Obama has quickly switched from the bump to the boot. All week he's been kicking over Bush-era dominoes, and today's was a whopper. The Environmental Protection Agency is starting to review its 2007 refusal to let California regulate greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles. The review affects 16 other states that also want to control emissions. It's a big deal that we've long been pushing for.

But, the biggest domino of all is still standing in the way of EPA really cracking down on greenhouse gases. We're talking about that shameful "Johnson memo" issued by the Bush-EPA administrator of the same name just before Obama took office. The memo told EPA employees to ignore CO2 - the single largest contributor to global warming. Without saying it, the memo also said: Ignore a Supreme Court ruling that authorizes EPA to control CO2.

What an irresistible target for a bump from Obama's boot.

In those cold days of last December -- as Bush feverishly tried to finish crippling the nation's environmental protections -- the new day promised by Obama seemed only a flicker at the end of an 8-year tunnel.

After today's news out of Utah, that flicker is looking more like a flare. Interior Sec. Ken Salazar announced the cancellation of oil and gas leases on 110,000 acres of public land abutting some of the West's purest wilderness. Aside from validating Earthjustice legal action challenging those leases, the cancellation could be interpreted as the first sign of Obama turning back the Bush tide.

Contradictory actions by the coal industry this week illustrate how treacherous the road is to a clean energy future for America.

On Tuesday, to our delight, developers of the proposed Highwood coal-fired power plant in Montana surrendered and announced that they would instead build natural gas and wind-powered generating plants. The credit for this should go to Earthjustice attorneys Abigail Dillen and Jenny Harbine, whose two years of legal action against the plant obviously paid off.

Also on Tuesday, Michigan's governor made it clear that her state was becoming a coal-free zone and gave coal developers marching orders to look at alternative energy.

But sobering news out of Kansas on the same day cut our victory dance short.

We haven’t gotten much good news out of the Environmental Protection Agency for eight years, but suddenly the news is huge... so big that it deserves an exclamation mark. Bear with me as I wend my way towards the punch line.

President Obama and the new folks he's put in charge at EPA are now reconsidering a Bush-era decision to let a monster coal-fired power plant operate without controlling its prodigious C02 emissions. The proposed plant, called Desert Rock, would pour air pollutants over Navajo communities in New Mexico, and 12.7 milllion tons of C02 into the atmosphere each year. C02 is the world’s biggest contributor to global warming.

The EPA, under Bush, said that's OK.

It’s not OK under Obama.

Just a few weeks ago, I stood with my two young sons in the Southern Sierra, gazing at the fortress walls of the Great Western Divide and marveling at how peaceful it seemed compared to 30 years before.

Those decades ago, I had come to this same spot as a newspaper reporter to write about the early struggles of the environmental movement - struggles that saved Mineral King from development, halted clearcutting on the national forest, created the Golden Trout Wilderness, and gave birth to Earthjustice.

But there was a bitter side to those victories, as I quickly learned. First, my editor cursed me publicly in the newsroom when he discovered my green bent; then perversely assigned me the job of covering the closure of Johnsondale, a bankrupt Sierra timber town. He wanted me to feel the consequences of environmental activism.

Long before global warming came along, fossil fuels were bad for humankind, sez Michael Stermer, a professor and author who laid out his theories this week for the Los Angeles Times.

Stermer blames non-renewable fossil fuels for the world’s unending political/economic turmoil of the last 500 years.

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.

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.

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.

Colorado Governor Bill Ritter, Jr., has just announced that he will join Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius at "Out of Kansas - A Clean Energy Agenda," a clean energy forum sponsored by Earthjustice on June 26 in Denver.

Open at no charge to the public, the program is at the Denver Athletic Club, 1325 Glenarm Place.  A continental breakfast begins at 7:45 a.m. Gov. Sebelius will speak at 8:30 a.m., followed by a panel discussion featuring three prominent national clean energy authorities.

In a speech aimed at influencing the nation's approach to climate change, Gov. Sebelius will set forth a national clean energy agenda, based on her remarkable struggle to lead Kansas into a sustainable energy future.