How many times do we have to put up with this? I mean, really, this is just ridiculous. This week's environmental villain award certainly goes to Julie A. MacDonald, Deputy Assistant Secretary for fish and wildlife and parks at the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Evidently, Ms. MacDonald has been doctoring the science from her department on endangered species. Literally, changing the science. I guess it makes sense - after all, she's got a degree in Civil Engineering.

From the Washington Post:

At one point, according to Fish and Wildlife Service Director H. Dale Hall, MacDonald tangled with field personnel over designating habitat for the endangered Southwestern willow flycatcher, a bird whose range is from Arizona to New Mexico and Southern California. When scientists wrote that the bird had a "nesting range" of 2.1 miles, MacDonald told field personnel to change the number to 1.8 miles. Hall, a wildlife biologist who told the IG he had had a "running battle" with MacDonald, said she did not want the range to extend to California because her husband had a family ranch there.

Seriously, read the rest of the article, and then you'll feel as nauseous as I do right now. Because, not only did she alter science, she gave privileged and confidential information on endangered species research to.....wait for it.......anti-endangered species business interests like the California Farm Bureau Federation.

OK - now here's the kicker - the Department of the Interior, which oversees Fish and Wildlife can't comment on the matter because, it was 'a personal matter'.

Wha....wha....wha.....what??!?!?! A personal matter? We're talking about a completely unqualified person adjusting scientific information to suit personal and political goals, and sharing confidential information with affected parties. How on earth is that a 'personal matter'?

Massey Energy Company was fined $1.5 million for 25 violations of mandatory health and safety laws that contributed to a mine fire that killed two miners last January.

I just want to underscore the point that mining is not good for our country. Since Environmental Action was founded, over 5,500 people have died from mining accidents. Add to this the mountaintop removal mining, open pit mining, and the fact that burning coal creates terrible air pollution and emits tons of CO2 emissions every year.

Let's look at wind mill and solar power plant deaths. Oh wait, you can't. Coal is the way of the past - renewables are the way of the future.

Not sure how many people caught this, but watching Sen. Inhofe (R-OK) disrespect Al Gore during his recent Congressional testimony was just hilarious/ridiculous.

It's particularly interesting to see him mandate that Gore only respond with a yes or a no. Call me crazy, but that doesn't seem like 'testimony' at all. Also, Inhofe's attempts to get Gore to sign an emissions pledge is just silly. Watch and enjoy though, as Sen. Inhofe huffs and puffs, but fails to blow the house down.

For a funny take on the testimony, as always, Mr. Jon Stewart.

Saw this today. Evidently a recently released Yale poll has 83% of Americans describing global warming as a 'serious threat', up from 70% just two years ago.

While this shift isn't shocking, it is nice to know that the public really is getting fully on board with the realities of global warming. The most interesting part of the poll however is this:

Most dramatically, the survey of 1,000 adults nationwide shows that 63 percent of Americans agree that the United States 'is in as much danger from environmental hazards, such as air pollution and global warming, as it is from terrorists.'

Wow. That's pretty amazing, and I think, shows how far we've come in bringing this issue to the forefront of the public mind.

Environmental Action has recently embarked on a campaign against liquid coal technology. There was a great article recently in the Roanoke Times.

The biggest focus of the article is on 'mountaintop removal mining'. If you've never heard of this procedure before, brace yourself. Essentially, mining companies remove the tops of mountains in order to scoop out the coal buried under the earth. Sound crazy? Well, according to the article, "This radical method of strip mining has destroyed an estimated half-million acres of land in West Virginia, more than 300,000 in Kentucky, 100,000 in Virginia and slightly less in Tennessee."

And, if any of the bills in support of liquid coal pass, we will see those figures shoot up dramatically. Based on liquid coal plant producers, Headwaters Inc, each plant will use 8,500,000 tons of coal a year to produce 14,600,000 barrels of fuel annually. This works out to about 1/2 a ton of coal needs for every barrel produced. If 50 new liquid coal plants are built, it would necessitate a 37.5% increase in coal mining throughout the country, meaning thousands more acres of destroyed wilderness.

