EPA Rule On Mountaintop Mining, Vertebrate Extinction Threatened, Geoengineering Ban
October 27th, 2010
The EPA is back on course at least until the midterm elections. There are critical environmental issues that have to be taken seriously and at least the Obama administration is moving in the right direction in this area even though it fumbled the gulf oil spill and it has put global warming legislation on the back burner. Perhaps they have kowtowed too much to the Oil and Coal interests. The nuclear industry seems to be about to make a major comeback with federal funding and that is a battle we thought we won 30 years ago. Compared to the Bush administration though, the Obama administration is enlightened when it comes to environmental issues. The problem is the resistance from the private sector and their advocates in the Republican Party, they are pushing back with as much force as money can bring to lobby in Washington.
This points up a little challenge for those of us who support strong environmental legislation, we have science and public opinion but the other side has vested interests with deep pockets and over a century of infrastructural weight. It is close to a David and Goliath situation when it comes to influence but then we tend to root for the underdog. It is interesting how the wealthy corporate interests have managed to use the tea party to try to masquerade as the underdog here being attacked by evil socialists. It would be nice if it were true. As much as we are critical of areas where Obama has let us down, it is important to recognize that in many critical areas they are doing good work and it is up to us to keep pushing them in the direction for positive change.
Published online 27 October 2010 | Nature 467, 1021 (2010)
Mountaintop mining plans close to defeat
Environmental review details `unacceptable' impacts.
By Natasha Gilbert
The rising tide of scientific evidence — and public protest — against mountaintop mining looks set to claim its first major victory. By the end of this year, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is expected to revoke a permit allowing mining company Arch Coal to extract coal from the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia. This would be the first time a permit for the controversial mining practice, long suspected of causing environmental damage, has been vetoed by the agency.
A scientific review (see http://go.nature.com/hsuhrt) carried out by the EPA and published on 15 October concluded that the project, Spruce 1, would have "unacceptable" effects on water quality and wildlife, and recommended its permit be revoked. Carol Raulston, a spokeswoman for the National Mining Association (NMA), based in Washington DC, told Nature: "The NMA has no reason to believe the EPA will not follow the recommendations in its final determination on the Spruce permit."
The move is likely to set the tone for decisions on other mining projects. More than 100 surface-mining permits are pending approval with the Army Corps of Engineers, which is responsible for investigating, developing and maintaining the nation's water and related environmental resources. The corps issued approval for the Spruce 1 project in 2007 to Mingo Logan, a subsidiary of Arch Coal. But the EPA can revoke a permit if it feels that environmental concerns have not been fully addressed.
Arch Coal had already filed a lawsuit in April challenging the EPA's authority to veto permits. The company now plans to submit a rebuttal to the review by 5 November.
For more of this
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101027/full/4671021a.html
From Science
Published Online October 26, 2010
Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1194442
The Impact of Conservation on the Status of the World's Vertebrates
Using data for 25,780 species categorized on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, we present an assessment of the status of the world's vertebrates. One-fifth of species are classified as Threatened, and we show that this figure is increasing: On average, 52 species of mammals, birds and amphibians move one category closer to extinction each year. However, this overall pattern conceals the impact of conservation successes, and we show that the rate of deterioration would have been at least one-fifth as much again in the absence of these. Nonetheless, current conservation efforts remain insufficient to offset the main drivers of biodiversity loss in these groups: agricultural expansion, logging, overexploitation, and invasive alien species.
For more of this
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/science.1194442
ScienceInsider - breaking news and analysis from the world of science policy
Proposed Biodiversity Pact Bars `Climate-Related Geoengineering'
by Eli Kintisch on 26 October 2010, 5:55 PM
ScienceInsider has obtained draft text from negotiators at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Nagoya, Japan, in regards to a proposed bar on geoengineering research. If it is passed, the language could broadly affect a whole field of research still taking shape. That emerging field is laid out in a new U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on the field, released today.
The statement, proposed to be part of the official communiqué of the meeting, declares that "no climate-related geoengineering activities that may affect biodiversity take place, until there is an adequate scientific basis
on which to justify such activities and appropriate consideration of the associated risks for the environment and biodiversity". The text goes on to define geoengineering as either techniques that reduce the amount of sunlight striking the ground or suck carbon out of the atmosphere.
