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Congress v Environment: House Committee OKs Dirty Water Bill
It was a dark day in the House of Representatives, today, as the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure passed a bill that would flush away decades of water safeguards and protections, along with our powerful federal system for ensuring that any waters in this country are safe to drink, fish, and swim in. The…
Read MoreWhere HAVE All the Flowers Gone?
One of the great joys of living in the Rockies is taking a summer stroll in a high meadow, surrounded by wildflowers – violet lupines, deep red skyrockets, purple larkspur, penstemons, 6-foot gentians, and many others. Some of these diplays may be changing, however, according to a scientific article written up recently in the LA…
Read MoreTr-Ash Talk: Coal Over Clean Water
Tomorrow morning, the House Energy and Commerce Committee will vote on a bill to eviscerate the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate coal ash, introduced by Rep. David McKinley (WV-R). To quote Jeff Goodell of Rolling Stone, this is not just a fight about coal ash, “it’s about demonizing the EPA, stalling the clean energy…
Read MoreRoadless Déjà Voodoo All Over Again in Alaska
The long and winding saga of the Roadless Rule, adopted in the Clinton administration after an exhaustive public process, just took a new turn, though it smacks of desperation. To recap, the Roadless Rule was put in place to protect 58.5 million acres of undeveloped and otherwise unprotected land on the national forests. The rule…
Read MoreCollusion in Kansas Force-Feeds Coal Power
Either the courts or the EPA should put the brakes on the Sunflower project. A coal plant that will affect air quality for decades is too important to be the end result of a polluted process.
Read MoreCourt: Only EPA Can Regulate Climate Change Pollution
Today, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling once again affirmed the Environmental Protection Agency as the most rightful and authorized regulator of climate change pollution in the land. While some in Congress have been trying to take this power away from the EPA, and have been attempting to block EPA controls on climate change pollution, the Supreme…
Read MoreRenewable Energy Requires Storage Tech. to Capture Power
An issue that has cropped up as the country moves towards more renewable energy generation is how best to store excess energy generated, say by wind mills during windy periods or solar panels during sunny periods. Energy storage in the form of industrial strength batteries and other technologies is coming, but such things aren’t yet…
Read MoreUnplugged: Should You Trust Energy Star?
The perils of relying on a trusted label
Read MoreFriday Finds: Burn Notice
New sunscreen rules keep consumers from getting burned After 30 years of sitting in the sun, this week the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced new rules for sunscreen that help protect consumers from misleading claims, reports the New York Times. One of the rules requires “broad spectrum” sunscreens to protect against both UVA and…
Read MorePushing Pyromania
Not all burning is bad. For example, campfires rule—when they are done sensitively. I don’t mean with tenderness, but rather with attention paid to the ecosystem and the importance of the fallen wood within it. Those fires bring light, heat and comfort to our small corners of the wild. But in other corners of the…
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