Free Republic

Two wilderness groups have sued the U.S. Forest Service over its decision to allow an irrigation company to use a helicopter to fly in materials needed to repair a dam in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness. Wilderness Watch and Friends of the Clearwater filed suit in U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy’s court in Missoula last week. The groups say the agency’s decision to allow the irrigation company up to two helicopter flights to the Fred Burr Dam site violates the Wilderness Act and other environmental laws. The irrigation company wants to replace a deteriorating catwalk and log boom on the nearly century-old...

Forest Service official: Environmental groups delayed thinning. Damage from the Little Bear Fire could have been reduced if a proposed Forest Service thinning project had not been delayed by an appeal from two environmental groups, a Forest Service official said Tuesday. "Any type of treatment we could have done would have reduced the severity of the fire," said Chad Stewart, fire and timber officer for the Lincoln National Forest. While the fire as a whole could not have been stopped by thinning efforts, especially in the face of 40 mph wind gusts, damage to the Bonito watershed likely would have...

The suspicions of Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe were correct: Rather than sitting before the House Energy and Commerce Committee three weeks ago to explain theways he “crucified” oil and natural gas companies, insteadAl Armendariz – who cancelled his appearance at the last minute – met with the Sierra Club for a job interview. This time the recently resigned EPA’s Region 6 administrator will eagerly attack another fossil fuel, joining the litigious environmental group as part of its “Beyond Coal” campaign. If there was any question that Armendariz unfairly regulated the gas and oil businesses under his authority in Texas, Oklahoma,...

More than 150 people crowded into a room in the City Hall Annex Monday night to weigh in on Bridgeport Harbor Station's request to renew its five-year operating permit, which expired earlier this year. Environmentalists have been trying for years to shut down the coal operations at the station, which is owned by the Newark-based Public Service Electric & Gas. This may be their best chance, said John Calandrelli, program director for the Sierra Club's local chapter. "This is the first, big, major step in what we believe will be, hopefully, a short fight to convince them to not only...

‘Clean energy” is the political darling of the moment. President Obama has made the promotion of clean energy one of the centerpieces of his administration and his reelection effort. The Democratic National Committee claims that “clean energy” investments are “helping pave the way to a more sustainable future, creating new jobs and entire industries here in America.” Last month, the Center for American Progress, a leftist think tank, released a report that touted the need to build a clean-energy economy.On Sunday, an editorial in the New York Times extolled the benefits of renewable energy and declared that the “clean...

Last month President Barack Obama signed an executive order that could lead to more federal rules on gas drilling. Obama said it is important to take advantage of natural gas resources, but he added air and water quality must be safeguarded. Of course. But what Obama did last week was to establish a "working group" to coordinate federal oversight of the natural gas industry. It will be headed by Heather Zichal, who is deputy assistant to the president for energy and climate change. Zichal is no friend of fossil fuels. She once worked with the Sierra Club and was an...

Cove Point in Southern Maryland has become the latest flash point in the fight between the fossil fuels industry and its longtime foes in the environmental movement. Citing a unique Carter-era agreement, the Sierra Club says it will veto plans by energy giant Dominion to build the first natural gas liquefaction and export facility on the East Coast, a site that would handle booming supplies from the Marcellus Shale and other vast deposits for shipment to Asia and elsewhere. The 1970s legal settlement, the Sierra Club argues, gives it the authority to halt any project that would “change the footprint”...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Sierra Club says it will block an energy company's plan to export liquefied natural gas from the booming Marcellus Shale formation. Virginia-based Dominion Resources Inc. is seeking to export 1 billion cubic feet per day through a terminal it owns in Maryland. A previous legal settlement gives the Sierra Club the ability to reject any significant changes to the purpose or footprint of the existing natural gas terminal in Cove Point, Md.

Two utility companies announced the closure of 10 aging U.S. power plants Wednesday, a move environmental groups hailed as a major victory even as critics warned it could raise the price of electricity. Pedro Pizarro, president of Midwest Generation’s parent company, Edison Mission Group, issued a statement saying that in light of environmental rules being phased in over the next three years, “unfortunately, conditions in the wholesale power market simply do not give us a path for continuing to invest in further retrofits at these two facilities.” ... GenOn Energy, meanwhile, cited the same reason as it announced it will...

Is $26 million worth the reputation of a venerable, 1.4 million member environmental group ? The Sierra Club may be about to find out. the 120-year-old organization’s hushed financial marriage to the natural gas industry — and its just-as-secretive divorce — have left some long-time supporters feeling angry, betrayed or misled. The news cut especially deep for activists who have spent years fighting the spread of shale gas drilling in states like New York and Pennsylvania. The Sierra Club quietly accepted $26 million in donations from gas industry interests from 2007 to 2010 — years when the group’s national leaders...

