bpchesney.org

The candidates for Senate in the Special Election to fill the seat vacated by the death of Ted Kennedy filed their first disclosures today with the FEC on the amount of money they’ve raised.  As reported, Martha Coakley and Alan Khazei have raised considerable sums of money in a short amount of time: $2 M for Martha in a month and $1 M for Alan in a week.  Below is a chart showing the funds raised by the 5 candidates.

Pagliuca has actually disclosed $200,000 but $50,000 of that cannot be used in the primary due to campaign finance restrictions.  An individual may only contribute up to $4800 in the primary and $4800 in the general election.  Capuano started out with $1.2 M in his war chest banked from previous campaigns.

Senators Kerry and Boxer will be introducing a climate change bill in the Senate tomorrow.  This is the next step in the process of passing climate change legislation this congress after the passage of the Waxman-Markey bill through the House last spring.  The Washington Post has released a draft version of the bill.  One interesting aspect of the bill is the creation of a Clean Technology Business Competition Grant program.

The grant program would provide $20 M to nonprofit organizations to administer, and I’m assuming fund the winners of, green business plan competitions.  The goal of these competitions is to provide mentoring and training for developing these businesses in early development and to enhance their competitiveness.  According to the leaked draft of the bill, the companies competing in the competitions funded by this grant program should be focused on meeting

high priority economic, environmental and energy goals in areas including air quality, energy efficiency and renewable energy, transportation, water quality and conservation, green buildings and waste management.