NEWS ROUNDUP

U.S. Supreme Court rebukes Bush administration on greenhouse gas emissions The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the federal government on Monday to take a fresh look at regulating carbon dioxide emissions from cars, a rebuke to Bush administration policy on global warming. In a 5-4 decision, the court said the Clean Air Act gives the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to regulate the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from cars. Greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the landmark environmental law, Justice John Paul Stevens said in his majority opinion. The court's four conservative justices - Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas - dissented. The court had three questions before it. -Do states have the right to sue the EPA to challenge its decision? -Does the Clean Air Act give EPA the authority to regulate tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases? -Does EPA have the discretion not to regulate those emissions? The court said yes to the first two questions. On the third, it ordered EPA to re-evaluate its contention it has the discretion not to regulate tailpipe emissions. The court said the agency has so far provided a "laundry list" of reasons that include foreign policy considerations....Go here to read the opinion.
Ruling Undermines Lawsuits Opposing Emissions Controls Yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling on carbon dioxide emissions largely shredded the underpinning of other lawsuits trying to block regulation of the emissions and gave new momentum to Congressional efforts to control heat-trapping gases linked to climate change. The arguments rejected by the court have been invoked in other legal challenges, including a case pending in California in which auto industry trade groups argue against that state’s law controlling carbon-dioxide emissions from cars, and one in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where electric utilities are fighting the E.P.A.’s authority to regulate their emissions of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide. Both cases had been stayed awaiting yesterday’s ruling. “This flips the debate from an environment in which Congress must act if there is to be federal action,” said Tim Profeta, the director of the Nicholas Institute for the Environment at Duke University, “to one in which the E.P.A. can act as soon as an administration friendly to the concept is in power.” “If there is a President Clinton or President McCain,” Mr. Profeta added, “he or she doesn’t have to go to Congress to get action.”....
Editorial - Jolly Green Justices(subscription) The current Supreme Court is a talented group of jurists, but until yesterday we didn't think their expertise ran to climatology. The Justices would have done better in their big global warming decision if they'd stuck more closely to the law. They showed no such modesty. In Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, a narrow majority managed to diminish the rules of judicial standing, rewrite the definition of "pollutant" under the Clean Air Act, and dramatically curtail the decision-making authority of the executive branch. And judging from Justice John Paul Stevens's 5-4 majority decision, they did so because the five Justices are personally anxious about rising temperatures. As Justice Antonin Scalia noted in dissent, the "Court's alarm over global warming" has led it to substitute "its own desired outcome" for the EPA's judgment. The five Supreme climatologists granted Al Gore's fondest wish by declaring that "the harms associated with climate change are serious and well recognized." The majority warned about a "precipitous rise in sea levels," "severe and irreversible changes to natural ecosystems" and "increases in the spread of disease." The Court used all of this not-so-inadvertent opining to justify its conclusion that CO2 is indeed a "pollutant." The Clean Air Act requires the EPA to regulate "any air pollutant" from cars that might "endanger public health or welfare," though the majority took the widest view that the definition includes any "physical, chemical" substance that goes in the air. (Next up: oxygen.) Justice Scalia poked fun at this reasoning, noting Webster's definition of "pollute" is "to make or render impure or unclean" -- which might apply to sulfur dioxide or other dirty gases but not a product of human respiration that resides in the upper atmosphere. In any case, isn't this something for Congress to decide?....
Ethanol-blend auto emissions no greener than gasoline: study An unpublished federal report appears to undermine the belief that commercially available ethanol-blended fuel produces cleaner emissions than regular gasoline. Many Canadians believe filling up with ethanol-blended gasoline reduces the emission of greenhouse gases that damage the environment. Advertising sponsored by the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association encourages the idea, telling Canadians renewable fuels are "good for the environment," and even some provincial governments, including Manitoba and Saskatchewan, say the fuel "burns cleaner" than gasoline. Scientists at Environment Canada studied four vehicles of recent makes, testing their emissions in a range for driving conditions and temperatures. "Looking at tailpipe emissions, from a greenhouse gas perspective, there really isn't much difference between ethanol and gasoline," said Greg Rideout, head of Environment Canada's toxic emissions research. "Our results seemed to indicate that with today's vehicles, there's not a lot of difference at the tailpipe with greenhouse gas emissions." The study found no statistical difference between the greenhouse gas emissions of regular unleaded fuel and 10 per cent ethanol blended fuel. Although the study found a reduction in carbon monoxide, a pollutant that forms smog, emissions of some other gases, such as hydrocarbons, actually increased under certain conditions....
