The Weekly Edition

Climate Crisis Coalition

Monday, June 29, 2009

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Click the highlighted headlines for links to these stories. New stories are headlined in blue. Selections from this week's EE News weekday editions are headlined in dark red.

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H.R. 2454

Obama Praises Bill, But Opposes Tariff Provisions. By Steven Mufson, WashPost, June 29, 2009. "President Obama said on Sunday that the House took an 'extraordinary first step' by passing a climate bill on Friday, adding that he hoped it will 'prod' action by the Senate and predicting that the legislation could make renewable energy 'a driver of economic growth'... But he said he hopes that Congress will strip out a clause that would impose a tariff in 2020 on imports from countries without systems for pricing or limiting carbon dioxide emissions. 'At a time when the economy worldwide is still deep in recession and we've seen a significant drop in global trade, I think we have to be very careful about sending any protectionist signals out,' Obama said. He said other portions of the House bill provide protections for energy-intensive U.S. manufacturers worried about competition from such nations as China and India. 'I am very mindful of wanting to make sure that there's a level playing field internationally,' the president said. 'I think there may be other ways of doing it than with a tariff approach.' In an interview with a small group of energy reporters in the Oval Office, Obama had few other criticisms as he savored last week's narrow victory in the House on one of his top domestic priorities: a climate bill designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to promote renewable energy and energy efficiency." Transcript of White House Interview on Climate-Change Bill.

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Climate Bill Barely Passes House. By Kate Sheppard, Grist, June 26, 2009. "House Democrats late Friday eked out a win on the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACESA)... 'Today the House has passed the most important energy and environment bill in our nation's history,' said Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who co-authored the bill with Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.). The bill was approved by a vote of 219 to 212, just one vote more than the simple majority of 218 needed to pass legislation in the House. Forty-four Democrats voted against it, the vast majority representing Midwestern, Southern, coal-producing, and industrial states. A number of politically vulnerable first- and second-term Democrats voted against the bill. And some Democrats from farm states joined the opposition, even after the Agriculture Committee managed to secure major concessions blocking the EPA from overseeing the carbon offset program for farmers. And the narrow win came after much coercion from Democratic leaders in the House and White House. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) met with a number of lawmakers who were on the fence this week, and a team of seven whips were deployed to meet with fence-sitters to allay their concerns. Top administration officials and the president himself were also lighting up Capitol phone lines to lobby for votes... Just eight Republicans voted in favor of the measure: Mary Bono Mack (Calif.), Mike Castle (Del.), Frank LoBiondo (N.J.), John McHugh (N.Y.), Dave Reichert (Wash.), Chris Smith (N.J), Leonard Lance (N.J), and Mark Kirk (Ill.). Without those GOP votes, the measure would have failed."

Texas Dem, Lloyd Doggett, Lambastes 'Weak' Climate Bill on House Floor, Then Changes Mind and Votes For It. By Lloyd Doggett, doggett.house.gov, June 26, 2009. "I struggled deeply about whether to support the American Clean Energy and Security Act, but I finally determined that voting for it was my best hope for making it better. Earlier on Friday I voiced my strong objections to this bill: 'This energy bill's fine print betrays its laudable purpose. The real cap is on the public interest and the trade is the billions from the public to polluters. It is too weak to greatly spur new technologies and green jobs. An Administration analysis shows that doing nothing actually results in more new renewable electricity generation capacity than approving this bill. Vital authority for the EPA is stripped, but 2 billion additional tons of pollution are authorized every year, forever.  Residential consumer protection incredibly is entrusted to the mercy of utility companies. Exempting a hundred new coal plants and paying billions to Old King Coal leaves him, indeed, a very merry old soul. This bill is 85% different from what President Obama proposed months ago. No wonder his Budget Director called this type of bill 'the largest corporate welfare program in history of the United States.' Until greatly improved, until families share in the billions this bill grants powerful lobbies, I cannot support it.'" To view a video of his floor statement, click here.
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The Biggest Challenge In Pelosi's Career. Commentary by Mike Allen, Politico, June 28, 2009. "This vote was the biggest challenge of Speaker Pelosi's career -- bigger than Iraq because it was riding on her shoulders, more than anyone else's. She had to convince every single member of her caucus, not just the Blue Dogs or moderates. She had to convince people from Marcy Kaptur and Donna Edwards (liberal) to Dan Maffei and Mike McMahon (New Dem) to Gene Green (oil patch) to Ben Chandler (Blue Dog). She had to earn all 218 votes. (She was on the 219th.) 'Political geniuses' in her party didn't believe she could do it. She was up against a lot of entrenched interests -- oil, big utility companies, small and big business. And the cost is passed on to consumers. A turning point was the CBO announcement June 22 that the per-household cost would be modest -- $175 a year after cost-saving measures in the bill.

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Lobbying Cash Paved Climate Bill's Road to House Floor. By Anne C. Mulkern, Greenwire, June 26, 2009. "Industries and companies with a stake in the ACESA bill poured money into lobbying early this year, many at a pace that could shatter previous spending records... Oil and gas companies, agricultural services and product makers, alternative energy producers, environmental groups, and those in the natural gas businesses spent more than they did last year. Within each of those categories are stories of individual companies and organizations laying out far more than they have in the past... For the 10 energy interests analyzed, the oil and gas industry led the pack on spending. It shelled out $44.5 million in the first three months of this year, compared with $30.1 million spent in the same quarter in 2008... Alternative-energy producers spent a fraction of the oil and gas total, paying $7.2 million in the first quarter of the year, up from $6.8 million a year earlier. The American Wind Energy Association spent $1.2 million the first quarter of this year. That is 71% of the $1.7 million the company put toward lobbying all of last year... The Nature Conservancy... reported $850,000 in lobbying efforts the first three months of this year, already more than 65% of last year's $1.3 million lobbying total. That amount was the group's highest lobbying total ever."

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CBO Study: Waxman Bill Would Cost Average Household $175. By Steven Mufson, WashPost, June 23, 2009. "Climate-change legislation would cost the average household $175 a year by 2020, according to the Congressional Budget Office [study, PDF, 16 pp], far below the figure commonly used by GOP critics of the House bill. The CBO said yesterday that the poorest 20% of American households would actually receive a $40 benefit in 2020 from the legislation, which would establish a cap-and-trade system to limit greenhouse gas emissions, while the richest 20% of households would see a net cost of $245 a year. The costs would result from higher prices for carbon-based fuels, offset by a complex series of tax breaks and free allowances, new technologies and behavioral changes, and impacts on corporations and their profits. The CBO, a nonpartisan arm of Congress, said it did not take into account any indirect benefits of slowing climate change, which are substantial but difficult to quantify."

