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The Latest by Terry Winckler

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February 23, 2009

Flaming Evidence of Global Warming

By Terry Winckler

A scientist with a cigarette lighter is providing the latest evidence of global warming’s dramatic and swift impacts in the Arctic. Four miles south of the Arctic Circle, Katey Walter has found that melting ice and permafrost are releasing vast amounts of methane — a greenhouse gas 21 times worse than CO2 as a contributor to …

February 18, 2009

Update: Obama's Six Easy Things

By Terry Winckler

In less than a month, President Obama has tackled several items on a list of Six Easy Things that Earthjustice President Trip Van Noppen set forth for the new administration last November. 1) Move towards reducing CO2 emissions under the Clean Air Act One of the most significant actions came this week when the EPA …

February 11, 2009

Welcome to Jurassic Park, Kansas

By Terry Winckler  /  Northern Rockies Office

At a time when this country is finally emerging from eight Jurassic years, many Kansas legislators are determined to resurrect a 1,500 megawatt dinosaur of a power plant that their governor — supported by two-thirds of her constituents — vetoed three times last year. Actually, I stole the "dinosaur" description from a disgusted Kansas City …

February 9, 2009

Will Salazar Save the Roan Plateau?

By Terry Winckler

After cancelling oil and gas leases in Utah last week, Interior Sec. Ken Salazar is strongly hinting that he might do the same with a crown jewel of Colorado — the Roan Plateau. The Roan is a rippling expanse of natural riches that rises dramatically 3,000 feet above a plain in the state’s northwest quadrant. …

February 6, 2009

End to a Poisonous Alliance

By Terry Winckler

A bunch of utility operators are still trying to convince the U.S. Supreme Court to let them pour poisonous mercury into the air – but after today, they are standing alone. The Obama administration said it is withdrawing its support, and in fact, wants the court to drop the case. Label this a victory for …

February 6, 2009

Obama Unleashes – the Boot

By Terry Winckler

Obama has quickly switched from the bump to the boot. All week he’s been kicking over Bush-era dominoes, and today’s was a whopper. The Environmental Protection Agency is starting to review its 2007 refusal to let California regulate greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles. The review affects 16 other states that also want to control emissions. …

February 4, 2009

Salazar Turns the Tide in Utah

By Terry Winckler

In those cold days of last December — as Bush feverishly tried to finish crippling the nation’s environmental protections — the new day promised by Obama seemed only a flicker at the end of an 8-year tunnel. After today’s news out of Utah, that flicker is looking more like a flare. Interior Sec. Ken Salazar …

February 3, 2009

Delight and Dismay over Coal

By Terry Winckler  /  Rocky Mountain Office

Contradictory actions by the coal industry this week illustrate how treacherous the road is to a clean energy future for America. On Tuesday, to our delight, developers of the proposed Highwood coal-fired power plant in Montana surrendered and announced that they would instead build natural gas and wind-powered generating plants. The credit for this should …

January 29, 2009

EPA is All Ears All of a Sudden

By Terry Winckler

We haven’t gotten much good news out of the Environmental Protection Agency for eight years, but suddenly the news is huge… so big that it deserves an exclamation mark. Bear with me as I wend my way towards the punch line. President Obama and the new folks he’s put in charge at EPA are now …

September 5, 2008

Tears, Ghosts and Golden Trout

By Terry Winckler

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 …