STOCKTON - The city has a tentative plan to combat climate change, more than three years after reaching a legal settlement with the Sierra Club and then-Attorney General Jerry Brown. It wouldn't be cheap. If adopted by the Stockton City Council later this year, the plan could cost the city $28.5 million and could cost the private sector $240 million, the document says. The plan itself acknowledges it would require "substantial effort on the part of the entire Stockton community" at a time when people are struggling to pay their bills and keep businesses open.

Environmentalists are torn over the high cost of breaking reliance on fossil fuels. Industrial-scale solar development is well underway in California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. The federal government has furnished more public property to this cause than it has for oil and gas exploration over the last decade — 21 million acres. In the fight against climate change, the Mojave Desert is about to take one for the team. "I have spent my entire career thinking of myself as an advocate on behalf of public lands and acting for their protection," said Johanna Wald, a veteran environmental...

Let’s face it: Big Oil is used to getting its way. But not any more. President Obama has just rejected a permit for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline -- a project that promised riches for the oil giants and an environmental disaster for the rest of us. His decision represents a victory of historic proportions for NRDC and hundreds of thousands of committed activists like you who have waged an uphill, years-long fight against one of the most nightmarish fossil fuel projects of our time. Please thank the President right away for his game-changing decision. But get ready to...

PRIEST LAKE, Idaho — Chantell and Mike Sackett’s dream house, if it is ever built, will have to be situated just so in order to minimize the view of neighboring homes and maximize the vista of pristine water and conifer-covered mountain. But their roughly half-acre lot in the Idaho Panhandle has proved to be the perfect staging ground for a conservative uproar over the powers of the Environmental Protection Agency. This month, the Supreme Court will review the Sacketts’s four-year-long effort to build on land that the EPA says contains environmentally sensitive wetlands. A decision in the couple’s favor could...

With all the political posturing in Congress over the Keystone XL tar-sands oil pipeline, it’s easy to lose sight of the real issue: This pipeline is dangerous, unnecessary, and would cost the American people far more than we can afford. What we’re watching unfold in Washington, DC, is more than just a high-stakes political power play — it’s a scam undertaken by Big Oil’s congressional puppets on the orders of oil companies that have billions of dollars at stake. The politicians pushing the pipeline are (how can I put this politely?) lying to the American people and pandering for dirty...

Senate Democrats accepted a provision Friday forcing a decision in two months on the Keystone XL oil pipeline as part of the must-pass payroll tax cut package, leaving the White House on the brink of a meltdown with environmental groups. "It's bulls—-," said Sierra Club President Michael Brune. "This is no way to run a government. We've got Republicans in Congress who are willing to hold the entire government hostage simply to give a Christmas present to industry." GOP and Democratic sources told POLITICO that the White House swallowed the House Republican-written pipeline rider in order to get a deal...

Every year, coal-fired power plants produce more than 386,000 tons of hazardous air pollutants -- including mercury, arsenic, lead and acid gases. Mercury, a potent neurotoxin, is a particular threat to pregnant women and young children. The Environmental Protection Agency has announced plans to issue strong, sensible protections from power plant pollution on December 16th of this year. Unfortunately, industry special interests are trying to block this critical safeguard. Tell President Obama to strongly support the EPA's efforts to clean up mercury pollution and protect the health of mothers, children and families. This is an email that I received from...

In response to a petition filed by Earthjustice and several other organizations, the United States Environmental Protection Agency has stated that it will use the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to draft regulations requiring companies to disclose information regarding "chemical substances and mixtures used in hydraulic fracturing." Although the EPA has not indicated what information will be subject to disclosure, the agency stated that it will attempt to avoid duplication of "the well-by-well disclosure programs already being implemented in several states," and that it anticipates that its regulations will "focus on providing aggregate pictures of the chemical substances and mixtures...

Statement of Terry O’Sullivan, General President of LIUNA, On Delay of Keystone XL Pipeline Construction Washington, D.C. (November 10, 2011) – Terry O’Sullivan, General President of LIUNA – the Laborers’ International Union of North America – made the following statement today in response to the U.S. State Department delay of the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline: Environmentalists formed a circle around the White House and within days the Obama Administration chose to inflict a potentially fatal delay to a project that is not just a pipeline, but is a lifeline for thousands of desperate working men and women. The...

Saying they have concerns about emissions from the coal burning power plant at Mt. Tom and potential health effects on Holyoke and Northampton, organizers led by the Sierra Club are trying to get the state to impose tougher standards on the plant's operation. "Big coal does make us sick. We are asking that the Mt. Tom plant stop making money by making us sick,'' the Sierra Club's Drew Grande said at a press conference Thursday near the Holyoke YMCA building.