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Speaking Out on H.R. 2454

Is This Bill the Best that We Can Hope For? Editorial, WashPost, June 26, 2009. "Waxman-Markey... gives away 85% of the pollution credits in the first years of the program and provides many avenues potentially to evade compliance. While in theory the bill relies on the market to find the most efficient alternatives to greenhouse-gas emitting energy sources, in practice its subsidies, regulations and exemptions could skew the outcome in costly ways... [Passed in the House] is just a first step. With... fierce battles to come in the Senate, the debate over how to design this fundamental shift in the American economy remains wide open. It's not too late to hope for a cleaner cap-and-trade bill -- such proposals are circulating on Capitol Hill -- or a properly designed carbon tax that would send the right market signal to spur green-energy innovation while also leading to vital changes in behavior. We're not ignorant of political realities, and we don't believe the perfect should become the enemy of the good. Congress should deliver a bill to Mr. Obama this year. But given that congressional action could set a template for years or decades, we think it's too soon to settle for something that falls so far short of ideal."

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A Better Way Slow Global Warming. Commentary by Marshall Saunders, San Diego Union-Tribune, June 28, 2009. "Congress finally took initial steps to confront global warming on Friday. Unfortunately, the bill passed in the House is seriously flawed and won't produce the reductions in greenhouse gases needed to avert catastrophe. The American Clean Energy and Security Act, authored by Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, and Ed Markey, D-Mass., employs the 'cap-and-trade' approach to reducing CO2 emissions... And there's the rub. Cap-and-trade would create a volatile market -- to the tune of $1 trillion -- in carbon futures and derivatives. Energy prices would be unpredictable, making it difficult for consumers and businesses to plan and budget their energy use. We're in the midst of digging out of an economic mess brought on in large part by speculators looking to make a quick buck on similar schemes. What happens to the global economy when the 'carbon bubble' bursts? Should we really go down that road again? The track record for cap-and-trade is also spotty at best, producing negligible reductions in CO2 emissions in Europe and Japan. Lastly, cap-and-trade would take years to implement -- time we can't afford in the race against global warming. It requires the creation of a large, complex, regulatory bureaucracy to monitor and police the system. Most importantly, the 'cap' on greenhouse gases represents only a 1% to 4% reduction from 1990 levels, far less than what scientists agree is needed...

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"In the face of [the climate emergency we now face], we must find a better solution. A revenue-neutral tax on carbon would be far more promising than cap-and-trade. How much of a tax? Climate scientists say that a tax starting at $15 a ton of CO2 and steadily increasing each year would discourage use of carbon-based fuels and encourage the development and use of greener technologies. Substantial revenue from the tax would be returned to consumers through income or payroll taxes, offsetting increased energy costs. Raising the cost of fossil fuels, through taxes, creates a powerful incentive for companies to save money through non-carbon-based energy sources. As alternative energy becomes competitive with fossil fuels, the United States will import less foreign oil, making America less dependent on nations and regimes that don't have our best interests at heart. Those 'green' energy sources will also produce new jobs for Americans. The wind industry now employs more people (85,000) than the coal mining industry (81,000). Bottom line is that the shift to alternative energy, motivated by the carbon tax, will bring substantial reductions in greenhouse gases, as much as 30% by 2017, according to the Carbon Tax Center...

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"Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., summed it up best: 'The first axiom of economics is if you want less of something, you tax it. Obviously, we want less carbon, so we tax it.' Flake, along with Reps. Bob Inglis, R-S.C., and Daniel Lipinski, D-Ill., introduced a carbon-tax bill, the Raise Wages, Cut Carbon Act. Democrat John Larson of Connecticut also offered a carbon-tax proposal. This approach demonstrates a greater opportunity for bipartisanship. With the passage of the cap-and-trade bill, however, neither of these bills has much chance of moving in the House. The climate-change ball is now in the Senate's court. Should it fail to go forward with the Waxman-Markey bill -- a distinct possibility -- House lawmakers will need to go back to the drawing board. And that could actually be a good thing. If members decide on the basis of merit, not party affiliation, the carbon tax is the clear choice to stimulate employment, reduce dependence on foreign oil and decrease C02 emissions." Saunders, a resident of Coronado, California, is the founder of the environmental action group Citizens Climate Lobby.

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We Need to Step Up the Fight for a Stronger Bill. Commentary by Ted Glick, Grist, June 26, 2009. "Climate and environmental activists who know the Capitol Hill scene are very aware that the odds of our getting anything better than ACESA out of the Senate are very long. Indeed, the more likely result of Senate consideration is that ACESA will get even weaker UNLESS this near-defeat in the House leads to an urgent reconsideration of the approach and the tactics used over the next 3-4-5 months... We have to call upon Barack Obama to lead... During his 2008 Presidential campaign... Obama was publicly strong in support of a 100% auction, with no giveaways, of permits for polluters to emit carbon. He supported the return of 80-85% of the hundreds of billions raised by this auction to American taxpayers and consumers to help us deal with the higher prices this would bring, with the remainder used for various clean energy/green jobs/international assistance programs... Many more of our groups have to be less willing to align so closely with the desires of the Democratic Party leadership... Those scores of groups which have already come out publicly in support of either cap and dividend or carbon tax and rebates have to move immediately to find the ways to work together more collaboratively and more effectively as the struggle moves to the Senate... We need to act as if the next six months, leading up to the big United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen, is the most important half-year of our lives for those of us who get it on the urgency of the climate crisis. We Need More. We need a strong, not just any, climate bill. We need to take what happened Friday in the House and turn it into something that history will record as not so much the culmination of our many years of hard work but a breakthrough that opened the way for a flood of people power, a broad and deep clean energy revolution in the months and years ahead." Ted Glick is the Policy Director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network and is a co-founder of the Climate Crisis Coalition. These views are his own.

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CCC: Overhaul or Scrap ACESA. CCC, June 25, 2009. "The climate crisis is urgent, but that is all the more reason not to pass seriously flawed legislation. We urge Congress to scrap ACESA for a stronger and less complex bill with serious Renewable Energy Standards and a revenue-neutral carbon tax, managed price or cap‑and‑dividend approach."

