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On the eve of the Democratic National Convention, protesters march for action on climate change. (AP Images / Sipa USA)

Greg Lemons is the staunchly Republican mayor of Abita Springs, a bite-size town in rural Louisiana that both draws its water and gets its name from the famous and pristine aquifer that flows beneath its soil. A chatty and cheerful fellow, Lemons like to think of himself as a pragmatic leader, the sort of person who strives to fix problems instead of fight about them. Nevertheless, in late 2014, he found himself in a legal brawl.

It was autumn of that year when he first heard that the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources had approved an exploratory drilling permit for a proposed fracking project just outside of town. The project, which had been approved despite the mayors protests, didnt sit well with him. He feared it would degrade the communitys environment, disrupt its quality of life, and ruin its reputation.

We are very sensitive about our water here, says Lemons, adding that much of his towns economic activity, including the locally based Abita Brewing Company, is based on the renowned quality of its aquifer. I was not content to stay silent about it.

In late December 2014, he sued, arguing in state court that the drilling permit violated local zoning ordinances. Though Abita Springs quickly lost its legal case and exploratory drilling commenced, the fracking project ultimately folded for financial reasons. In the meantime, Lemons learned some important lessons.

While he fought the frackers, with their noxious chemicals and earth-shattering drills, the mayor started reading up on alternatives to oil, gas, and coal. He educated himself about solar panels and wind farms, about energy-efficient lighting and electrical vehicles. He learned about the jobs that these technologies could help create and the budget savings they might enable. Being a business-minded member of the GOP, he liked what he saw. Soon enough, he was enamored with the economic and environmental promise of green energy.

It convinced me that we need to develop sustainable energy sources and we need to start now, he says. We should have started a long time ago.

So, alongside other residents in his town of 2,500, he set to work. He formed a committee to research and develop renewable-energy plans for the city. He started replacing all the towns light bulbs with energy-efficient alternatives. He initiated talks with local electricity providers, hoping to obtain solar-powered street lights, install solar panels on municipal buildings, and perhaps even develop a solar farm outside of town in the months and years ahead. He crafted a plan to bring electric vehicle charging stations to Abita Springs. And in March of this year, in order to signal an official commitment to these lofty goals, Mayor Lemons joined the Sierra Clubs Ready for 100 campaign, announcing that his town will strive to run on 100 percent renewable energy by 2030.

Little Abita Springs, in other words, is putting the Trump administration to shame. And its not alone. As the White House withdraws from the Paris climate agreement, as it capitulates to the reactionary agenda of fossil-fuel interests, small towns and large cities alike are stepping into the breach.

The very day Trump turned his back on Paris, 285 mayors across the country announced that they would still uphold the agreements goals. Thirty cities, meanwhile, have joined the Sierra Clubs Ready for 100 campaign, committing themselves entirely to renewable energy in the coming decades. And though large progressive centers like San Francisco and Portland, Oregon, often get the most attention, its tiny towns and small cities above all that have acted quicklyand with strong commitmentto reshape their energy economies to save money, create jobs, and combat climate change. From Abita Springs to Georgetown, Texas, and Greensburg, Kanas, little communities laboring out of the spotlight are walking away from fossil fuels, and fast.

There is a really diverse set of cities that have pledged to do this, says Shane Levy, a spokesperson for the Sierra Clubs Ready for 100 campaign. Some cities, like San Francisco, Madison, Boulder, which are more progressive, might be making the commitment out of concern for climate change. But a lot of it has to do with cost and autonomy, and some of the more rural and conservative cities are among the leaders in actually following up and making the transition.

Take, for example, Greensburg, Kansas, a tiny heartland town of 700 people that was nearly wiped off the map by a massive tornado back in 2007. After its harrowing run in with the weather, residents decided to rebuild the community around green energy. Just months after the tornado, the city council adopted a sustainable comprehensive plan that charted the course for obtaining renewable power. Five years later, Greensburg started getting every bit of its electricity from solar and geothermal sources as well as a 12.5 megawatt wind farm that sits outside the towns borders. Oil, gas, and coal have been cut out entirely.

Consider Georgetown, Texas, too. Its transition to renewable energy started in 2010, when students at locally based Southwestern University convinced officials there to work with the city-owned utility, Georgetown Utility Systems, to derive all the campuss electricity needs from wind and solar sources. Seeing the budgetary stability that decades-long, fixed-rate renewable energy contracts offered the school, the city soon followed suit and signed up for long-term renewable energy contracts of its own.

It was originally a business decision, says the citys conservative Republican mayor, Dale Ross. Our main mission was to mitigate two kinds of risk: the first was price volatility in the energy market and the second was regulatory risk from government policies. That was the challenge and we found the solution in wind and solar.

