barack Obama will meet again in Nashville, Tenn., on Tuesday night for a "townhall format" debate.

NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw will be the moderator, but it will be crowd members asking the questions, all of whom are supposedly undecided voters. There will be between 80 and 120 of these undecided voters in the audience; Brokaw will select about 15 of them to ask their questions. Chances are slim that any global warming-hating snowmen will make the cut.

At their last debate, there were no questions about energy or climate change from moderator Jim Lehrer, but the candidates brought up the issues several times of their own accord. Energy, of course, was a hot topic, and the two sparred over the 2005 energy bill, nuclear power, and bear DNA.

They also traded words on supporting renewable energy. Obama pointed out, "Over 26 years, Sen. McCain voted 23 times against alternative energy, like solar, and wind, and biodiesel." McCain responded, "No one from Arizona is against solar," adding later, "I have voted for alternate fuel all of my time."

Dan Weiss, director of climate strategy for the Center for American Progress Action Fund, would like to see someone ask McCain about this: "Given his record of voting against renewable electricity standards, and opposition to extension of the tax incentives for renewable energy and efficiency, how can Sen. McCain credibly say that 'No one from Arizona is against solar' or that he has voted for alternate fuel 'all of [his] time' in the Senate?"

Grist talked to some others in the environmental community about what they'd ask the candidates if given the chance. Here are a few:

Heather Zichal.

Barack Obama's campaign has a deep bench when it comes to climate and energy policy, one that includes scientists, policy wonks, and economists. On July 20, Obama added Heather Zichal to the team as policy director for energy, environment, and agriculture.

Before coming to the Obama campaign's Chicago headquarters, Zichal served as the legislative director for Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), running both his domestic and foreign policy. In 2004, she was responsible for energy and environmental policy in Kerry's presidential campaign. From 2001 to 2002, she was the legislative director for Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.). Zichal, 32, is an Iowa native and a graduate of Rutgers University in New Jersey.

Even in the relatively short time she's been working in politics, she's observed a major shift in the way climate change is being approached.  "I can't imagine that in 2004 we would have ever talked about cap-and-trade in a speech," Zichal told Grist. "[Now] you can talk about needing to establish a cap-and-trade program to bring greenhouse-gas emissions down, and people will actually understand what you're talking about and not think that you're totally off the reservation."

Grist caught up with Zichal to talk about "clean coal," offshore drilling, and how a President Obama would craft a bipartisan plan to address climate change.

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Grist: Do you see Sen. Obama looking to address both climate and energy policy early on in his presidency? Or would climate by necessity take a back seat to energy, which has been a bigger issue in the campaign?

Zichal: I think from Sen. Obama's perspective, climate and energy policy go hand-in-hand. His goal would be to try and move climate legislation in tandem with energy legislation, and I think the good news about that is moving them together makes more policy sense, but also you might be able to bring more votes and additional support along if you can lay out this comprehensive plan that's good for consumers, creates jobs, and invests in a diverse energy future.

The National Wildlife Federation Action Fund is endorsing six congressional candidates in the November election -- a first for the group.

"We wanted to be able to, at election time, let voters know who are really going to be champions on [conservation and wildlife] issues in Congress, and do what we can to spread the word," said Sue Brown, executive director of NWF Action Fund. "Conservation issues are important, and we're lacking the leadership in Washington to really get the job done."

Incumbent Reps. Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.) and Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) were endorsed in their reelection bids. Democrat Betsy Markey was endorsed in Colorado's 4th district, where she is challenging incumbent Republican Marilyn Musgrave. Democrat Martin Heinrich got the nod in New Mexico's 1st district, where he is taking on Republican Darren White to fill the seat that Heather Wilson is vacating.

On the Senate front, NWF Action Fund endorsed former New Hampshire Gov. Jeanne Shaheen (D) in her bid to unseat incumbent Republican Sen. John Sununu. And in Colorado's Senate race, the group endorsed Rep. Mark Udall, who is competing with Republican Bob Schaffer for the seat that Republican Wayne Allard is vacating this year.

• The New Republic looks at Sarah Palin's record as governor of Alaska, focusing on toxic waste and the health of the state's residents. The state has a rate of birth-defects twice the national average, and many believe it's because of the "toxic stew" from the byproducts of mining and energy development like arsenic, mercury, and lead. Like other political leaders in the state, Palin has prioritized industry over environmental protection for years, resisting measures to protect the health of state residents.