In an e-mail, geochemist Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution of Washington slams the proposed text as making "no sense." He says the words "may affect" could "devastate" efforts to do even small-scale experiments that would not have climatic effects. Also, he says, by not saying "may affect negatively," the statement could actually bar efforts that would increase biodiversity, such as increasing the biodiversity of a farm for the purpose of large-scale sequestration of carbon using plants.
But Pat Mooney of the ETC Group, a Canadian environmental group, called the proposed text a "a step in the right direction. … It's important that governments are recognizing that there should be controls on who messes with the thermostat." By including the broad phrase "may affect," he said, the language would serve a "precautionary" role in controlling actions whose impacts may be unknown.
The meeting runs for two more days, but negotiators say that the text is unlikely to be revised.
It's unclear how the statement might be enforced, as nations have not considered CBD decisions "legally binding" in the past. One hundred sixty-eight countries are signatories to the CBD treaty; the treaty has not been ratified by the United States. But it has had effects on several scientific research areas, including genetically modified plants. A joint India-Germany experiment in ocean fertilization—one type of geoengineering —was nearly scuttled last year when two German ministries argued over the relevance of a CBD bar on such work at sea. After some paperwork, the experiment was allowed to progress.
From Salon.com
Monday, Oct 11, 2010 19:12 ET
Obama's EPA riles Bush's industry hacks
Turns out there's a difference between enforcing the rules and doing your best to gut them
By Andrew Leonard
Obama's EPA riles Bush's industry hacks
On Oct. 6 the EPA made a formal proposal for new pollution controls at the coal-fired Four Corners Power Plant near Farmington, N.M. The new rules, requiring the installation of catalytic reduction technology, would, said the EPA, result in an 80 percent reduction in nitrogen oxide emissions, and simultaneously "achieve cleaner, healthier air while improving the visibility at sixteen of our most pristine national parks and wilderness areas."
Environmentalists cheered the move, while the operators of the plant complained about the cost and warned that electricity prices would rise. Film at 11.
Let's put the climate change bill debacle to the side. There really can't be any argument, from an environmentalist's perspective, about the fact that Obama's EPA is a completely different beast from George W. Bush's EPA. As E&E's Robin Bravender reported in September:
The Obama administration is in the midst of a landmark series of Clean Air Act rulemakings.
In 18 months, U.S. EPA has — among other things — stiffened standards for sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide for the first time in decades, revamped the George W. Bush administration's smog regulations and issued the first climate rules under the Clean Air Act.
Industry is in an uproar. "The aggressiveness of the rules has taken people by surprise," Jeff Holmstead, "former Bush EPA air chief and now industry attorney" told E&E.
That would be funny if it didn't bring back such sharp memories of how Bush's EPA appointees worked consistently to undermine everything the EPA stood for. Holmstead and his successor as director of the Office of Air and Radiation, William Wehrum, were lawyers who represented industrial clients in their struggles against environmental regulations before they joined the EPA. After years spent attempting to gut the Clean Air Act, they went right back to their old jobs.
If (or when) the Republicans retake the House of Representatives, they've already made it clear that one of their priorities will be to roll back the EPA's efforts to carry out exactly what the agency is mandated to do. As liberals sift through their various disappointments as to what the Obama administration has failed to achieve in its first two years, it might be worth noting that there are nonetheless some very real and important differences between this White House and its predecessor. An EPA that hasn't been handed over to industry, gift-wrapped, is one of them.
From Treehugger
Big Oil & Coal Spent $500 Million to Kill Climate Bill
by Brian Merchant, Brooklyn, New York on 09.27.10
Needless to say, it's been a depressing year for environmentally conscious folk — with the BP spill, the hottest global temps on record, and the death of any hopes for climate legislation in the US, it's been bleak, bleak, bleak. But at least someone's winning: The industries profiting from selling us coal and oil! Yes, the failure of the climate bill in the Senate was no fluke — a new report tallies up the amount that coal, oil, utilities, and heavy industries forked over in lobbying the government to maintain the status quo. Over the last year and a half, it came out to around $500 million. Now, guess how much renewable energy lobbyists spent?
$17 million. Altogether. Which shouldn't be surprising, given that last year, we found out that the entire renewable energy lobby combined mustered less than what just Exxon alone doled out. But it's still depressing to see how true the old adage that money runs politics really is. There was no bill that was more of political winner than clean energy — American voters consistently supported it in the polls, it was part of Barack Obama's successful presidential campaign platform in 2008, and huge numbers of small business owners and groups turned out to support it, even if the US Chamber of Commerce did anything but.
For more of this
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/09/big-oil-coal-500-million-kill-climate.php
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