But then if you want to get philosophical, he adds, dont we have moral and ethical obligation to leave the planet in a better condition than we found it?

This year, Georgetown, which sits in the center of Texas oil-and-gas country, started getting all of its energy from wind and solar farms around the region. And, increasingly, its in good company.

Small cities like Burlington, Vermont, and Aspen, Colorado, also boast a 100 percent renewable status, while many others are close behind. Grand Rapids, Michigan, for instance, currently gets 27 percent of its energy from green sources and aims to run on 100 percent renewable energy by 2025. This past January, Bowling Green, Ohio, a town of 31,000, unveiled the largest solar farm in the state, a 20 megawatt public-private partnership that will power roughly 3,000 homes.

The very day Trump turned his back on Paris, 285 mayors announced that they would still uphold the agreement's goals.

We have had a sense that the environment and energy are nonpartisan issues here at the local level, says Bowling Green Councilman Daniel Gordon, a Democrat, who supported the project. We dont have debates about whether climate change is real, everyone agrees that it is.

Then there are towns and cities like Moab, Utah; Pueblo, Colorado; and, yes, Abita Springs that are just getting started.

LeAnn Pinniger Magee, who chairs the mayors Abita Committee for Energy Sustainability, says the towns first step is to install solar panels on its big electric welcome sign and also install an electric vehiclecharging station on site. The project, she estimates, will be completed this summer, and shortly afterward the town plans to launch a solar-powered street light pilot program that, if successful, could save it $20,000 a year in electricity costs.

We are just three months into this, she says but we have so much support from the community that we are confident that we can make some big changes within the next five years.

Mayor Lemons, for his part, likens realizing his towns renewable-energy dreams to eating an elephant.

You take one bite at a time, he says.

It will take a lot of small bites to make up for the Trump administrations decision to skip the meal altogether. Then again, there are a lot of committed people at the table, and more are joining every day.

On June 2, the day after Trump withdrew from the Paris agreement, the mayor of Pittsburgh announced his citys intention to generate all of its electricity from renewable energy by 2035. Santa Barbara, California, soon followed suit, declaring on June 6 that it would like to run entirely on renewable energy by 2030. Later this month, meanwhile, the nonpartisan US Conference of Mayors will vote on a resolution that would declare its support for 100 percent renewable energy in cities nationwide.

Its up to us as leaders to creatively implement clean energy solutions for our cities across the nation, said Steve Benjamin, mayor of Columbia, South Carolina, and vice president of the US Conference of Mayors, in a recent statement about the proposed resolution. Its not merely an option now; its imperative.

Indeed, whether or not the fossil-fuel lobbyists and their friends in the Trump administration want it, the clean- and renewable-energy revolution is well underwayand its urban.

Read more here:
Even Republican Mayors Are Rejecting Trump's Energy Policies - The Nation.

News & Observer

NC Republican group's $100 offer to debate anyone News & Observer In Asheville, the Buncombe County Republican Party wants to hold a debate with a group that doesn't share its conservative views. The party announced Monday that it will make a $100 donation to charity if any organized political or neighborhood group ...

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NC Republican group's $100 offer to debate anyone - News & Observer

Greg Gianforte, the congressman-elect who punched and "bodyslammed" a Guardian reporter, will perform 40 hours of community service and pay a $300 fine after pleading guilty to assault. He must also attend 20 hours of anger management courses.

Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs was asking Gianforte a question on May 24 when the Republican candidate threw him to the ground.

"A Gallatin County judge sentenced Gianforte to 40 hours of community service, 20 hours of anger management classes and a $300 fine," Montana Public Radio's Eric Whitney reports.

According to Whitney Bermes, a reporter for the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, the judge initially gave Gianforte four days in jail, where under the terms of a jail work program he would be able to spend two of those days working.

The judge, for whatever reason, reportedly change the sentence within minutes to specify community service instead of jail time.

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After physically attacking a reporter and allowing his spokesman to lie about it in an official statement, Republican congressman-elect Greg Gianforte has formally apologized to his victim. He is also donating $50,000 to the Committee to Protect Journalists. My physical response to your legitimate question was unprofessional, unacceptable, and unlawful. As both a candidate for []

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Excerpt from:
Republican Greg Gianforte, who punched reporter, sentenced to 40 hours community service - Boing Boing

Tom MacArthur. Photo: Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images

House Republicans are scared. Last week, Arizona congresswoman Martha McSally warned donors that her political prospects were falling with President Trumps approval numbers. I have an R next to my name and right now, this environment would have me not prevail, McSally said in a leaked recording. After winning her district by 14 points last year, a recent poll found McSally trailing a generic Democrat.

And shes far from the only Republican who sees a big blue wave cresting.

