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Regional Air Victory has National Implications
We found it curious when the DC-based National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) sued a local air pollution board in California. Why would a big national trade association care about a local air pollution rule? Well it turns out, NAHB had hoped to stop "Indirect Source Review" rules from spreading to other jurisdictions across the…
Read MorePut That Shirt Back On
Earthjustice has been accused of being many things, including preferring birds over people (which reminds me of a fine old quote. Charles Callison, a stalwart of the Audubon Society, was once asked whether he liked people or birds better. He said, "I like the people who like birds."). We’ve been called elitist. We’ve been accused…
Read MoreHow About Bailing Out the Atmosphere?
I heard Al Gore on "NPR Science Friday" a few weeks back talking about what it would take to get us out of the climate catastrophe that’s bearing down on us. The biggest single step, he said, would be to convert the entire U.S. vehicle fleet to electricity. He said that is possible within 10…
Read MoreAssault on Earthjustice and the Law
On Wednesday, Congressman John Shadegg (R-Arizona) attacked Earthjustice in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, and called on Congress to prevent environmental organizations from suing to prevent expansive offshore oil drilling. Here is the response from Earthjustice President Trip Van Noppen. Congressman Shadegg’s misguided opinion of environmental laws is unfortunate, yet not entirely unexpected. His recent…
Read MoreA Comity of Errors
Judge Clarence Brimmer of the federal district court in Wyoming must feel a bit under siege. He’s doing battle with two other federal district court judges, one in San Francisco, the other in Washington, DC. Judges are encouraged to respect each other’s opinions—it’s called comity, otherwise known as courtesy or deference—and comity is taking a…
Read MoreTrees and Global Warming
Forests are helping reduce global warming, but global warming is killing forests. Global warming sometimes can seem like a faraway thing in the American West. Glaciers? We really don’t have many. Except in that national park in Montana. But those will all be gone in 20-30 years or so. Polar bears? Not in our neighborhood. …
Read MoreTears, 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…
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