Uncategorized
New Bureaucracy, Same Old Sad Story?
Today Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced a major agency reshuffling that will affect how the government enforces laws on mountaintop removal and surface coal mining. He will fold the Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE) into another Department of Interior subdivision, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). OSMRE is the agency that oversees…
Read MoreClimate View Part I: Poseidon’s Wrath
Island and coastal cities fear full submersion as oscillating and extreme weather patterns take headlines more than ever.
Read MoreScience and the Law: Leave EPA To Do Its Job
In the back and forth between climate skeptics and conservationists, we’ve clearly got two things on our side (although many of our foes would argue this): science and the law. This point was clearly delineated during a panel discussing the congressional attacks on the Environmental Protection Agency (and the Clean Air Act and Clean Water…
Read MoreMajor Victory — Court Reinstates Roadless Rule
Toward the end of the Clinton administration, the Forest Service declared that most logging and road building no longer would be permitted on nearly 60 million acres of wild, unprotected national forest lands. The so-called Roadless Area Conservation Rule was immediately challenged in nine separate lawsuits filed by states (Idaho, Wyoming, Alaska, Utah, North Dakota), a few…
Read MoreMountaintop Removal: A View From Up Above
Recently, thanks to a nonprofit flight operation called SouthWings, I had the opportunity to fly in a small airplane over a mountaintop removal coal mining site in West Virginia.
We flew over the Hobet mountaintop removal mining site, which measures to more than 20 square miles of demolition, and though I will try to put what I saw into words, it can only really be understood through the eyes. So I’m sharing a few photos that illustrate a scale of destruction that words cannot convey.
Tr-Ash Talk: A House United Against Clean Water
On Friday, in a 267–144 vote, a majority of House members voted to keep allowing coal ash to pollute our drinking water. The passage of the Coal Residuals Reuse and Management Act (H.R. 2273) lets states choose to adopt a disposal standard less protective than those for household garbage. The bill fails to protect communities from…
Read MoreHouse Tees Up Toxic Agenda For America
This week, President Obama has conducted a bus tour through my home state of Virginia and North Carolina. The tour focused on job creation and the state of our economy. Unfortunately, Republican leadership in Congress thinks weakening our clean air and water protections is the foundation of economic renewal. Since returning from August recess, the…
Read MoreCrybabies of the West
Let’s say you have three kids, and one big piece of cake to divide amongst them. One kicks and cries and whines. “I want it ALL,” the baby screams. “I want it all NOW!” The other two say, “We want our fair share.” To keep the decibel level in the house at acceptable levels, and…
Read MoreBeach Retreat
As we say goodbye to sweet, summer days and the beautiful beaches we enjoyed this year, we can look forward with some assurance to more summers on the beaches—but not too many more. The problem is, we may not even have beaches to go to by the end of the century.  A recent study…
Read MoreWe Said Run the Country, Not Ruin It
Somewhere along the road from their home districts to their offices in Washington, D.C., our Congressional representatives got their wires crossed. The American public sent them forth with a mandate to run the country, but instead, they’re ruining it. Toward the end of September, the House passed the first piece of House Majority Leader Eric…
Read More