Flame-plagued summers in forecast Fiery summers will likely become common in Colorado as the planet warms, according to researchers preparing the latest chapter of an international climate change assessment. The chapter - detailing the observed and forecast effects of climate change worldwide - is scheduled to be released by the United Nations on Friday. Blazing Western wildfires, a consequence of warming drying the region, could be one of the costliest impacts here, climate experts said in a telephone press conference Monday. "The U.S. Forest Service last year spent $1 billion on fire, on fire response," said Anthony Janetos, director of the Joint Global Change Research Institute, at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the University of Maryland. Fire seasons today are two months longer than they were in the 1970s, according to 2006 research, and wildfires destroy 6.5 times as much land....Looks like we are being set up. A bad fire season will be because of global warming, and not because of Forest Service management, or non-management of the resource.
Forest plan's critics suppressed, judge rules The Bush administration illegally suppressed and misrepresented the views of dissenting scientists when it eased logging restrictions under the Northwest Forest Plan, a federal judge in Seattle has ruled. In his ruling late Friday, U.S. District Judge Ricardo S. Martinez struck down the administration's change to the forest plan, which governs logging on 24 million acres of federal lands in Washington, Oregon and Northern California. "Here, the dissenting views of responsible scientists were neither set forth in substance, nor their import discussed," as required by the National Environmental Policy Act, Martinez wrote. Under the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan's Aquatic Conservation Strategy, before federal agencies could approve logging, road building or other projects, they had to determine that the projects would not harm watersheds. That wording, designed to protect salmon, had held up timber activities on 4 million acres designated for logging. In March 2004, the Bush administration dropped the wording at the request of the timber industry....
Editorial - Value of a forest: Federal ruling is a victory for conservation Trees are renewable by human cultivation in a relatively short time. But forests, especially old-growth forests, are not. Once a forest is degraded or destroyed by logging, drilling, mining or grazing, it could take many decades, even centuries, for nature to restore its beauty, its ecosystems and its value as a watershed. That is if nature were ever again allowed to take its own course. Worse, the extinction of plant and animal species is irreversible. That's why any American who has stood quietly in a forest and felt the power of its sensuous and spiritual pull should be delighted at a ruling by a federal district court. The ruling overturns the Bush administration's misbegotten forest rules that cut back on environmental reviews and protection of wildlife. The Bush rules, issued two years ago, also would wrongly limit public participation in forest management plans. The pro-business Bush environmental rules are an attempt to dismantle a policy for national forests and grasslands dating to the Reagan administration. Those long-standing rules require government agencies to maintain viable numbers of plants and wildlife, particularly endangered species. They also demand careful analysis of the impact of any commercial use of public forests and grassland....
How fast on the Anticline? Scientists and environmental groups' consultants say a proposal to dramatically increase natural gas drilling on the Pinedale Anticline is rushed and lacks assurances the environment will be protected. Industry representatives, meanwhile, say the intense, year-round development would allow extraction of gas to be over more quickly, meaning areas could be reclaimed faster. They also say their plans call for use of technologies and practices intended to reduce impact to the environment. The nearly 200,000-acre Pinedale Anticline is one of the biggest natural gas resources in the country, holding about 25 trillion cubic feet of gas -- enough to heat 10 million homes for 30 years. The area also contains prime habitat for wildlife....
Professor Emeritus: Have We ‘Nuked’ Pinedale’s Big Game Herds? Here we are, 30-plus years later, still trying to extort energy from the gas-bearing formation known as the Pinedale Anticline, or locally the Mesa, an area of approximately 200,000 acres. I recently analyzed the Bureau of Land Management’s plans for energy development on the Mesa. The Mesa is home to a number of sagebrush-dependent wildlife species and provides crucial winter range for mule deer and pronghorn. During the last five years, several hundred wells have been developed on the Anticline causing direct loss of more than two percent of these winter ranges. Although two percent seems like a relatively small number, scientifically credible studies have documented major shifts in mule deer distributions and a 46 percent reduction in deer numbers. Researchers attribute much of this decline to wellfield activities, direct impacts to the very best habitat and indirect effects from animals avoiding areas near development. We have less data for pronghorn but studies do indicate that survival rates are lower for pronghorn exposed to energy development activities compared to those not exposed. Based on my own research, I believe impacts to pronghorn are probably as great if not greater than those reported for mule deer. Yet, even in the face of this evidence, the BLM is proposing to expand drilling activities on crucial winter ranges with an additional 4,000 wells....
Ariz. Cactus to Remain on Species List A cactus that has been a thorn in the side of southern Arizona developers for more than a decade will remain under federal protection after a review of the plant's status. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's recent decision to keep the Pima pineapple cactus on the federal endangered species list means that new developments will have to save open space for it in fast-growing Tucson suburbs. Some private biologists had argued that the Pima pineapple cactus is far more common than previously estimated and should be lumped with other, more common pineapple cacti varieties. But wildlife service officials said two studies from a private consulting firm questioning the listing were faulted by the federal agency's scientists and all but one of 14 outside scientists. For one, the service said, the consultants used cactus survey methods that would tend to "bias" the survey data toward making the population seem more abundant than it is. The species lives only in southern and southeastern Arizona and in part of Mexico....