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Greenpeace Says 'No' to Climate Bill: ACES Is Too Weak. By Stacy Morford, Solve Climate, June 25th, 2009. "Greenpeace came out against the House climate bill today, joining Friends of the Earth in urging Congress to vote No on the critically weakened American Clean Energy and Security climate bill."

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Friends of the Earth Opposes House Climate Bill. FoE, June 24, 2009. "Congress is poised to squander a historic opportunity to move closer to a clean energy future. The energy and climate bill moving through the U.S. House is based on a proposal from a group that includes Shell Oil, the coal-burning utility Duke Energy, and other corporate polluters. This should be a red flag for progressives. This bill fails to get the job done. Congress must do better."

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NRDC: Vote 'Yes' on Waxman-Markey Bill. NRDC, June 26, 2009. "The House of Representatives will soon vote on a bill that would set the nation's first limits on global warming pollution, send Americans back to work building a clean energy economy and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Urge your representative to support, strengthen and vote 'Yes' for the American Clean Energy and Security Act."

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LCV to Members of Congress: If You Vote 'No' on H.R.  2454, You're Disqualified. LCV, June 24, 2009. "The League of Conservation Voters believes H.R. 2454 [Waxman-Markey]... is the most important piece of environmental legislation to ever come before the House of Representatives. In light of the tremendous importance of this legislation, LCV made the unprecedented decision to not endorse any member of the House... in the 2010... who votes against final passage of this bill. Every Member of Congress received a letter informing them of this policy and LCV's strong support of H.R.2454."

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John Podesta on Why Progressives Should Support the American Clean Energy and Security Act. Commentary by John Podesta, Center for American Progress, June 26, 2009. "The House of Representatives is poised for its first-ever floor debate and series of votes on a landmark measure to reduce global warming pollution. This bill is revolutionary in its intent and, while imperfect in its means, it deserves the support of progressives."

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Government Grants and Energy Efficiency Standards

Obama Launches New Energy Efficiency Efforts: New Standards and $346 Million for New Technologies. Press Release, White House, June 29, 2009. "President Barack Obama and U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu today announced aggressive actions to promote energy efficiency and save American consumers billions of dollars per year... 'One of the fastest, easiest, and cheapest ways to make our economy stronger and cleaner is to make our economy more energy efficient,' said President Obama. 'That's why we made energy efficiency investments a focal point of the Recovery Act. And that's why today's announcements are so important. By bringing more energy efficient technologies to American homes and businesses, we won't just significantly reduce our energy demand; we'll put more money back in the pockets of hardworking Americans'... Today's announcement includes major changes to energy conservation standards for numerous household and commercial lamps and lighting equipment.  Seven percent of all energy consumed in the U.S. is for lighting... President Obama and Secretary Chu today announced a $346 million investment from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to expand and accelerate the development, deployment, and use of energy efficient technologies in all major types of commercial buildings as well as new and existing homes." 

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US EPA Issues Clean Energy Action Guide for States. ENN, June 22, 2009. "The US EPA issued a report that outlines a strategy to deliver clean, low-cost, and reliable energy to state residents through the use of energy efficiency, renewable energy, and clean distributed generation. The intent is to provide states with the information they need to determine what energy options would be the most beneficial, practical, and cost-effective. The potential energy savings achievable through state actions is significant. EPA estimates that if each state were to implement cost-effective clean energy-environment policies, the expected growth in demand for electricity could be cut in half by 2025, and more demand could be met through cleaner energy supply." EPA Guide to Action Full Report [410 pp], Executive Summary [32 pp].

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U.S. DOE Awards $304 Million to Georgia, Illinois and New York for Weatherization Assistance. Press Release, U.S. DEP, June 26, 2009. "U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced on Friday that the Department of Energy is providing more than $304 million in Recovery Act funding to expand weatherization assistance programs in Georgia, Illinois and New York. These funds, along with additional funds to be disbursed after the states meet certain Recovery Act milestones, will help these states achieve their goal of weatherizing more than 85,000 homes, lowering energy costs for low-income families that need it, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and creating green jobs across the country."

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Feds Loan Ford $5.9 Billion to Build More Efficient Cars and Trucks. By Bryce G. Hoffman, Detroit News, June 29, 2009. "After nearly two years of political wrangling, the U.S. Department of Energy approved $5.9 billion in low-interest loans for Ford Motor Co. to help fund the development and production of new, more fuel-efficient cars and trucks. The money will not just help pay for fuel-sipping engines and electric cars; it will help the nation's only solvent automaker survive one of the worst market declines in the industry's history, which has already sent its crosstown rivals into bankruptcy... The projects Ford can spend the money on have already been approved by the Energy Department. They include retooling truck factories to produce small cars from Europe, funding the development of new, more efficient gasoline and gas-hybrid powertrains, and paying for a series of electric vehicles for the American market."

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U.S. AID Giving $1 Million to Southern African Countries for Climate Change Relief. By Michelle Theriault, AP, June 25, 2009. "The U.S. development agency said Thursday it has committed $1 million to a project that aims to help people living along southern Africa's Zambezi River cope with worsening natural disasters because of climate change. The Zambezi River flows from Zambia to Mozambique, passing through places like Botswana and Zimbabwe on its way to the Indian Ocean. For the 32 million people who live in the Zambezi's basin -- some of the world's poorest -- the river is a source of transportation, jobs and fertile soil for agriculture. But it also brings misery with a cycle of flood and drought that displaces hundreds of thousands of people annually. Extreme flooding and dry spells destroy crops and cause food shortages, while receding waters leave cholera, dysentery and malaria. Climate change is exacerbating the effects of an already precarious situation... The Red Cross project will coordinate efforts in the seven nations that the river winds through -- Angola, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Projects will boost early warning systems and local training for disaster management, as well provide funds for malaria, cholera, and HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention projects."