I'm writing today with some surprising news - Sen. Barack Obama, Illinois Senator and Democratic Presidential candidate supports a massive increase in liquid coal production. If you're not familiar with liquid coal, let me assure you, it's as bad as it sounds.

Liquid coal is touted as an 'alternative energy' source, when in truth it's worse than many of our current energy sources. This World War II-era technology creates twice as much global warming pollution as gas, actually speeding up global warming.

Let Senator Obama know that we need clean energy alternatives, not outdated polluting technologies - we've set up a simple page for you to send him this important message:

Click here to send the message.

There are some serious problems with liquid coal: from production to use, liquid coal produces nearly twice the CO2 emissions as gasoline thus speeding up global warming. Not to mention that for liquid coal to be produced, we'd have to dramatically increase our domestic coal mining operations, further destorying our wild places.

On his website it says, "Senator Obama believes the U.S. must act now to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change," and obviously, we agree with him. So why is he supporting this terrible liquid coal idea?

We think he's probably been sold a bill of goods by the snake oil salesmen in the coal industry. So please, send him a message of truth today.

ABC News in the SF Bay Area did a story recently about nuclear power. And, honestly, this scares me. Not ABC's story, per se, but the general idea, gaining more of a foothold in our society, that nuclear power is a viable alternative to our current oil and coal debacle.

The story says, 'Even many environmentalists believe it's a clean alternative to burning fossil fuels,' which technically may be true - there are little to no CO2 emissions from nuclear power plants. I'm confused about who this 'many environmentalists are', but I know I am not one of them. And, the little bit of information this statement seems to ignore that fact that nuclear power plants are gigantic bombs waiting to go off. I know it's been 21 years, but I can't be the only person left who remembers Chernobyl?

Two other quotes from the story which would be funny if they weren't so scary are:

"Lee [a nuclear engineering student] is like many students here. He's not worried about nuclear meltdowns or the problems associated with waste disposal."

Neither the story, nor Lee, continue to describe WHY he's not worried about meltdowns or disposal though, making the statement rather quixotic.

The, a Professor of nuclear engineering said, "When you look at the students that are joining nuclear engineering it's because they are interested in the environment and how to protect the environment."

Again, I have to ask, how can any good environmentalist be in support of nuclear power? It has the potential to do more harm than almost anything on the planet. And somehow, there is a revisionism in the industry which essentially boils down to, 'well -- it used to be dangerous, now it's safe. Trust us.'

Well, I can't trust the industry that brought us Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. And as such, I'd appreciate it if media outlets like ABC don't count me as one of the 'many environmentalists' who support nuclear energy as a solution to our problems.

Senators Larry Craig(R-ID) and Byron Dorgan (D-ND)are proposing legislation that would allow oil drilling just 45 miles off the coast of Florida.

Evidently, they're packaging it up with a number of other things - some good some bad. Increased fuel economy, alternative fuel funding, and lifting the trade embargo with Cuba (so we can drill there) are just some of the other provisions, but make no mistake this is a sweetheart deal for the oil and gas industry.

Let me be perfectly clear - drilling is not the answer, based on who has the oil, we can never drill our way to energy independence.

There is also the fact that BOTH Florida senators are completely opposed to this proposal, and you've got someone from North Dakota and someone from Idaho mandating how Florida deals with its coastline (don't westerners usually get pretty mad when easterners tell them what to do?). Why is this happening? Why are these two cowboys pushing Florida around?

How about the fact that 11% of every dollar Sen. Craig has raised in his Senate life has come from the 'energy and natural resources' sector, according to OpenSecrets. That's $998,494 from those folks into his campaign coffers - almost $350,000 of that is directly from the oil and gas industry.

And Sen. Dorgan? While not as bad as Sen. Craig, he's raised a solid $375,190 from the natural resources industry, which is about 10% of all the money he's raised since 1999.

So, when oil and gas are 'donating' so heavily to our elected officials, is it really any wonder they turn around and them them pillage Florida? I have to agree with Mark Ferrulo of Environment Florida who said, "Looks like some senators are so in the pocket of Big Oil that they want another bite at the apple when the first bite hasn't even been swallowed yet."