• Want to know about coal-shilling the moment it happens on the campaign trail? Sierra Club now has a mobile alert system that will send you a text whenever there are new "bogus coal moments," whether in ads or in debates. Sign up here or text DIRTY to 69866.

• Defenders of Wildlife is expanding the reach of their advertising campaign decrying Palin's support of aerial wolf hunting. Defenders of Wildlife says the ad has been a great fundraising tool, helping to raise $600,000 in the six hours after it was released last month, and nearly $1 million total so far.

• The Rural Blog says that McCain's stance on ethanol weakens his support in rural areas, where voters tend to lean Republican. Democrats may be able to use this as a wedge issue on the campaign trail.

• Fisherman and environmentalists continue to call attention to the threat that the proposed Pebble Mine would pose to Alaska's natural resources. A ballot initiative to make it harder to open the mine failed in August, and Gov. Palin was on the record opposing the measure. Three days after voters rejected the measure, Palin was tapped to be the GOP's vice presidential candidate, drawing attention away from what may be the "most consequential" action in Palin's time as governor.

With the lengthy discussion of energy and climate issues in last night's debate, it was easy to miss some important aspects as the vice presidential candidates sped through their respective talking points.

For example, Joe Biden's repeated plugs for "clean coal" irked enviros, particularly the folks at 1Sky. It was a 1Sky organizer who asked Biden about clean coal on a rope line recently, prompting him to badmouth it; that got the McCain and Obama campaigns bickering over who loves clean coal more.

"It's time to call the bluff. There is no such thing as clean coal," said 1Sky campaign director Gillian Caldwell. "What he should have said is that clean coal does not exist. If clean coal technology did exist, if somebody could prove that carbon capture and storage technology existed, it could be put to good use to face the challenges in countries like China where coal is proliferating. But it does not exist right now, and it's a red herring."

Sarah Palin, too, talked up clean coal during the debate, further exasperating anti-coal campaigners.

"What's concerning is that the political climate is such that both candidates feel like it's an advantage with the electorate to promote a mythological response to global warming and energy independence," Caldwell said.

While Biden's coal pandering was problematic for enviros, they were more alarmed at Palin's continued reticence about the root cause of climate change. "I'm not one to attribute every activity of man to the changes in the climate," said Palin. "There is something to be said also for man's activities, but also for the cyclical temperature changes on our planet."

"I don't want to argue about the causes," she said. "What I want to argue about is, how are we going to get there to positively affect the impacts?"

But, of course, if she's still not sure if and how much humans are causing climate change, and how much it's "cyclical temperature changes," it's not clear what she thinks humankind can do to reverse it -- a point Biden himself made in a response during last night's debate. Enviros, to no one's surprise, continue to buck at her obfuscation on this topic.

"If your mapmaker still believes the world is flat, you don’t rely on her for good directions," said League of Conservation Voters president Gene Karpinski following the debate. "If your candidate doesn’t believe in the causes of global warming, you don’t rely on her for real energy solutions."

Last night, Democratic VP candidate Joe Biden said that his previous remarks on "clean coal" were "taken out of context," and that he "for 25 years has supported clean coal technology." The remarks came after moderator Gwen Ifill asked him to clarify earlier, seemingly contradictory statements on clean coal.

Clean coal leapt into the spotlight of campaign 2008 a few weeks back, when a woman asked Joe Biden the question that launched 1,000 shills.

The questioner was Carolyn Auwaerter, an organizer with the environmental group 1Sky. Biden's response prompted this editorial in the Wall Street Journal accusing Biden of having "liberal energy politics" and an "anticarbon agenda." The McCain campaign has been making the same argument, and in response the Democratic ticket has been falling over themselves to convince the public that they do, in fact, love coal.

If at first you don't succeed, try again. After failing to muster enough votes on Monday, the House on Friday approved the financial market bailout plan by a vote of 263-171, sending the bill to the desk of the president. The final version of the bailout included the extensions for renewable tax credits that Congress has been struggling with all year (the House and Senate disputed how to offset the credits with new revenues).

The $17 billion in tax credits includes an eight-year extension of the investment tax credit for solar energy, a one-year extension of the production tax credit for wind, and a two-year extension of the PTC for solar, biomass, and hydropower. The residential energy-efficient property credit would also be extended through 2016, and the definition of the systems that qualify for that credit would be expanded to include small wind investment and geothermal heat pumps. There are also incentives for bicycle commuting and plug-in electric vehicles.