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Citizens, Voices, Action

James Hansen: 'The Catastrophist'. Profile by Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker, June 29, 2009 issue, subscription. "A few months ago, James Hansen, the director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), in Manhattan, joined a protest outside the Capitol Power Plant, in Washington, D.C. Thirty years ago, Hansen, who is 68, created one of the world's first climate models, nicknamed Model Zero, which he used to predict most of what has happened in the climate since. Hansen has now concluded, partly on the basis of his latest modeling efforts and partly on the basis of observations made by other scientists, that the threat of global warming is far greater than even he had suspected. Unless immediate action is taken -- including the shutdown of all the world's coal plants within the next two decades -- the planet will be committed to climate change on a scale society won't be able to cope with... There's no precise term for the level of carbon dioxide that will assure a climate disaster; the best scientists have come up with is 'dangerous anthropogenic interference,' or D.A.I. Hansen estimates the dangerous amount of CO2 to be no more than 350 ppm. The bad news is that CO2 levels have already reached 385 ppm. Hansen argues that the only way we can constrain the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is to drastically decrease the use of coal. But if Hansen's anxieties about D.A.I. and coal are broadly shared, he is still, among climate scientists, an outlier. [He] describes the cap-and-trade system [and the Waxman-Markey bill as]... is essentially a sham... In order to stabilize CO2  levels in the atmosphere, annual emissions around the globe would have to be cut by something on the order of three-quarters. So far, there's no evidence that anyone is willing to take the necessary steps."
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Young Bikers Traverse Massachusetts, Lobbying for State Climate Legislation. By Trevor Jones, Berkshire Eagle, June 21, 2009. "It hasn't exactly been the best week for a bike ride, but that won't get in the way of these youths spreading their message across the [Berkshire County, in Western Massachusetts]. Five college-aged students began a two-week stay... in the Berkshires Thursday, traversing the county to knock on doors and hold symposiums to garner support for climate-change initiatives. The group will spend two months bicycling the state before meeting two other groups in August to voice their support for change to the state legislature. 'We're destroying the world and we're running out of time,' said Samuel Rubin, one of the members of the group. '[Our generation] has a special responsibility, as we are the inheritors of the future.' The youths, ranging in age from 19 to 22, are volunteers in Massachusetts Climate Summer, a project of Massachusetts Power Shift, a network of climate change activists that are seeking bold and quick legislative action to combat the effects of climate change. Rubin, a 19-year-old from Glocester, R.I., said he decided to join the group after hearing too many of his fellow students at Oberlin College in Ohio, talk about change, but not taking any action... The group will spend four hours a day canvassing neighborhoods and seeking signatures -- of which they have already received 200 -- to a pledge for 100% clean electricity within the next decade. Over the next two months, they will travel 280 miles before meeting two other bicycling groups that have been working along the state's shoreline."

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The International Environmental Journalism Crisis. By Joel Simon, World Policy Journal, MIT Press, Spring, 2009. "For nearly two days after being viciously beaten, Mikhail Beketov lay unconscious in his front yard until a neighbor discovered him on November 13, 2008... Press groups in Russia attributed the attack to Beketov's crusading environmental reporting in the town of Khimki, just outside Moscow... Beketov, in conjunction with a local environmental group called EcoOborona, had been campaigning to stop a planned Moscow-St. Petersburg highway... The highway would have cut through the Khimki Forest, destroying one of the last stands of pine and oak near Moscow. Beketov had been threatened the week before he was attacked. Earlier, his car had been set ablaze and his dog had been killed. After his belated rescue by neighbors, Beketov was taken to the local hospital, where he slipped into a coma. His beating sparked intensive media coverage, and his enemies, perhaps realizing Beketov had survived the attack, began sending threatening text messages warning they would 'finish the job.' Beketov's horrific beating and the official indifference to the investigation are part of a deeply troubling trend in Russia. At least 16 journalists have been murdered since 2000, including the renowned investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya. But the Beketov attack has an additional resonance because it apparently came in response to his environmental reporting... In much of the rest of the world, environmental reporters have faced harassments, lawsuits, violent attacks, and the occasional murder. In many countries, from China to Burma, governments actively suppress reporting on important environmental issues. These efforts have a profound impact not only in the societies where the repression takes place, but around the world. In an era of accelerating climate change, the destruction of forests in Brazil and Russia, or the construction of a new coal-fired power plant in China, has global significance. Since accurate and timely information is essential in responding to climate change, the whole world has a stake in ensuring that environmental reporting is free and unfettered."

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Lovelock: 'Biochar' Offers Some Hope. By Tyler Hamilton, CleanBreak.ca, June 22, 2009. "During a recent round-table session I attended [in Ontario] with British scientist and Gaia author James Lovelock, it was easy to walk away feeling helpless about the climate problems humanity faces. But when pressed, Lovelock said he does believe there's potential in 'biochar' -- that is, converting some of the world's biomass (e.g. forest slash, agricultural residues, fast-growing grasses grown on depleted soils, farmed algae) into charcoal and sequestering the black mass in soil or under the ocean. This is done through a process called pyrolysis, which when creating the charcoal locks in about 60% of the biomass's carbon. Charcoal stays inert and chemically stable for hundreds of years. Best to turn some of the world's biomass into charcoal instead of letting the biomass rot and release methane into the atmosphere. At least that's the thinking. In the end, it's the rough equivalent of making coal, but doing it in a few hours instead of a million or so years... The Weather Makers author Tim Flannery supports it, as does NASA scientist James Hansen. Sure, you've got skeptics like Heat author George Monbiot, who recently slammed the approach in a column for the U.K. Guardian. But nobody is calling charcoal sequestration a silver bullet, as Monbiot suggests. It's one promising option in the climate mitigation toolbox. Nobody is suggesting that we use prime agricultural lands to grow crops that we would then turn into charcoal. By making that connection Monbiot is doing his readers a disservice."

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Pressing the Case For Geoengineering. By Steve Lohr, NYTimes, June 22, 2009. "David G. Victor, the director of Stanford University's Energy and Sustainable Development Program, is a leading voice in the effort to get governments and policymakers to start thinking seriously about the possibility of technological tinkering with the atmosphere, as a weapon of last resort in the battle against global warming. In the March/April edition of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Victor was the lead author of an article that candidly acknowledged the challenge. 'Fiddling with the climate to fix the climate strikes most people as a shockingly bad idea,' he wrote... John Holdren, the chief science adviser in the Obama administration and an environmental policy specialist, recently suggested that geoengineering has to be taken seriously. 'It's got to be looked at,' he told AP in April. 'We don't have the luxury of taking anything off the table.' Mr. Holdren later clarified that the White House was not strongly considering pursuing geoengineering as a policy... Mr. Victor [purports to be] optimistic that technologies to curb emissions -- from alternative fuels to carbon capture -- will be the long-term answer. But he worries about making it to the long term without environmental disaster, especially during transition years, he said, from 2050 to 2070 or so. 'So I think we'll need to have the geoengineering option,' he said."