Alaska Senate opposes polar bear listing The state Senate is on record opposing the federal listing of polar bears as a threatened species. The Senate Friday voted 12 to 5 in favor of the resolution, which was introduced the same day. A similar resolution is pending in the House. Fairbanks Republican Gary Wilken says he is concerned that the listing does not have the proper scientific backing. And he says it could be used to halt subsistence activities and resource development in the state. The Palin and Murkowski administrations are also on record opposing the listing. The Fish and Wildlife Service's review comes amid concerns that global warming is melting away the sea ice where the animals live. In December, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne proposed listing polar bears as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. A final decision on the listing is due by January 2008....
Rare bearpoppy gains protection in patch at Nellis Air Force Base Nellis Air Force Base is setting aside more than 230 acres as protected habitat for the rare Las Vegas bearpoppy, a fuzzy-leafed plant with yellow flowers that grows only in gypsum soils primarily in Clark County. The bearpoppy, which depends on a ground-dwelling bee for pollination, is considered a critically endangered species in Nevada and is on the state's list of protected species, said Jim Morefield, a botanist with the Nevada Natural Heritage Program. The plant is not on federal threatened or endangered species lists because Nevada has taken steps to protect habitat where it grows at Nellis, North Las Vegas Airport and Springs Preserve. Morefield told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The base set-aside is under a permit from the Nevada Division of Forestry that allows Nellis to develop other property on the base for military housing and flood detention basins....
Support Eroding for Rep. Frank Wolf's Journey Through Hallowed Ground Heritage Area Support for Congressman Frank Wolf's controversial Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area Act (H.R. 319) continues to erode, reports The National Center for Public Policy Research. Two Congressmen are cosponsoring an alternative measure that, unlike Wolf's bill, would protect property owners. Congressman Virgil Goode (R-VA), who had cosponsored the Wolf initiative in the previous Congress, has chosen not to do so in the current Congress. Both Rep. Goode and Rep. Bill Shuster (R-PA) recently decided to cosponsor an alternative Heritage Area proposal put forth by Congressman Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD). Bartlett's bill (H.R. 1270) promises to protect property rights and limited local government where the Wolf bill would endanger both. Specifically, Rep. Wolf's legislation would create a 175-mile long preservation zone, stretching from central Virginia (Rep. Goode's district) through Maryland (Rep. Bartlett's district) to southern Pennsylvania (Rep. Bill Shuster's district), where land use and property rights could be restricted. The bill would give the National Park Service and preservation interest groups, many with a history of hostility towards property rights, substantial influence over land use planning in the region. The interest groups and the Park Service would create a land use "management plan" for the area, and then disburse federal moneys to local governments to promote the plan. Congressman Bartlett's measure would also create a National Heritage Area. However, it would focus more on bestowing special recognition upon the area and promoting historic education and tourism within the region. Unlike the Wolf bill, the Bartlett plan would not earmark millions of dollars for wealthy special interests, nor give those interests undue influence over local land use decisions....
GIS technology maps people and planet Aerial mapping is not new, but it wasn't until we acquired the vertical distance of orbital satellites that we could get a true overview of the terrain. Over here, for example, the entire length of the Missouri River, tributaries like roots of a tree; there, the whole meandering line of knuckled humps that is the Blue Ridge Mountains. GIS combines these overhead views with digitized data sets based on what's happening in a place. Think of taking a high-altitude photograph of the ground, then laying on it a series of transparent sheets, each scattered with differently-colored dots or shadings that signify a certain amount or quality of something. As the layers add up, a mosaic emerges, with patterns that reveal a great deal. If you're modeling a river system, you might sample various aspects of the waterway at many points and assemble a multi-dimensional portrait of river depth, fish populations, human activities along the banks, and pollutant presence. Adding the first data overlay, you might discover that where there are lots of red dots signifying pollution, there aren't many green dots signifying fish. Another layer, with black dots for industrial plants and yellow dots for apple orchards, reveals a surprise: The red pollution dots concentrate near the apple orchards. Deduction: The pollutants aren't of industrial origin but are, say, pesticide runoff from agriculture. Solution: Determine how to help fish and apples coexist. GIS can also go into the air to build spatial models that include weather patterns, air pollution, and bird migration routes. And with information from borings and ground-penetrating radar, it can depict what's beneath the surface, mapping water table contours, soil depth, mineral content, or the "plumes" of contaminants spreading from a pollution source....
