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Tears, Ghosts and Golden Trout
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…
Read MoreEnemies List Revisited
A few weeks ago we wrote of a former Earthjustic law clerk, Jamie Saul, who was blackballed out of a job at the Department of Justice because he favored vigorous enforcement of environmental laws. Maybe blackballed is the wrong word—he applied for a job and didn’t get it for reasons that were certainly improper and…
Read MoreA New Run at Endangered Species
Congressional Republicans, led by former congressman Richard Pombo, tried in vain for years to gut the Endangered Species Act. They were thwarted largely because the law is so popular with the public. Now the Bush crowd is trying to do by fiat what it couldn’t accomplish in the legislative arena: rewrite the rules. Specifically, a…
Read MoreThe Jaw-Dropping Everglades Deal
By this time, most everyone has heard about the historic deal in the Florida Everglades: U.S. Sugar will sell the state of Florida 187,000 acres that sit between giant Lake Okeechobee and Everglades National Park. That’s 187,000 acres that will no longer be drenched with poison pesticides and fertilizers. It is industrial farmland that blocks…
Read MoreEnvironmental Laws that Bite Back
Bill Neukom is a seasoned attorney in a prominent Seattle firm. He served as Microsoft’s general counsel and for the past year has been the President of the American Bar Association. His main project at the ABA is engaging leading lawyers, judges, politicians, and others around the world to promote the rule of law. He…
Read MoreEnvironmental Protection and Common Sense v. Principle
Death Valley protected from attempt to use old, repealed law to put dirt bikes in National Park wilderness I have spent most of my working life for the past five years trying to stop old cow paths and jeep trails from becoming two-lane highways through national parks, wilderness, and other protected areas of federal land.…
Read MoreRoadless: No Mercy
To the surprise of absolutely no one, Judge Clarence Brimmer of the federal district court in Wyoming last week declared illegal the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, adopted in the waning hours of the Clinton administration. The judge had blocked the rule five years ago, but a ruling from a federal judge in California two years…
Read MoreThe Return of the Wolves
The legal tussle over the wolves in the Northern Rockies, which took a turn for the better a week or so back, has overshadowed another uplifting wolf story: confirmation of a breeding pack of wolves in northeast Oregon for the first time since the animals were shot, trapped, and poisoned out of the state more…
Read MoreLook Ma, I’m Elite!
Unearthed blog editor, wordsmith, and all around superdad Terry Winckler gave me a hard time this week for being an "elitist" urban bike commuter. We had a good laugh over the use of the word. It got me thinking. What does the term "elitist" really mean these days? Has elitist become political shorthand for "someone…
Read MoreAre Ritter, Bush in Unity on Roadless Threats?
There’s still a chance for the public – and the Governor – to weigh in for FULL protection of Colorado’s spectacular roadless lands. Colorado’s more than 4 million acres of roadless national forest are at risk in the coming months because of an apparent alliance between our lame duck president, George W. Bush, and Colorado’s…
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