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I remember taking a forestry class my freshman year of college. The curriculum, presented by a veteran instructor from the California Department of Forestry, covered several related topics that included ecology, biology, life cycles, wild-land fire control, conservation, and commerce based on those natural resources. I never heard the associate professor use the word "environment" or "environmentalist" during the course. Granted, it was years ago, and course outlines do change over time as new information on any given subject becomes available. But, the disconnect suggests the environmentalist movement is a recent concoction that has little basis in traditional resource management...

WASHINGTON -- Lawsuits filed Thursday that challenge the federal government's approval of a Shell Oil Co. offshore exploration plan present a major test of regulators' power to swiftly review deep-water drilling blueprints. In two separate but overlapping filings, conservationists argue the government was bound by federal law to first finish a post-spill environmental study of the Gulf of Mexico before approving Shell's plan last month. The legal complaints were filed in the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit Court of Appeals — one by the Defenders of Wildlife, Center for Biological Diversity and the Natural Resources Defense Council and the other by Earthjustice,...

A leading environmental group has called on Gov. Jerry Brown to take another look at the cap-and-trade rule adopted by the Air Resources Board late last year, saying the regulation doesn't go far enough to meet the standards set by the state's 2006 greenhouse gas emission reduction law. In a letter sent Monday, Sierra Club Director Bill Magavern writes that the rule change approved at the end of former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's term "has some serious flaws that will limit its effectiveness in reducing emissions and generating green jobs, and call into question its compliance with the environmental justice requirements...

According to a recently released German study, the supposed "environmentally friendly" compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL's), are reported to have "cancer causing chemicals" that are sent out when the light is switched on, reports London's Daily Telegraph: Their report advises that the bulbs should not be left on for extended periods, particularly near someone’s head, as they emit poisonous materials when switched on. Peter Braun, who carried out the tests at the Berlin's Alab Laboratory, said: “For such carcinogenic substances it is important they are kept as far away as possible from the human environment.”

New Public Utilities Commission Chair Appointed: Governor Dayton has named Senator Ellen Anderson as the new Chair of the Public Utilities Commission. The five-member Public Utilities Commission regulates rates for electric and natural gas utilities and permits new power plants, electric transmission lines, and pipelines. Sen. Anderson (DFL-St. Paul/Falcon Heights) is currently the ranking minority member on the Senate’s Energy and Utilities Committee and was formerly the Chair of the Senate Energy, Environment and Natural Resources finance committee. Her nomination is subject to confirmation by the state Senate.

The handful of Republican lawmakers most likely to provide crucial votes for Gov. Jerry Brown's budget plan are threatening to withhold their support without a dramatic rewriting of state environmental law. The demand, pushed in private talks with the governor, would curtail lawsuits against projects threatening ecological damage, grant waivers to big telecommunications companies and exempt many urban developments from environmental review. The legislators have declined to share the details of their proposal publicly, but draft legislation to overhaul the law was obtained by The Times. Sweeping changes in the California Environmental Quality Act would stand little chance of approval...

At a hearing of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee today examining job loss in the manufacturing industry, U.S. Senator Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) pressed U.S. Department of Commerce Secretary Gary Locke on the critical imperative to assess the adverse affects of proposed rules on the paper industry. Senator Snowe, who asserted the paper industry is a cornerstone of America's manufacturing sector, insisted the Department do a better job of understanding the implications of proposed regulations on job creation.

Last fall, leftist ideological groups of socialists and communists teamed up with American labor unions to march together for “One Nation.” Now, as labor leaders struggle to maintain a stranglehold on collective bargaining privileges in Wisconsin, the same groups are once again marching together under a banner claiming unions are the heart of the American dream.As we’ve reported, former White House green jobs czar Van Jones this week issued a rallying call for the progressive movement to “renew itself and become again a national force with which to be reckoned.” On Saturday, progressive groups and labor unions are reportedly planning...

The Hopi Tribe has a message for the Sierra Club and other environmental groups: Keep out! That is the response of the Hopi Tribal Council on Monday to what it says has been continuous concerted attacks from local and national environmental groups "bent on advancing their interests and agenda at the expense of the Hopi Tribe and its sovereign interest." The council wants the Sierra Club and other environmental groups and on-reservation organizations affiliated with these groups to know they are not welcome on the Hopi Reservation, declaring them persona non grata - no longer favored or welcome. By a...