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Reducing Carbon Footprint

Deep in Bedrock, Clean Energy and Quake Fears. By James Glanz, NYTimes, June 23, 2009. "Markus O. Häring, a former oilman... drilled a hole three miles deep [in late 2006, in Basil, Switzerland]. He was prospecting for a vast source of clean, renewable energy:... the heat simmering within the earth's bedrock. All seemed to be going well until... the project set off an earthquake, shaking and damaging buildings and terrifying many in a city that, as every schoolchild here learns, had been devastated exactly 650 years before by a quake that sent two steeples of the Münster Cathedral tumbling into the Rhine. Hastily shut down, Mr. Häring's project was soon forgotten by nearly everyone outside Switzerland. As early as this week, though, an American start-up company, AltaRock Energy, will begin using nearly the same method to drill deep into ground laced with fault lines in an area two hours' drive north of San Francisco.  Residents of the region, which straddles Lake and Sonoma Counties, have already been protesting swarms of smaller earthquakes set off by a less geologically invasive set of energy projects there. AltaRock officials said that they chose the spot in part because the history of mostly small quakes reassured them that the risks were limited. Like the effort in Basel, the new project will tap geothermal energy by fracturing hard rock more than two miles deep to extract its heat. AltaRock, founded by Susan Petty, a veteran geothermal researcher, has secured more than $36 million from the Energy Department, several large venture-capital firms, including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Google. AltaRock maintains that it will steer clear of large faults and that it can operate safely. But in a report on seismic impact that AltaRock was required to file, the company failed to mention that the Basel program was shut down because of the earthquake it caused."

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San Francisco Ordinance Require Separation of Compostable Items. AP, June 23, 2009. "Sorting glass and other recyclables out of household trash will no longer be enough in San Francisco. Anything that can be composted also has to be separated. Mayor Gavin Newsom signed a new rule on Tuesday requiring residents to separate trash, recyclables and compost or face fines. It is believed to be the strictest such regulation in the nation. The ordinance is due to go into effect in the fall... Compost includes everything from food scraps to garden clippings."

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First U.S Offshore Wind Leases Issued. By Jad Mouawad, NYTimes, June 23, 2009. "Kicking off what it called 'a new day for energy production in the United States,' the Obama administration has issued five offshore exploration leases for wind energy production. This is the first time the federal government has issued offshore wind leases, and the decision comes after the administration papered over regulatory infighting among various agencies in charge of energy development. The leases cover areas 6 to 18 miles off New Jersey and Delaware. More information can be found here. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who has made offshore wind energy a priority, acknowledged that the United States was playing catch-up to European countries, like Denmark or the Netherlands, which have long focused on alternative energy.

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Sears Tower to Be Revamped to Produce Most of Its Own Power. By Susan Saulny, NYTimes, June 25, 2009. "The nation's tallest skyscraper will soon have wind turbines sprouting from its recessed rooftops in a plan to reduce external electricity consumption by 80% over five years. The new owners plan more upgrades inside."

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Canadian Firm Unveils Electric Car with Lithium Battery. By Michael Burnham, Greenwire, June 24, 2009. "The speed at which the world embraces the electric car rests in its ability to build a better battery. Several U.S. companies hope to race ahead of foreign rivals by using federal loans and grants to commercialize electric cars and lighter, longer-lasting batteries. But a Canadian company might get there first. Mississauga, Ontario-based Electrovaya Inc. last Tuesday unveiled [in Baltimore] the Maya 300, a plug-in electric car that can get up to 120 miles on a charge of its lithium-ion battery. The Maya 300 charges in about eight hours, plugs into a regular household outlet and will be available to consumers within a year, promised Electrovaya Chairman and CEO Sankar Das Gupta."

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Venture Capitalists Unveil Roadmap for Reducing Emissions. By John Lorinc, NYTimes, June 25, 2009. "As lawmakers gear up to vote this week on the Waxman-Markey climate change bill, a new study has identified eight clean energy technologies that could be dramatically scaled up in the coming decade to deliver large carbon reductions as well as some 4.5 million new jobs globally. The study, backed by venture capitalists as well as academics and business leaders, lists the promising technologies as biofuels, nuclear energy, wind, solar concentrators, geothermal, building efficiency, construction materials and photovoltaic solar. The 'Gigaton Throwdown Initiative,' established by Spring Ventures founder Sunil Paul, a clean-tech venture capitalist, focused on technologies each capable of delivering emission abatements of at least one billion tons, or one gigaton, of carbon dioxide-equivalent by 2020 -- enough collectively to keep global greenhouse gas concentrations in the 450 parts per million range, a level urged by many climate scientists... The technology with the biggest payback is building efficiency, with a $61 billion investment generating 681,000 jobs by 2020 and large-scale emission reductions. The report is also bullish about the scalability of biofuels like ethanol and construction materials, including thermal windows and low-carbon cement. On the policy front, the study calls for carbon pricing and tax credits for promising technologies, as well as measures like renewable fuel standards, tougher energy efficiency guidelines and regulatory changes that would 'decouple' utility revenues and earnings, an arrangement that promotes conservation and efficiency improvements."

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World Wind Energy Potential Projected in Study. By Jeremy Hance, Mongabay.com, June 22, 2009. "Wind power may be the key to a clean energy revolution: a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science finds that wind power could provide for the entire world's current and future energy needs. To estimate the earth's capacity for wind power, the researchers first sectioned the globe into areas of approximately 3,300 square kilometers (1,274 square miles) and surveyed local wind speeds every six hours. They imagined 2.5 megawatt turbines crisscrossing the terrestrial globe, excluding 'areas classified as forested, areas occupied by permanent snow or ice, areas covered by water, and areas identified as either developed or urban,' according to the paper. They also included the possibility of 3.6 megawatt offshore wind turbines, but restricted them to 50 nautical miles off the coast and to oceans depths less than 200 meters. Using this criteria the researchers found that wind energy could not only supply all of the world's energy requirements, but it could provide over forty times the world's current electrical consumption and over five times the global use of total energy needs."