Republicans are growing increasingly worried that they will lose the House of Representatives, Politico wrote in its Playbook Monday morning. The pervasive pessimism comes as there continues to be a dearth of legislative victories, and a toxic political environment that appears to be worsening.

For Politico, the upshot of this pessimism is clear: Republicans will be less willing to take risks as they shift into political survival mode.

But that begs the question: For House Republicans, what constitutes a political risk?

After all, the House GOP was already navigating a toxic political environment in early May. And yet, when the time came to vote on a health-care bill that less than 20 percent of the public supported, self-styled moderate Republicans from competitive districts toed the party line.

At the end of the day, all those town-hall protests and calls to congressional offices did put the fear of 2018 into their hearts. But that fear pushed them further to the right. As the Washington Post reported:

Moderates considered the risk of voting for a bill that condemned thousands of poor people to preventable deaths for the sake of increasing income inequality. Then, they contemplated the risk of bucking their partys leadership, donors, and base for the sake of protecting nonaffluent cancer patients.

And most decided they were much more afraid of doing the latter.

This is important context for Tom MacArthurs weekend visit to Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster. MacArthur represents a New Jersey district whose registered voters are only 2 percent more Republican than Democratic. He was co-chairman of the House GOPs Tuesday Group, a caucus of self-identified moderate Republicans. And yet, when his partys widely despised health-care bill died an untimely death, he decided to spearhead the effort to bring it back to life.

Now, hes counting on the widely despised president and GOP donor class to get him reelected. As Politico reports:

The event was closed to press, but MacArthur campaign strategist Chris Russell said Trumps remarks focused on MacArthurs role in revamping the House GOPs Obamacare replacement bill.[Trump] talked about the health care fight, Russell said. [He was] very complimentary of Tom and his efforts on health care and, moving forward, sees him as a leader in Washington.

MacArthur will be a test case for whether the high turnout rate of elderly white people combined with the deep pockets of right-wing billionaires can insulate House Republicans from public opinion (and/or democratic accountability).

Only 8 percent of Americans want the health-care bill that MacArthur revamped to pass the Senate. Only 38 percent like having Donald Trump as their president.

MacArthur thinks his survival depends on preaching to that small, well-funded choir. Judging by developments in the Senate, many of his fellow GOP moderates think the same.

Rightwing media is encouraging Trump to pull the trigger. And the only people that could punish him for doing so are congressional Republicans.

Keep an eye on what African-American voters and D.C. suburbanites do.

Body-slamming a journalist has worked out pretty well for Greg Gianforte.

But there was some good news for the White House in the decision.

Almost 10,000 commuters will be affected and have been instructed to warn their employers in advance.

Reince Priebus called his job a blessing, while Pence with greatest privilege of my life.

Republican aide, when asked if the public can see the bill, replies, We arent stupid.

The public can tune in at 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday.

His one-year-old centrist party is poised to win an unlikely majority in Frances parliament, bolstering his presidential mandate.

It was technically true we did not have a counter-intelligence file case open on then President-elect Trump. Vindication?

Tom MacArthur represents a swing district in a blue state. But hes still more afraid of losing the conservative base than the center.

A group of enterprising lawyers thinks it might be, whether all roads lead to Russia or not.

They were photographed trudging toward their new home on Sunday evening.

Their attorneys general will argue that the president has violated the Constitutions emoluments clause.

Trump may have helped provoke a dangerous escalation of tensions in the Persian Gulf.

Watching a risky career move unfold in real time.

The president is reportedly worried about large-scale protests against him.

James Comey wasnt the only one receiving unwanted phone calls from the president.

Read the original post:
Vulnerable House Republican Ties Himself to Trump - New York Magazine

We got something in common, Dale Ross told Al Gore last summer. You invented the internet. And I invented green energy.

Ross, the mayor of Georgetown, Texas pop. 65,000 was having a bit of fun with the former vice president and longtime environmental activist. But, in the coming months, his rapid ascendancy in the renewable-energy cosmos might make the boast seem less of a joke.

The mayor has recently been interviewed by a Dutch film crew and appeared on both NPR and MSNBC. He spoke last month at the Earth Optimism Summit in Washington, sponsored by the Smithsonian Conversation Commons. And in the coming months, he will take on the role of unlikely hero in three high-profile documentary films, including the sequel to Gores 2006 hit, "An Inconvenient Truth."

A volunteer politician from a little-known town in central Texas, Ross might otherwise be laboring at his more workaday tasks: issuing proclamations to residents who turn 100 and promoting the beauty of Georgetowns central square. But he is becoming a national media darling because, in an era of hardened political boundaries, he has unapologetically colored outside ideological lines. He is a Republican, a conservative and a Donald Trump voter (with an asterisk on the last point) who is so committed to green energy he has pushed his city to become one of the first in the country to get all of its electricity from the wind and the sun.

