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Occupy the Earth
It’s not every day that you see a “stop police brutality” sign coupled with signs about protecting the environment, but that was the scene I came upon last week while attending an Occupy Oakland. If you’ve been paying any attention to the Occupy Wall Street movement that now spans100 U.S. cities, you know that many…
Read More"How Wall Street Occupied America"
“Wall Street owns the country…. Money rules…. Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags. The [political] parties lie to us and the political speakers mislead us.” So sayeth the pupulist firebrand Mary Elizabeth Lease in 1890. “She should see us now,” comments Bill Moyers in…
Read MoreDelta Smelt Get Life From Supreme Court
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court handed conservationists a victory and some good news for endangered wildlife. The court denied a request by an anti-wildlife right-wing group to strip federal Endangered Species Act protections from a rare species – a California fish called the delta smelt. The right-wing Pacific Legal Foundation, has tried repeatedly to…
Read MoreFriday Finds: The Phantom Dust Menace
Republican dust up over phantom environmental regulation Conservative Republicans are so intent on eliminating “unnecessary” environmental regulations that they recently set their sights on eliminating a rule that doesn’t even exist, reports the Washington Post. The so-called “dust rule” regulates farm dust, which is mixed with things like dirt and dried cornstalk bits and is technically…
Read MoreThey Took Our Jobs! (Not)
Today, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA)—that’s “Ice-uh” for those unfamiliar with the congressman—ran a hearing in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee about pollution from coal-fired power plants. The hearing unfolded roughly as expected, with one side—repped by Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli—arguing that clean air standards are job-killers, and the other side—repped by Environmental…
Read MoreTr-Ash Talk: Yet Another Coal Ash Spill
We’re closing in on the 3-year anniversary of the TVA coal ash disaster and there are still no federal regulations in place protecting us from coal ash. And now, another spill: in Oak Creek, Wisconsin a bluff collapsed, sending coal ash and debris from We Energies Oak Creek Power Plant into Lake Michigan. Writing this…
Read MoreNew 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…
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