The bill also includes provisions for carbon capture and sequestration, oil shale, tar sands, and coal-to-liquid fuels, which enviros are less happy about. But the final passage of the various tax credits is a welcome win for renewable industries, which have been begging all summer for Congress to come to agreement on the package.

UPDATE: "This bill is a major step in our long journey toward energy independence and ensures that solar energy will be a significant part of America's energy future," said Solar Energy Industries Association president Rhone Resch in a statement. "This long-term extension of the solar tax credits will create a domestic solar industry with hundreds of thousands of jobs while providing clean, affordable, carbon-free energy to millions of American families, businesses, and communities."

UPDATE: President Bush signed the bill Friday afternoon.

The Senate this week voted 74-24 to approve the Federal Railroad Safety Improvement Act, which would boost funding for Amtrak. With high gas prices and tough economic times pushing more Americans to ride the rails, Congress is aiming to improve rail infrastructure.

The five-year, $13 billion bill would fund new safety measures for trains, like collision-avoidance technology, plus cover operating and capital expenses and help pay down Amtrak's current $3 billion debt.

But while the bill authorizes $2.5 billion a year for Amtrak -- almost double the amount the passenger rail system currently gets in federal funding -- a separate bill is needed to actually appropriate those funds. That will probably have to wait until next year. Another $1.9 billion in the bill is for a "matching-grant program" that would encourage states to pony up part of the funding for rail expansion and repair.

The House passed the bill last week, so now it goes to President Bush's desk. He's threatened to veto Amtrak bills in the past, but this bill passed both bodies of Congress with enough votes to override.

In late April, Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), chair of the House Select Committee for Energy Independence, joined with Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) to put out a statement of principles for climate legislation. Their framework for future climate bills calls for emissions reductions of 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, the establishment of near-term targets, and the auctioning of emissions permits with proceeds going toward clean-energy technology and programs to help vulnerable communities and ecosystems.

This week, as the 110th Congress draws to a close (well, theoretically ... they were supposed to be done last week, but they're still going at it), the trio announced that they've added 149 signatures to their principles. Signatories include 11 members of the moderate "Blue Dog" coalition, 27 members of the Congressional Black Caucus, eight members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and the 30 members of the New Democrat Coalition. The representatives hope that these principles will be the basis for whatever climate bill comes out of the House next Congress.

"Acting in accordance with these principles is critical to achieving a fair and effective bill that will avoid the most dangerous global warming and assist those harmed by the warming that is unavoidable, while strengthening our economy," they wrote in an Oct. 2 letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi [PDF].

Thursday night's vice presidential debate produced several rows on climate and energy policy, with both candidates making somewhat unexpected claims on their own policy positions. Notably, however, both Joe Biden and Sarah Palin acknowledged that climate change is real and must be addressed -- though they clearly didn't agree fully on what's causing it or what should be done.

For enviro viewers, perhaps Palin's biggest moment came when she was asked directly about climate change. She said that emissions should be cut while also calling for more drilling and again disputing whether all of global warming is caused by humans (she's offered a range of statements on this subject in the past).

Asked directly whether she supports a cap on carbon emissions, Palin responded, "Yes, Sen. McCain does support this."

While Palin didn't say whether she supports a cap, she did say that she thinks climate change should be addressed:

As the nation's only Arctic state and being the governor of that state, Alaska feels and sees impacts of climate change more so than any other state. And we know that it's real. I'm not one to attribute every man -- activity of man to the changes in the climate. There is something to be said also for man's activities, but also for the cyclical temperature changes on our planet.

But there are real changes going on in our climate. And I don't want to argue about the causes. What I want to argue about is, how are we going to get there to positively affect the impacts?

She then went on to argue that increasing drilling was imperative to curbing climate change (no, really):

We've got to become energy independent for that reason. Also as we rely more and more on other countries that don't care as much about the climate as we do, we're allowing them to produce and to emit and even pollute more than America would ever stand for.

So even in dealing with climate change, it's all the more reason that we have an "all of the above" approach, tapping into alternative sources of energy and conserving fuel, conserving our petroleum products and our hydrocarbons so that we can clean up this planet and deal with climate change.