A hip video blogger from Los Angeles showed up not long ago to hear Rosss rap on renewable energy.

Weve got an endless supply of wind and sun, the mayor said on the blog. Ill take that bet over fossil fuels, any day of the week. The bearded, denim-clad blogger from the West Coast, who goes by his first name, Hyla, quickly embraced the the mayor, wearing white shirt and bow-tie, as my honorable Republican homie.

Ross, 58, makes time for all curious outsiders even when one-hour interviews stretch to four. My Tea Party friends accuse me of being a Democrat, Ross chuckled. But we need to put national politics aside and make decisions that are best for the people we serve.

Though he clearly doesnt shrink from the attention, Ross says its really all about the city he loves. A conversation with him will not end without at least one boast about the town square (acclaimed for its beauty and preservation of 19th-century architecture), a beloved swimming hole (though the map appears to put that an hour south of town) and the relentless hospitality offered by what he calls the greatest city on earth!

Ross, an accountant by day, said the citys moves toward alternative energy had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with common sense.

Despite its rich history in the petroleum industry, Texas has become a national leader in renewable electric power because of its ample supplies of both sun and wind. We started in 2008 with the goal of getting 30 percent of our power from renewables by 2030, Ross said. But improved technology in solar panels and more accessible transmission lines allowed the city to become much more ambitious.

With favorable weather, Georgetown already could claim last year that it got all its power from renewable sources. It will slide just under that mark in 2017. But it has a contract with a new solar farm coming online in West Texas next year.

From then on, we will be 100 percent renewable, said Ross. I think we will run out of fossil fuels before we ever run out of sunshine and wind.

The electricity will come from the solar installation in the west part of the state and from a giant wind farm 40 miles west of Amarillo in the Texas panhandle. That energy feeds into the state's general electrical grid. But Georgetown has contracts directly with the solar and wind providers, paying their rates to pull as much power off the grid as it needs.

I think we will run out of fossil fuels before we ever run out of sunshine and wind. Dale Ross, Republican mayor of Georgetown, Texas.

The mayor said that long-term contracts will shield the city from price fluctuations, and the volatile politics of the energy sector, for 25 or 30 years to come.

Ross said he voted for Trump, though he did not like either of the nominees in the 2016 election. He believes that Trump backed himself into a corner by pledging during the campaign to abandon the Paris climate agreement. When you put politics in the decision-making process, its not going to be an optimal decision, he said.

He deemed himself disappointed on a personal level that Trump reversed Americas commitment to meet carbon-reduction goals. But that does nothing to us here, because we have 20- to 25-year wind and solar contracts. We have stability, Ross said. There is nothing the federal government can do about that.

The makers of An Inconvenient Sequel, which debuts in New York and Los Angeles July 28 before opening in theaters nationwide, said Gore was intent on spending time with the Texas mayor.

Al feels this issue has really grown beyond politics and parties and he felt it was important to reach out and spend some time with a leader in a deeply red state, in a red city, who was so intent on going to solar and going to wind, said Jon Shenk, who directed the film with his wife, Bonni Cohen.

The mayor, in turn, became smitten with Gore, the politician he voted against multiple times. He said the former vice president had a wicked sense of humor and was loose enough to pose for pictures beneath the Williamson County Republican Party banner. Gore also took time to speak to Rosss wife, who runs the local history museum. And when Gore discussed the economics of energy, Ross was impressed.

He really knows his stuff, Ross said. He is incredibly smart. He is just the real deal.

Former US Vice President Al Gore leaves after meetings at Trump Tower in New York City on December 5, 2016. / AFP PHOTO / DOMINICK REUTERDOMINICK REUTER/AFP/Getty Images DOMINICK REUTER / AFP - Getty Images

Michael Bonfiglio, who filmed the mayor for

The sentiment apparently won over at least one other filmmaker, Jamie Redford (son of Robert Redford), whose HBO

Is the little-known pol from a red state suddenly in danger of over-exposure? Bonfiglio concedes he felt a slight twinge when he learned Ross would appear in so many other forums. But he is such a compelling figure, and so is the town, that we had to keep them in, the director said.

Mayor Ross got another affirmation in early May when voters returned him to office for a second three-year term. He won 72 percent of the vote. Last Thursday, he and his wife traveled to Washington to attend a screening of From the Ashes at National Geographics headquarters and museum. Mickie Ross says she and her husband remain awed and impressed every time they get to return to the capital.

Her husband gives an "aw shucks" to the suggestion he has done anything that special, saying Georgetown's energy initiative amounts to a no-brainer.

We are going to provide cost certainty on our electricity for 25 or 30 years. And there are no pollutants going back in the atmosphere," he said. "Everybody wins on this deal.

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For a Republican Mayor in Texas, Clean Energy Is a 'No Brainer' - NBCNews.com