As has been often observed here on unEarthed, the Bush EPA has taken regulatory avoidance to unprecedented levels.(See Martin Wagner's July 11 post

A subtle, but nonetheless nefarious new tactic for avoiding regulation to protect human health and the environment is EPA's recent statistical devaluation of an American life. For purposes of evaluating the costs and benefits of proposed regulations, EPA has adjusted the value of an American life to be nearly $1 million less today that it was five years ago.

Although the Bush administration is only 7 years old, I would still hope it would act more mature than my 6 year-old. After reading the administration's 588 page response to the Supreme Court's order that it consider whether greenhouse gases endanger public health or welfare, however, I'm thinking my son has the edge.

There was a piece in yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle that said that people are abandoning their cars in favor of buses and trains in unprecedented numbers and that the experts say the shift may be permanent.

The reason is high gas prices, of course, and that corroborates what some of us have been saying for years—that gas prices should be high, for this very reason. This is painful for some people, no doubt about that, and someone should figure out ways to help them, but overall this is definitely the proverbial silver lining.

At the very end of the current term of the Supreme Court, the justices announced that they will review a Ninth Circuit decision that forbids Coeur Alaska, a mining company, from dumping mine tailings into Lower Slate Lake north of Juneau, Alaska.

This is not the best news of the week.

Hundreds of people at an Earthjustice energy forum gave a standing ovation to Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius last week in Denver after hearing her tale of fighting off Big Coal so that Kansas could have a clean energy future.

Both Gov. Sebelius and Earthjustice presented their visions of what a national clean energy agenda might look like.

But they weren’t the only visionaries at the program. Tucked into a panel discussion following the Sebelius speech was Randy Udall, who nine years ago predicted the oil crunch America faces today, including the economic devastation it would bring.

Oil and gas company propaganda trots out old 'jobs v. environment' canard. A Denver Post columnist responds 'Oh yeah? We'll take our environment over your jobs!'

Will Colorado's Oil and Gas Commission coddle an industry, or protect our air, water and wildlife for when the boom goes bust?

On Monday, I waited for two hours to put in my two cents before the Colorado Oil and Gas Commission. I spoke in support of their efforts to adopt modest proposals to protect air, water, wildlife, and communities from the coming 22,000+ oil wells slated to be drilled here in the coming two decades.

In line just ahead of me, a young man told a compelling story. He grew up in Trinidad, Colorado, a small town a dozen miles north of the New Mexico border. When coal mines in the area went bust, he said, life in Trinidad got hard. A natural gas boom in the last decade had breathed new life into the area, and gave him a good paying job. He worried that the Commission's proposed rules would drive the gas industry out and turn Trinidad into a "ghost town."

Bill is a long-haul truck driver, plying his trade on the highways of middle America. In my last post about him, I told how he called Earthjustice from his truck, attacking environmentalists for bringing him, and America, to the point of economic ruin.

He ranted in my ear for 5 minutes about me being stupid and un-American for not letting oil companies drill us back to the days of cheap gas. Our national backyard, from Alaska to the coastlines of lower-48, is full of oil, he said – utterly exasperated at my inability to comprehend such common sense.

Actually, I was comprehending plenty as Bill raged. Clearly, I thought, he's just another right wing-bullet, shot our way by some talk show maniac. So, when Bill finally took a breath, the first thing I asked was, which talk show host he listened to.

Bill fell silent.

One of the first things I ever had published in a book was a chapter in The Environmental Handbook, a Friends of the Earth/Ballantine Books number, published for the first Earth Day, in 1970. It was called, "Ecopornography, or How to Spot an Ecological Phony."

It's time to dust it off and send it around again.

The voice mail caller accused me of being a Communist, anti-American, out-of-touch, and stupid. Worst of all, he spat out, I was an environmentalist.

Bill was furious, like hundreds of callers to Earthjustice in the last two months. Driven to call us by rabid, right-wing radio hosts and bloggers, most folks just wanted to rant about how we were driving up gas prices by opposing the obvious solution: drilling the coasts, drilling the Arctic, drilling wherever in America we can to free us from high gas prices and foreign potentates.

But, Bill, a long-haul truck driver, was different. He didn't just want to accuse, he wanted to convince. Call me back, if you dare, he said, warning that he had just filled his truck with dozens of gallons of diesel at $5+ per gallon.