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Coal

Plea To Obama: End Mountaintop Coal Mining. By James Hansen, YaleEnviro360, June 22, 2009. "The president and the brilliant people he appointed in energy and science know that we must move rapidly to carbon-free energy to avoid handing our children a planet that has passed climate tipping points... The Obama administration is being forced into a political compromise. It has sacrificed a strong position on mountaintop removal in order to ensure the support of coal-state legislators for a climate bill... Mountaintop removal, which provides a mere 7% of the nation's coal, is... undeniably a catastrophic way of mining... If the Obama administration is unwilling or unable to stop the massive environmental destruction of historic mountain ranges and essential drinking water for a relatively tiny amount of coal, can we honestly believe they will be able to phase out coal emissions at the level necessary to stop climate change? The issue of mountaintop removal is so important that I and others concerned about this problem will engage in an act of civil disobedience on June 23rd at a mountaintop removal site in Coal River Valley, West Virginia... Politicians may have to make concessions on what is right for what is winnable. But as a scientist and a citizen, I believe the right course is very clear: The climate crisis demands a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants that do not capture and safely dispose of all emissions. And mountaintop removal... should be permanently prohibited... If the president uses his influence, his eloquence, and his bully pulpit, he could be the agent of real change. But he does need our help to overcome the political realities of compromise."

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James Hansen Arrested in West Virginia at Mountaintop Removal Protest. ENS, June 23, 2009. "West Virginia State Police on Tuesday arrested at least 29 demonstrators, including government climate scientist Dr. James Hansen, actress Daryl Hannah, and 94 year-old former West Virginia Congressman Ken Hechler, for trespassing on the property of a mountaintop removal coal mining company to protest the destructive practice. The protesters deliberately entered the Goals Coal plant owned by coal giant Massey Energy to draw public attention to the destruction of mountains immediately above the Coal River Valley community of Sundial in Raleigh County."

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Why President Obama Must Visit Appalachia. By Jeff Biggers, HuffPost, June 28, 2009. "It is time for President Barack Obama and Council on Environmental Quality chief Nancy Sutley to make their first visit to a mountaintop removal moonscape and coal slurry impoundment and bear witness to the impact the administration's regulatory strip-mining policies have on coalfield residents... With millions of pounds of explosives ripping across the Appalachian mountains every day, and the Office of Surface Mining (OMSRE) still operating without a director, it is almost beyond belief that President Obama, CEQ chief Nancy Sutley and EPA head Lisa Jackson have made no attempt to visit actual mining sites under their jurisdiction. Only through a firsthand look at the economic and environmental devastation wrought from mountaintop removal's 38-year rap sheet of pollution crimes and human rights violations, will President Obama, Lisa Jackson and Nancy Sutley truly understand three stark realities: 1) stricter Obama mining regulations can easily be circumvented; 2) as a vanishing carbon sink, the Appalachia coalfields are ground zero in any climate change battle; 3) mountaintop removal destroys any chance at a sustainable economy or new initiatives for Green Jobs... In the summer of 1964, President Lyndon Johnson made a trip to... Martin County, Kentucky, to announce the launching of the 'War on Poverty.' Forty-five years later, Martin County still ranks as one of the poorest counties in the country, with over 35% of the population living under the poverty level, while 67% of the coal mining jobs have disappeared due to strip-mining and mechanization in the last two decades. This summer, President Obama should follow in LBJ's footsteps and journey to Martin County, Kentucky, a poverty-stricken area shamelessly ravaged by strip-mining and mountaintop removal (and the site of an ignored 300-million-gallon coal slurry accident in 2000), and announce his intention to launch a 'War for Green Jobs and a Phase Out of Mountaintop Removal Operations.'"

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British Protesters Climb Aboard Ship Bound for Coal Plant. By Haroon Siddique, Guardian (UK), June 23, 2009. "Six people were arrested when climate change campaigners boarded a coal freighter and stopped it unloading its cargo at the planned site of the new Kingsnorth power station today. Four protesters remain on board the ship, 10 metres up the foremast, and are in a stand-off with police on the deck of the ship. 'The coal hasn't been able to be unloaded -- that's what we set out to do here,' Sarah Shoraka, one of the activists in the crow's nest on the foremast said. The 31-year-old said the protesters had enough food and water to allow them to remain on the vessel for several days. 'I think we can stay for a while, as long as it's safe to do so,' she added… 'It's about stopping the dirtiest power station for 30 years being built in the UK… There's a growing coalition against a coal station, and we're hoping we'll get more supporters.' Greenpeace said 10 activists had climbed on board just after midnight as the ship travelled along the River Medway to Kingsnorth, in Kent. They used rigid inflatable speedboats to pull up alongside and attached climbing ladders to scale the 15-metre hull after flagging the vessel down with flares and banners. Others swam in the path of the ship to prevent it docking. Greenpeace claims the new Kingsnorth power station would would pump 6m tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere every year, making a mockery of the government's claims that it is committed to tackling climate change."

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E.U. to Grant 50 Million Euros to Help China Test Carbon Capture. By Aoife White, AP, June 25, 2009. "The European Union said Thursday it will give China up to euro50 million ($70 million) to build a carbon capture and storage plant that will test a technology aimed at limiting climate change. The EU's executive commission says the money will help China develop coal-burning power stations that could capture carbon dioxide and bury it underground. That would allow China to use its most plentiful energy source, coal, without releasing more of the greenhouse gas linked to climate change. During last month's EU-China summit, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao asked Europe to help provide it with 'clean coal' technology so China could curb emissions from coal-fired power stations. Energy companies in Europe and the U.S. already are working on trial plants to test if the costly technology could work commercially and whether the carbon can be safely stored, and the EU wants to encourage that kind of work in Asia, too."

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Oil and Biofuels

Recession, Oil Prices Slow CO2 Global Growth in 2008. By Arthur Max, AP, June 25, 2009. "The global recession has an up side, at least for people worried about climate change: carbon emissions are growing more slowly than in recent years, Dutch researchers said Thursday. But they also said the emissions of developing countries were higher than those of the industrialized world for the first time last year. Less money in the bank, higher oil prices and a growing use of wind, solar and other renewable energy resources put a brake last year on the increase of the most common greenhouse gas blamed for global warming, said the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency. The growth in CO2 emissions halved to 1.7%, compared with a growth of 3.3% in 2007, and an average annual growth of 4% since 2002, said the report. The world spewed 31.5 billion tons of carbon into the air last year, more than double the amount in 1970, it said. Emissions actually declined by 3% in the United States in 2008 from the previous year, largely because high gasoline prices kept road travel down, said the agency, a government-funded body that advises the Netherlands on environmental policy."

