One year ago in this column, I called on Environmental Protection Agency chief Stephen Johnson to resign for letting politics, not science, guide his agency's decisions. Nor was I alone—10,000 EPA employees were in open revolt for the same reason. Johnson was defying the Supreme Court's ruling that his agency should move forward on climate change and was refusing to approve California's forward-looking controls on climate-altering pollution.

Today, I am calling on all Earthjustice supporters to join with me in thanking his successor, Lisa Jackson, for steering the EPA back on course with a string of good decisions, especially her action last week aimed at regulating one of the most toxic side effects of burning coal for power: coal ash.

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."

Interior Dept. Sec. Ken Salazar is turning his nose up at another one of Bush's "midnight regulations." This one has to do with leases for oil shale research and development in Colorado and Utah.

Salazar halted the lease sale process because it had terms that didn't pass "the smell test," he announced this week. Instead, he will start a new leasing process that includes 90 days of public comment.

This is clearly a move in the right direction by Salazar, who -- unlike Bush -- at least is taking time to kick the idea around. It's an idea that's worth a good kick. One of the dirtiest ways of getting energy, oil shale extraction has never been commercially proven. In a word, it stinks.

The U.S. Supreme Court ended years of legal battles today by declining to hear industry's appeal of a 2008 Earthjustice victory. In that case Earthjustice, joined by more than a dozen public health and environmental groups and 14 states, challenged a plan by the Bush administration that would have created mercury "hot spots" across the country. The lower court compared the logic to that of the dangerously irrational Queen of Hearts character in Alice in Wonderland.

Two weeks ago, the Obama administration withdrew government support of the appeal, but that didn't stop utility companies from pushing forward. Today's announcement denying the polluter's appeal hopefully clears the way for meaningful regulations that limit mercury from power plants and start cleaning up this toxic metal from our air and waters.