H.R. 3409 contains five of the most-anti-environmental bills previously passed by a House distinguished by its radical anti-health anti-science bias.

There’s no doubt that this House of Representatives has amassed the most anti-environmental record in history. According to the Democratic staff of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, the House voted more than 300 times “to block environmental regulations, weaken environmental laws, and stop environmental research” since January 2011.

In a very, very bad year, the “single worst anti-environmental bill” introduced by the House hits the floor this Friday. Officially (but ironically) titled “Stop the War on Coal Act,” H.R. 3409 actually represents the House leadership’s own elaborate and well-funded war on longstanding protections of clean air and water enjoyed by all Americans. In the guise of saving King Coal, Rep. Upton (R-MI) leads a charge up Capitol Hill to shred the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, enthusiastically eviscerating health and environmental safeguards.

Russel Train -- Photo Courtesy The Heinz Awards

It’s not the passing of Russell Train – who died Monday at 92 – that we remember, but the life he led as a powerful, humble, principled warrior for the Earth.

Mr. Train was chairman of the newly created White House Council on Environmental Quality before President Nixon picked him to be the second head of the Environmental Protection Agency, a role that fully launched his career as a conservationist, recalls Joan Mulhern, a colleague of mine who worked with this remarkable man to protect the Clean Water Act.

A lifelong Republican, Mr. Train embodied what it meant to be a conservative conservationist, Joan said.

Your voice is as important as your vote—there is a lot you can do. (Jason Langheine)

After the summer we have had, my mind is on climate change, what more Earthjustice can do about it, and what’s at stake in this election.

I experienced the effects of climate change this summer during a trip through Colorado. Heat, drought and fire set an almost apocalyptic tone for the trip. There was no snow on the peaks, stream flows were down, and smoke filled the air. Similar impacts afflicted 60 percent of our nation and spread over three continents; sea ice coverage in the Arctic was at a record low.

Earthjustice is working hard to slow and reverse these climate trends by bringing cases across the country to beat down coal, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and expand the market for renewable energy and efficiency. And with your support we are doing more every day: hiring more attorneys and bringing more cases in more places. We are grateful not only for your support which makes this possible, but also for your advocacy which helps get better rules adopted and enforced.

Chukchi Sea, Alaska. (Florian Schulz / visionsofthewild.com)

Shell’s vice president of Alaska operations was quoted last Saturday as saying "Happy, happy, happy." Then the ice showed up.

Hours after Shell began drilling in the Artic, operations were forced to shut down to accommodate a drifting 30-mile by 12-mile hunk of sea ice, moving at a rate of a mile every 30 minutes. That’s what ice does in the Arctic—it is unpredictable, unforgiving and moves in with the high winds just in time to ruin a happy day.

A week ago, the Department of the Interior approved drilling in “non-oil-bearing zones” and Shell immediately began drilling its first exploration well in the Chukchi Sea, off the coast of Northern Alaska in the early morning hours of Sunday. The drilling lasted only a few hours before the company took a “precautionary” move and disconnected the drilling rig from the seafloor anchors and temporarily moved the vessel off the well site. One wonders what would happen if such an ice mass moved in while Shell was trying to respond to a major oil spill.

National Park Service Photo

For decades, U.S. sugar barons have been dumping their polluted runoff into the Florida Everglades. Day after day, these politically powerful corporations send chemical fertilizers and pesticides into the great marsh—wrecking America’s only subtropical wilderness in the process.

It’s clearly wrong for sugar plantations to use our public natural resources as their private dumping grounds, and we here at the Florida office of Earthjustice fight many legal battles to stop it.

Recently, we got some curious news. A sugar plantation pollution scheme which was supposedly shelved 24 years ago is now rearing its ugly head again.

Seeking protection from unsafe dumping practices, more than 300 public interest groups from 43 states, representing millions across the nation, sent a letter this week to the U.S. Senate opposing S. 3512, the “Coal Ash Recycling and Oversight Act of 2012.”

The bill, introduced last July by Sens. Hoeven (R-SD), Conrad (D-SD) and Baucus (D- MT), prevents the EPA from finalizing its proposed coal ash rule—or ever issuing regulations for the nation’see second largest industrial waste stream. In its place, S. 3512 encourages inadequate state programs that preserve the status quo and extend the lives of hundreds of leaking toxic dumps.

The loss of federal protection for the wolves is a death sentence for at least 56 wolves now occupying areas of the state are now a shoot-on-sight zone. (Shutterstock / CritterBiz)

The tragic delisting of Wyoming’s gray wolves from the Endangered Species List has many wildlife defenders up in arms, and with sound reason: the removal of protections for the wolves marks an end to many years of successful recovery efforts of a species that was once on the verge of extinction.

To hand over the “wolf management plan” to a state that intends to eradicate wolves from most of its territory seems at odds with the idea of protecting and recovering an endangered species, yet that is exactly what Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has done.

Today's the day that we deliver our Mountain Heroes photo petition to the Obama administration! This massive photo petition is historic—it includes photos and personal messages and stories from more than 13,500 people across the country who wrote to President Obama and his administration for an end to mountaintop removal mining. It's the largest photo petition ever to be delivered to the president, and it's all about ending the nation's most destructive mining practice, protecting Appalachian families and communities, and standing up for clean water, healthy communities, environmental justice, and beautiful mountains and wildlife.

I can't tell you all how honored I feel in delivering your inspiring and touching messages and images today to our nation's leaders. When I look at this petition and see all your photos and messages, I am moved to my very core. You all have created as powerful and beautiful of a solidarity display as I can imagine.

Salt Creek, Canyonlands National Park. The state of Utah hopes to turn the creek into a highway. Ted Zukoski photo.

Canyonlands National Park—which contains some of the planet's most fantastic desert scenery and, paradoxically, two of the West's mightiest rivers—just celebrated its 48th birthday.

The state of Utah is working to drive a knife into the heart of the park before it reaches 49.

The state and its ally, San Juan County, Utah, contend that Salt Creek, one of the few permanent streams in the park, is a "constructed highway" that the state—not the Park Service—can manage.

They plan to manage this stream not to protect its rich habitat for wildlife, but instead as a playground for Jeeps and SUVs, relying on a repealed, 19th Century law known as "R.S. 2477."

(Shutterstock)

We’re all familiar with those ubiquitous television commercials that implore us to “ask our doctor” about a new pill to cure depression or anxiety or to treat those unfortunate souls who find themselves depressively anxious. Slipped into nearly every such commercial is the reassuring voice of a narrator who inconspicuously mentions that this same magical pill has a few side effects. Oh, you know, nothing too serious—maybe you’ll go blind in one eye or lose control of your bowels, maybe your liver will cease functioning. Nothing worth fretting over.

In the same vein, pesticides are often promoted as the silver bullet panaceas of the agriculture industry. Sure, the industry seems to say, this or that pesticide might contain toxic chemicals that damage human health or negatively impact ecosystems, but these same pesticides make growing shiny apples and juicy blueberries so much easier! And besides, finding pesticide alternatives might cost the agriculture industry a few extra bucks.

Fortunately, Earthjustice is well-versed in using the law and the courts to hold accountable those who jeopardize the health and safety of the public and our environment. Case in point: azinphos-methyl, a dangerous pesticide commonly referred to as AZM.