Environmental groups agreed to not fight the project in exchange for funds that could buy up grazing permits. A new sagebrush rebellion has spread across the West from Wyoming to Oregon. But this time the target is a big energy company, not the federal government. El Paso Corp., the owner of the nation's largest natural gas pipeline system, angered ranchers and county officials this summer when it agreed with two environmental groups to set up the funds. Western Watersheds Project and the Oregon Natural Desert Association agreed not to challenge the pipeline in exchange for establishing two new nonprofit funds,...

Tens of thousands of gray wolves would be returned to the woods of New England, the mountains of California, the wide open Great Plains and the desert West under a scientific petition now before the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity say ...

NORTHBROOK — Republican Senate candidate Mark Kirk publicly apologized Tuesday for being “careless” in describing his military service and background, after a series of embellishments were revealed that could threaten his bid for President Barack Obama’s former seat. As Kirk apologized, however, he also acknowledged something his campaign had flatly denied just two weeks ago.

Hatched over the last few weeks by Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) with backing from House Democratic leaders and the White House, it was a legislative maneuver rich with the kind of irony that often goes unremarked in Washington — a classic backroom special interest deal to help pass a bill that would require heightened disclosure of special interest spending on campaign ads. The idea was to neutralize opposition to tough new campaign spending rules from one particularly powerful special interest group, the National Rifle Association, by exempting it as well as the left-leaning Sierra Club and the ecumenical Humane...

Now Most Americans Think Gulf Wildlife And Beaches Will NEVER Recover Gus Lubin Jun. 16, 2010, 11:31 AM Image: the sierra club A new Gallup poll shows most people are very pessimistic about the oil spill. 59% of Americans say local wildlife will never cover. 49% say local beaches will never recover. Nearly everyone thinks wildlife and beaches will take more than ten years to recover. Most people say the spill will hurt the economy (83%), push up gas prices (79%), and push up food prices (79%). The polling numbers tell you everything you need to know about major publicity...

On the 56th day of the worst environmental disaster in U.S. History, a group of conservationists and scientists are calling on President Barack Obama to fire Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. The letter, signed by more than 100 groups and individuals, doesn't blame the former U.S. Senator from Colorado for all the corruption and other problems that have plagued the Interior Department and predate his tenure as Secretary; instead, it blames him for failing to clean it all up as he promised to do when he took over. "We think that Ken Salazar's time is up," said Nicole Rosmarino, with WildEarth...

Rainbow-PUSH leader leads BP spill protest June 3, 2010 BY CHRISTIN NANCE LAZERUS, (219) 648-3086 As crews struggle to contain the largest oil spill in American history in the Gulf of Mexico, critics of BP are starting to turn up the heat. The Rev. Jesse Jackson led a group of protesters on a march outside of BP's Whiting refinery on Wednesday afternoon to focus attention on what he says is the lax environmental enforcement that allowed the Gulf oil spill to occur -- and problems closer to home. "We need the (Environmental Protection Agency) standards enforced," Jackson said. "At this...

Energy Policy: To save the environment, a senator from Pennsylvania wants to shut off a major source of natural gas. Weren't the roads to the Exxon Valdez and Deepwater Horizon disasters paved with equally good intentions? Environmentalism did not cause the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, but it did help make it possible, just as 1989's Exxon Valdez disaster, which the Gulf Oil spill has now eclipsed, was also ironically made possible by a desire to protect the environment. The original plan when oil was discovered at Prudhoe Bay on Alaska's North Slope was to build a pipeline directly to the...

This revealing note, with sickening photographs, is making the email and message board rounds this week. I don’t know the source, but after my uncle-in-law (who lives in Tuscon) sent the email version to us, I found the message here and here (and, no, that last one isn’t brought to you by striPPers … but by strIpers, as in fisherdoods). It’s about the degradation of Arizona soil (and yours will be next) by thousands, if not millions, of illegal aliens who cross the border into this country via the Sonora Desert, not that pResident Barack “The Zero” Obama would do...

the Senator's not so secret advisor on environmental law happens to be his wife: Susan Daggett. Susan Daggett...has worked for the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund ... a commissioner of the Denver Water Board. In 1998 Susan Daggett, an attorney with Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund ... Susan Daggett returned to Washington to work for the Natural Resources Defense Council. She later was the managing attorney with Earth Justice Legal Defense Fund...

NEW YORK (AP) - The American Civil Liberties Union has lost a quarter of its yearly donations after a major donor cut off $19 million in annual donations because of economic difficulties. David Gelbaum, a wealthy California conservationist, said he was indefinitely stopping the donations that had made him the New York-based group's largest anonymous donor