That yellow you see is egg on our face.

A few weeks back, the Senate passed a bill providing for a two-million acre expansion of the National Wilderness Preservation System, and we all cheered. It was a umbrella bill that encompassed some 170 smaller bills, many of which had been pending for years.

One small part was Mineral King Valley in the Sierra Nevada, which was, in many ways, the birthplace of environmental law and Earthjustice. We blogged, op-edited, and pitched the story far and wide. An op-ed was circulated by High Country News. A story was commissioned by American Lawyer magazine, another by Sierra, the Sierra Club's journal.

Reversing its August 2008 decision, the California Fish and Game Commission recently voted to grant candidate status to the Pacific fisher under the California Endangered Species Act.

This begins the review process to determine if full protection is warranted.

Earthjustice and our colleagues at Center for Biological Diversity have worked to protect the fisher for many years, so this policy reversal is very good news.

Last week, a Colorado legislative committee approved new oil and gas drilling rules that will protect drinking water, wildlife and the state's natural resources. The state spent almost two years developing the rules, which will be the most comprehensive in the nation, to deal with the impacts of the state's unprecedented oil and gas boom.

Earthjustice has been there since the beginning as attorneys for the Colorado Environmental Coalition. Before the committee hearing, Earthjustice activists in Colorado sent more than 1,300 e-mail messages to legislators urging their support.

The oil and gas industry is making a last-ditch attempt to derail the rules with scare tactics, claiming without evidence that the new rules will drive drilling rigs to neighboring states.

Down here in Florida, we are continuing our fight against the giant, destructive phosphate strip mines that trash our landscapes and pollute our water.

Our latest legal battle aims at some incredible strong-arm corporate tactics that Mosaic Phosphate is using to shut out local citizens and get its local land-use approvals to mine in the watersheds of the gorgeous Peace River in Southwest Florida. Read the full story.

We are thrilled to announce that "due to current economic conditions and increasing regulatory uncertainties," LS Power pulled the plug on the proposed White Pine coal-fired power plant near Ely, Nevada this week. The company will instead focus on delivering renewable power to cities, including Las Vegas.

While economic conditions look bad for any new power project, what may be less clear is which "regulatory uncertainties" LS Power references.

Well, we have a hunch.

Interior Sec. Ken Salazar stunned the environmental world this morning by agreeing to remove northern gray wolves from protections of the Endangered Species Act. By doing so, Salazar has endorsed one of the more infamous actions taken by Bush on his way out of office.

Or, as Earthjustice Attorney Jenny Harbine put it: "The federal government is handing Idaho and Montana a loaded gun. The Fish and Wildlife Service says states may kill all but 300 of the current northern Rockies population of around 1,500 wolves. The population cannot stand this level of mortality."

Yesterday—10 weeks after a billion-gallon spill of coal ash in Tennessee—two U.S. senators challenged the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate disposal and storage of the toxic sludge.

Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Thomas Carper (D-DE) submitted a resolution requesting rules "as quickly as possible" and calling on the Tennessee Valley Authority to "be a national leader in technological innovation, low-cost power and environmental stewardship." On Dec. 22, about 1 billion gallons of coal ash burst through a dam at the Tennessee Valley Authority site in Harriman, flooding more than 300 acres with toxic levels of arsenic, lead, mercury, selenium and boron.

Communities have been exposed to the toxic substance, which presents a cancer risk nine times greater than smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. Yet coal ash is severely under-regulated and exempt from safeguards required of even municipal waste landfills. Earthjustice is calling on the EPA to eventually prohibit the storage of wet coal ash sludge and instead, mandate dry disposal in monitored landfills or safe recycling of the material.

A few years ago, I climbed aboard a small airplane in Charleston, WV, and took off for a bird's eye view of mountaintop removal. The spectacle left me speechless, mouth agape in awe at the vast and total demolition of one of the world's oldest mountain ranges.

When we took off, I foolishly expected to see a mine here, fly for 20 minutes, see another mine there, fly for 20 more minutes, see a final mine and then head back to the airport. Instead, the challenge was trying to find land not completely razed, scarred, demolished or barren just 10 short minutes after takeoff. I'd seen the pictures, I'd spoken with the locals, but never before had I imagined the utter devastation in these once-picturesque West Virginia mountains.

The Obama administration signalled today that it is rescinding a last-minute rule change by the Bush administration that eliminated a requirement that executive agencies (the Forest Service, for example) must consult with scientific experts in the Fish and Wildlife Service or NOAA when a project may affect protected species. When Bush instituted the change last December, Earthjustice immediately challenged the rule change in federal court.

I just received notice that Sen. Robert Menendez, D-NJ, has put a hold on the nominations of John Holdren  to be Science Advisor in the White House and Jane Lubchenko, who is slated to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. According to anonymous sources quoted by the Washington Post, the senator has no objection to these individuals but wants to force senators to focus their attention on some matter having to do with Cuba.

I have no opinion one way or another about Sen. Menendez, but I have a very strong feeling that both these individuals should be confirmed instantly. There’s an endless amount of work to do, and both are supremely qualified to do it.

If you go to the senator's website, there’s a form to fill out for comments. Give him a piece of your mind.