Montana Legislature Faces End Game for Groundwater Solutions House Bill 844 by Rep. Debby Barrett, R-Dillon, failed a House vote Monday, 47 to 53, with 4 Republicans and all Democrats opposed. In the Montana Legislature’s waning weeks, the fight for the state’s most precious resource – water – is just ramping up. The question of who gets the rights to the groundwater in Montana’s fastest-growing valleys has the potential to profoundly affect the economic, agricultural and recreational future of the state. Without the ability to dig new wells to service growing towns and subdivisions, Montana’s economic growth will stagnate, developers say. But farmers and ranchers argue that their seniority must be protected from municipal development while still allowing them the flexibility to dig new wells for irrigation....
Goat rancher legally kills mountain lion A Ventura goat rancher shot and killed a mountain lion last week after getting a special state permit to do so because it had slaughtered eight of his animals. The rancher, whom California Department of Fish and Game officials declined to identify, reported Wednesday that a mountain lion had killed eight of his young goats on the two previous nights, said Chris Long, Ventura County patrol lieutenant for the state department. After visiting the ranch on Camp Chaffee Road near Foster Park, Long said, he determined a mountain lion was responsible and issued the rancher a depredation permit. Though mountain lions are defined under California law as a protected species, depredation permits allow people to kill lions that have destroyed livestock or domestic animals in certain circumstances. That night, an approximately 130-pound male mountain lion came to the ranch and the rancher shot and killed it, Long said....
Underpass aims to help wildlife Government, environmental groups and private landowners are working together on an experimental project to reduce road kill as animals travel between the Greater Yellowstone area and protected lands to the north. When the Montana Department of Transportation needed to replace two bridges on Interstate 90 east of Bozeman because they did not meet earthquake standards, they also decided to try to reduce the amount of roadkill in the area. The new bridge project includes 8-foot-high, woven-wire fences, which will stretch for about a mile on either side of the road, meant to funnel wildlife toward the underpasses and away from the busy highway. Animals using the underpass will still have to cross railroad tracks that carry 20 to 24 trains per day, traveling at 35 mph, but that's easier than trying to avoid 20,000 cars and trucks traveling 70 mph, said DOT biologist Deb Wambach....
Judge allows private testing for mad cow The federal government must allow meatpackers to test their animals for mad cow disease, a federal judge ruled Thursday. Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, a meatpacker based in Arkansas City, Kan., wants to test all of its cows for the disease, which can be fatal to humans who eat tainted beef. Larger meat companies feared that move because if Creekstone tested its meat and advertised it as safe, they could be forced to do the expensive test, too. The Agriculture Department currently regulates the test and administers it to less than 1 percent of slaughtered cows. The department threatened Creekstone with prosecution if it tested all its animals. U.S. District Judge James Robertson ruled that the government does not have the authority to regulate the test. Robertson put his order on hold until the government can appeal. If the government does not appeal by June 1, he said the ruling would take effect....
Supreme Court Won't Take Up Farm Ban Nebraska's 25-year-old corporate farming ban, considered one of the most restrictive of its kind in the country, was dealt a fatal blow Monday. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review an appellate court's decision last year that ruled the ban violated the U.S. Constitution's commerce clause, which prevents states from enacting laws that disrupt interstate commerce. "This is very much the final nail in the coffin," said David Bracht, an attorney who represents opponents of the ban. Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning said, "We are mourning the end of an era today." Voters passed the ban in 1982. It generally prohibited corporations and certain other business entities from owning farmland or engaging in agricultural activity in the state....
Fighting for subsidies Spinach might not seem to have anything to do with military operations. But there it is, in an emergency supplemental bill to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: $25 million for California spinach growers, whose vigorous, martiallike spinach-growing had heretofore not been seen as part of the war effort. The war bill illustrates the axiom that guides the nation's agricultural policy: namely, that any principles of good government, common sense and fiscal sanity must always be abandoned in the cause of shoveling federal dollars at American farmers. Its $4 billion for disaster relief, together with millions for peanut storage, sugar-beet production and the Milk Income Loss Contract Program, isn't unusual, except for the fact that it was used to buy votes for a pullout from Iraq. For House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, apparently, all geopolitics is local, and some of her members are happy to lose a war if they can win a subsidy. Otherwise, the ag spending is unremarkable, part of the perpetual bi-partisan, farm-spending gross-out....
Baker County ballet features saddles rather than skirts A garracho is a 13-foot-long pole that Spanish bullfighters have used for centuries to trip bulls in order to make their four-legged opponents snorting mad. But in the hands of Alice Trindle, a garracho is one of two implements used in an elegant dance. The other is her horse, Tilly. Trindle, who calls herself an "aspiring horseman" in the same way Tiger Woods aspires to be a really great golfer, showed a large crowd at Saturday's "Celebrate the Horse" event just what a ballet on horseback might look like. With mood-setting Spanish guitar music filling the arena at the T&T Ranch she shares with event organizer Susan Triplett, Trindle maneuvered the long pole and her horse through an elegant human/equine pas de deux — with her horse cantering the circumference of a 6-foot circle....