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Environmentalists Ratchet Up Campaign Against Oil Sands. By John Lorinc, NYTimes, June 26, 2009. "In a broadside aimed squarely at Canada's energy heartland, a coalition of 18 leading environmental groups began a high-profile campaign last week, calling on the United States government to discourage imports of crude oil derived from tar sands. Led by the Sierra Club, the coalition is asking Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton not to issue permits to Canadian energy companies that want to build pipelines from Alberta to the American Midwest. The group will also be lobbying lawmakers in Washington to adopt a low-carbon fuel standard, similar to one in California, as another means of preventing Alberta crude from finding its way into American engines."

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Largest U.S. Biodiesel Refinery Idle and For Sale. By Clifford Krauss, NYTimes, June 23, 2009. "When the $70 million GreenHunter Energy biodiesel refinery opened on the Houston Ship Channel almost exactly a year ago with the capacity to produce 105 million gallons of fuel a year, Texas Gov. Rick Perry bragged that the plant embodied 'the future of energy in Texas and the United States.' But on Tuesday The Houston Chronicle reported that GreenHunter is financially strapped and seeking to sell the plant. The refinery... the country's largest -- has been idled the last four months due to low demand for fuel in the United States, as well as new trade barriers imposed by Europe on American biodiesel exports. Damages from last summer's Hurricane Ike didn't help matters either."

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Algae Plant Aims to Use CO2 to Produce Ethanol. By Matthew L. Wald, NYTimes, June 29, 2009. "Dow Chemical and Algenol Biofuels, a start-up company, are set to announce Monday that they will build a demonstration plant that, if successful, would use algae to turn carbon dioxide into ethanol as a vehicle fuel or an ingredient in plastics. Because algae does not require any farmland or much space, many energy companies are trying to use it to make commercial quantities of hydrocarbons for fuel and chemicals. But harvesting the hydrocarbons has proved difficult so far. The ethanol would be sold as fuel, the companies said, but Dow's long-term interest is in using it as an ingredient for plastics, replacing natural gas. The process also produces oxygen, which could be used to burn coal in a power plant cleanly, said Paul Woods, chief executive of Algenol, which is based in Bonita Springs, Fla. The exhaust from such a plant would be mostly carbon dioxide, which could be reused to make more algae."

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International Climate News

Brazil Approves Controversial Land Tenure Law. By Marco Sibaja, AP, June 26, 2009. "President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has approved a law that could legalize landholdings by some 1 million squatters occupying a Texas-sized chunk of the Amazon rain forest, despite environmentalist fears it will accelerate deforestation. The law, approved late Thursday night, affects 260,233 square miles (67.4 million hectares) of federally owned land that for decades has been illegally occupied -- mostly by small farmers, but also by large property holders and loggers. The government says the law will help it curb deforestation and land conflicts, but environmentalists say it will lure more people into the region and lead to more devastation. The government hopes that legalizing Amazon landholdings will let it better monitor land ownership, which it says is key to the region's sustainable development and survival. Under the new law, squatters occupying up to 250 acres (100 hectares) will be given title to the land free of cost. The government says that more than 50% of the area is made up of small farms of this size. Lots measuring between 250 and 1,000 acres (100 and 400 hectares) will be sold at a 'symbolic cost' and holdings of 1,000 to 3,750 acres (400 to 1,500 hectares) will be sold at market prices. Larger lots of up to 6,250 acres (2,500 hectares) will be auctioned to the highest bidder. Anything larger can only be sold with congressional approval. Bowing to pressure from environmental protection groups, Silva vetoed a clause that would have allowed absentee landlords and companies to benefit from the law. However the president kept a clause that allows the government to give deeds to lands of less than 1,000 acres (400 hectares) without first verifying that the person asking for the title actually occupies and works the land. Nilo Davila, Greenpeace representative in Brasilia said that without a prior inspection, more poverty-stricken squatters from around the country will be lured into the Amazon. 'This will lead to more deforestation and violence,' he added.

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Ghana's Climate Refugees. By Sam Knight, FT, June 20, 2009. "Migration has long been part of life in the dry reaches of west Africa, but in recent years, with economic development taking place elsewhere and erratic rains making rural life increasingly difficult, more and more people are taking to the road. The figures are inexact, but about 20% of those born in northern Ghana are now thought to live in the richer, more urbanised south. In Nandom, the numbers are much higher: half the population has gone… Cutting against the anticipated scale of environmental migration, however, is the variety of ways in which it might unfold. And this makes it hard to treat as a single problem. Climate change is expected to hit different parts of the world in different forms and at different speeds. The spectrum is enormous. It stretches from increasingly frequent sudden disasters, such as Katrina, to cases like the African Sahel and Australia's Murray-Darling Basin, where drought and wildfires threaten large-scale forced migration over the next 30 to 40 years. Then there are the Nandoms, the ­marginal zones where millions of people are hanging on in increasingly inhospitable climates… In the real world, no one expects European and other wealthy countries to invite migrants from environmentally traumatised places such as Nandom as a way of helping those communities survive. But the very idea shows how migration will function both as a way of adapting to climate change and as a symbol of the disaster. And that, in the end, is the reason why migration itself is a false target. The deeper problems lie behind. In Nandom, a community eroding under an unstable climate and the flight of its young, people want migration to stop and they need it to continue."

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Japan Turns to Nuclear to Meet Emissions Targets. By Yvonne Chan, BusinessGreen, June 21, 2009. "The Japanese government has said it will need to generate about 40% of its electricity from nuclear power by 2020 if it is to meet its greenhouse gas reduction goals. According to a new report from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Japan's power sector saw carbon dioxide emissions rise by 14.3% to 417m tonnes in the year to March 2008. The large rise in emissions was attributed in large part to the 22-month shutdown of Tokyo Electric's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant, the world's largest nuclear plant by power output. An offshore earthquake in July 2007 forced the closure of the station for inspection and upgrades. It is now still operating well short of full capacity after one of its seven reactors was restarted last month. Japan's 55 nuclear plants typically generate about one-third of the nation's energy, but the closure forced the proportion of energy coming from low carbon nuclear plants down to nearer a quarter."

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Ozone

Ozone Hole Trims Polar Water's CO2-Absorbing Power. By Sid Perkins, June 26, 2009, Science News, subsrciption. "The ozone hole over Antarctica does more than let a little extra ultraviolet light reach ground level: It boosts ocean acidification in the waters surrounding the icy continent and reduces the amount of carbon dioxide emissions those waters can absorb. Recent research has indicated that the oceans surrounding Antarctica aren't absorbing nearly as much planet-warming CO2 from the atmosphere as they did in previous decades. In one of those studies, scientists speculated that meteorological effects of the high-altitude ozone hole over Antarctica, including strengthening of winds at sea level, might be to blame. Now, results of computer simulations bolster that notion, researchers report online June 20 in Geophysical Research Letters."

