This Stephen Colbert clip on oil companies and the environment is fall-over funny and dead-on right.

This post is by Sheryl Canter, an online writer and editorial manager at Environmental Defense Fund.

Tomorrow, the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold an important hearing on the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. On April 2, 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the power of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to address global warming under existing law. Unfortunately, EPA's progress has been stymied by stiff winds blowing from the White House.

Environmental Defense Fund has uncovered a document that provides a disturbing look at the White House's views on global warming science, views that were revealed as part of White House efforts to interfere with progress at EPA. On June 20, the White House Office of Management and Budget transmitted a fax to EPA with numerous comments on a critically important EPA technical document examining how global warming endangers human health and the environment.

The summary below highlights a few remarkable examples from the White House fax [PDF].

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Nearly 7 million passenger vehicles on the road today are in commercial operations. These vehicles are driven hard, averaging nearly double the mileage, fuel consumption and emissions of personal vehicles. As a result, fleets are not only expensive to operate, but are also a major source of global warming pollution.

Environmental Defense Fund has been working with some of the largest commercial fleets - including Fortune 500 titans Abbott, DuPont and Owens Corning - to identify ways to reduce fuel consumption, costs, and greenhouse gas emissions. Our efforts have delivered results. Fleets that fully implemented the program outlined below reduced their emissions by an average of 14 percent, and reduced lifecycle operating costs by 4 percent.

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A picture is worth a thousand words:

Source: Architecture2030, based on data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

From Architecture2030:

According to the US Energy Information Administration, oil production from drilling offshore in the outer continental shelf wouldn't begin until around the year 2017. Once begun, it wouldn't reach peak production until about 2030 when it would produce only 200,000 barrels of oil per day (in yellow above). This would supply a meager 1.2% of total US annual oil consumption (just 0.6% of total US energy consumption). And, the offshore oil would be sold back to the US at the international rate, which today is $106 a barrel. So, the oil produced by offshore drilling would not only be a "drop in the bucket", it would be expensive, which translates to "no relief at the pump".

Gernot Wagner is an economist in the Climate and Air program at Environmental Defense Fund.

U.S. oil companies already have permission to drill in millions of unexplored acres, but there is a push now to drill in one area where they don't have permission: the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). A terrible idea, drilling in ANWR would:

• Not produce much oil.
• Not lower gas prices.
• Harm the environment.

If you (or someone you know) does not believe this, read on!

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This post is by Sheryl Canter, an online writer and editorial manager at Environmental Defense Fund.

People are proposing all kinds of extreme measures to lower gasoline costs, including offshore drilling in areas that would destroy ecosystems despite no additional gas (or savings) for at least a decade.

But there are simple things you can do to immediately lower your gasoline costs by an average of 15 percent. The steps are outlined in a useful new Web site on EcoDriving sponsored by the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. The site is user-friendly, and offers a variety of educational tools, including an informative video and extensive tips on fuel-efficient driving and maintenance practices.

This post is by John Balbus, M.D., M.P.H., Chief Health Scientist at Environmental Defense Fund.

Yesterday, a quiet public hearing on a hot August day in Washington D.C. drew a surprisingly large crowd. The official reason for the hearing, conducted by the National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration (NHTSA), was to take comment on the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for revised Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. A lawsuit forced NHTSA to draft an EIS that assessed global climate change impacts - including health - from improved fuel economy in the U.S. car and light truck fleet.

The 400-page document is technical, turgid, incomplete and misleading, and asserts that it is not possible to distinguish between the future health and climate impacts of a 41 mpg fuel economy versus the present 25 mpg. Needless to say, EDF does not agree with that conclusion or the methods used to come to it, but the comments at the hearing were far broader than just the EIS. Most striking was the lineup of citizens who called on NHTSA to take definitive action on climate change to help protect their future.

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This post is by Mark Brownstein, managing director of business partnerships and specialist on coal technology at Environmental Defense Fund.

On Monday, CONSOL Energy - one of America's leading coal companies - announced they would build America's first coal-to-liquid plant in West Virginia. The press release from coal country announces that a strategy for sequestering carbon dioxide pollution produced by liquefying coal will be part of the project. That's important because an EPA study found that diesel fuel from coal could result in double the greenhouse gas emissions of diesel fuel from oil.

Many Americans are feeling real economic distress with gasoline above four dollars a gallon. Economic hardship and energy security play to coal's strength as a traditionally low cost, domestic, and plentiful energy resource. Deploying the technology to convert it to gasoline and diesel fuel seems like a no-brainer. But it's not so simple.

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This post is by Michael Replogle, Transportation Director at Environmental Defense Fund.

Think back to your last all-you-can eat buffet. Did you eat more than you would have ordering à la carte? The same applies to driving and car insurance. With insurance policies giving almost no consideration to miles driven, if you drive an average amount or less compared to other drivers in your neighborhood, you pay much more per mile for car insurance than high-mileage drivers, which are in the minority. Yet accident risks are clearly linked to miles driven.

Shouldn't your insurance premium correspond to your risk, saving you money if you drive less? That's the idea behind Pay-As-You-Drive (PAYD) Insurance - drive less, pay less. Pricing insurance by the mile not reduces premiums for the majority of drivers, but if universally available, would cut traffic by 8 percent, with corresponding reductions in greenhouse gases, air pollution, congestion, and oil imports.

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This post is by John Balbus, M.D., M.P.H., Chief Health Scientist at Environmental Defense Fund.

Despite EPA's refusal to formally acknowledge the danger of greenhouse gases in its Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR), two recently released EPA reports detail the health dangers of greenhouse gases.

The first, a support document for the ANPR [PDF], summarizes the extensive body of science showing that global warming pollution presents a serious threat to human health and the environment. The document is labeled "draft" and stamped "do not circulate or cite", but is listed on the EPA Web site as one of the supporting documents for the released ANPR. From the Executive Summary:

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