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Ozone Solution is Growing Climate Threat. By Andrew C. Revkin, NYTimes, June 22, 2009. "A group of chemicals called  hydrofluorocarbons, long hailed as a substitute for gases that can destroy the ozone layer, are now seen as a growing greenhouse threat given their outsize ability to warm the atmosphere. The chemicals, mainly referred to by the acronym HFC's, have long been known to be potent heat-trapping substances. But because they are released in tiny traces, they currently contribute less than 1% of the climate-warming effect from human-generated carbon dioxide. But fast-paced growth in the use of these chemicals as refrigerants and in air conditioning in developing countries is poised to make HFC's a far bigger contributor to warming, scientists are saying. A sobering new analysis of HFC emission trends, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, forecasts that by midcentury, emissions of these chemicals could be heating the atmosphere with the same punch as 7 or 8 billion tons a year of carbon dioxide... The United States has indicated that it is interested in the idea of governing HFC's under the Montreal pact but deferred making a quick decision on the question earlier this year."

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Flora and Fauna

Saving Species No Longer a Beauty Contest. By David A. Fahrenthold, WashPost, June 29, 2009. "When it began compiling lists of threatened and endangered animals and plants more than 35 years ago, the U.S. government gave itself the same mandate as Noah's Ark: Save everything. But in practice... the furry, the feathered, the famous and the edible have dominated government funding for protected species, to the point that one subpopulation of threatened salmon gets more money than 956 other plants and animals combined. Now, though, scientists say they're noticing a little more love for the 'unlovely'. They... are getting new money and respect... The government lists 1,318 U.S. species as threatened or endangered, everything from the American alligator to the Florida ziziphus, a spiny shrub. By one measure, the federal government has already done something miraculous for them: It has kept them around. Only nine listed U.S. species have been declared extinct since the act was passed in 1973. But the idea was not just to arrest species at the edge of disappearing: It was to bring them back. And by that measure, most of the success has gone to glamour species. Only 15 U.S. species have officially been declared 'recovered.' They are three plants, two obscure tropical birds -- and 10 animals that would look good on a T-shirt. These include gray wolves, bald eagles, brown pelicans and the Yellowstone subpopulation of grizzly bears."

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Career Forester Named US Forest Service Chief. By Matthew Daley, AP, June 17, 2009. "Montana forester Tom Tidwell is the new head of the U.S. Forest Service. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Wednesday that Tidwell replaced Gail Kimbell, who had led the Forest Service since 2007. Tidwell began his new duties Wednesday. Tidwell, 54, is a 32-year Forest Service employee who most recently supervised national forests through northern Idaho, Montana and the Dakotas... Michael Francis, acting vice president of The Wilderness Society, called Tidwell a good choice. He said Tidwell has been a strong supporter of protecting wild lands, including roadless areas in remote forests."

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Food and Environmental Protection

Farming For Nine Billion People. By James Kanter, NYTimes, June 25, 2009. "How will the world meet the growing energy and food demands of a population projected to approach nine billion in 2050? And how can it do so in a sustainable manner, despite the prospect of climate change? Two frequently cited solutions -- raising productivity through large investment in fertilizers, irrigation and mechanization, and extending farming to degraded, abandoned or pasture lands -- would still leave food and energy supplies falling short of demand, according to study released on Thursday [PDF, 83 pp] by the climate change advise division of Deutsche Bank. Such measures are also likely to exacerbate water constraints and increase carbon emissions. Irrigation, for example, uses water; the production of fertilizer creates greenhouse gases; and mechanized equipment currently uses fossil fuels. To overcome these constraints, the bankers say that it will be necessary to explore alternative approaches to present-day agribusiness practices. Such alternatives would include radical shifts in land use, genetically modified crops and organic farming. Farmers, markets and governments will need to look at 'a whole host of options' including 'the re-emergence of small, self-sufficient organic farms, characterized as local, multi-crop, energy and water efficient, low-carbon, socially just, and self-sustaining,' according the Mark Fulton, the bank's global head for climate change investment research. Mr. Fulton also recommends examining ways to sequester carbon in the soil, through means like tilling the soil less (which may reduce carbon dioxide emissions) or by using biochar, or sometimes called charcoal, to trap carbon dioxide. The bank's research, done in collaboration with the Nelson Institute's Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, estimated that the caloric needs of the planet will soar 50% by 2050. The main drivers would be population growth, wealth gains, dietary trends and demand for biofuels."

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A Rough Term In Supreme Court For the Environment. By Jennifer Koons, Greenwire, June 25, 2009. "Environmental interests were trounced in the 2009 Supreme Court term that ends Monday. In five high-profile cases, the justices overturned decisions that favored environmentalists. They ruled in favor of the Navy in a case pitting national security concerns against the welfare of marine mammals; limited the scope of liability for a Superfund cleanup; and reversed a decision that held no cost-benefit test could be used to determine the best technology for withdrawing water from rivers to cool power-plant turbines. In addition, the court held that five conservation groups lacked standing to challenge U.S. Forest Service regulations and found that the Army Corps of Engineers, not U.S. EPA, has permitting authority over mining-waste discharges under the Clean Water Act."

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40 Years Ago the Cuyahoga River Caught Fire, Helping to Spark Environmental Movement. By Christopher Maag, NYTimes, June 21, 2009. "June 22 was is the 40th anniversary of the Cuyahoga River fire of 1969, when oil-soaked debris floating on the river's surface was ignited, most likely by sparks from a passing train. The fire was extinguished in 30 minutes and caused just $50,000 in damage. But it became a galvanizing symbol for the environmental movement, one of a handful of disasters that led to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and to the passage of the Clean Water Act. 'The Cuyahoga River fire was a spark plug for environmental reforms around the country,' said Cameron Davis, who was recently appointed to become the special adviser to the E.P.A. on Great Lakes environmental issues... Today, the Cuyahoga is home to more than 60 species of fish... Beavers, blue herons and bald eagles nest along the river's banks. Long sections of the Cuyahoga are clean enough that they no longer require aggressive monitoring, regulators said."

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