I blogged about this a couple days ago, but have now set up an action page for people to tell the director of the Fish and Wildlife Service to stop censoring their scientists.

To take action, click here.

Last year, we took action together to stop the censorship of federal global warming scientists. We made some good progress - there are Congressional hearings into the issue, and NASA has issued a policy of scientific openness. But the Bush Administration is at it again! This time, scientists at the Fish and Wildlife Service have been forbidden from speaking out internationally about global warming and its impact on the polar bear.

I'm been babysitting my ten-year-old niece a lot lately. It's been a couple decades since I myself was ten, and not having my own children, this has been a very educational experience for me, and if you bear with me (ha) it does tie into some thoughts on the federal government's responsibility to polar bears.

For instance, I've learned that in fact, she's not allowed to have as MANY cookies as she wants after school. Despite what she says, soda for dinner is NOT the healthy choice, even if it is zero-calorie. Against her protestations, the dog DOES need to be walked at least twice a day.

Needless to say, I have a newfound respect for my own parents - in particular their wisdom. When faced with a choice (finish the salad or not) I often think, 'what did mom do?'. For many of us, our parents were experts at, well parenting. And, as it turns out, now that I'm older, I DO understand (especially that nap thing - they were so right on that).

What does this have to do with the polar bear? Well, the Fish and Wildlife Service has been hearing from a lot of folks about listing the bear under the Endangered Species Act.

A headline today on Google news, for instance, proclaimed, 'Scientists are wrong on polar bears, NTI says'. NTI being Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., and as the story points out, "Polar bear sports hunters spend about $2.9 million a year in Nunavut". Perhaps NTI is not the best or most objective source from which we could get scientific critique.

Then there's the American Farm Bureau stating, 'The scientific underpinnings of the proposal are woefully inadequate'. The AFB, of course, being one of the foremost opponents of ANY Endangered Species listing, regardless of how far from a farm it actually is.

Then, as I wrote about the other day, Tina Cunnings, the special assistant to the Department of Fish and Game in Alaska questioned whether polar bears really need sea ice to survive and they are adaptable to use land for hunting. And, though their preferred food, ice seals, may be declining, bears are adapting to alternative food sources. You know that the state of Alaska get millions from the oil industry right? And that the oil and gas industry would be effected if the bear is listed?

See where I'm going here? In the same way my wonderful niece has a bit of a vested interest in claiming that pizza for dinner every night is completely appropriate, the people who profit from the demise of the polar bear are claiming no protections for that bear are needed.

I only hope that the US government will turn to its experts, (global warming scientists), the same way I turn to the experts (my niece's parents) when these conflicts come up.

All that being said, I want to be clear that I like my niece a whole lot more than the oil and gas industry, the AFB, or big game hunters. Have a great weekend everyone.

Well, we've talked a lot about scientific censorship in the Bush administration a bunch here at the EA blog. Today, the New York Times announced the discovery of yet another example.

Internal memorandums circulated in the Alaskan division of the Federal Fish and Wildlife Service appear to require government biologists or other employees traveling in countries around the Arctic not to discuss climate change, polar bears or sea ice if they are not designated to do so.

It appears the Fish and Wildlife Service wants their messaging on the polar bear, sea ice, and global warming to be 100% consistent with the Bush Administration's (what? global warming? huh?), despite scietific evidence to the contrary.

From the memo: "Please be advised that all foreign travel requests (SF 1175 requests) and any future travel requests involving or potentially involving climate change, sea ice and/or polar bears will also require a memorandum from the regional director to the director indicating who’ll be the official spokesman on the trip and the one responding to questions on these issues, particularly polar bears."

This shouldn't be a shock, since the FWS had to be sued in federal court to even come up with a proposal, and the department falls under the jurisdiction of Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne, a gentleman known for his dislike of environmental regulations, and it seems, the environment.

I just have to say that last year, the Bush Administration got busted censoring scientists at NASA and NOAA, the Union of Concerned Scientists issued a report based on hundreds of reports of censorship, and now Congress is holding hearings into the issue. As I said, monkeys learn faster to stay away from flame than our current administration does to stop censoring our scientists.

As everybody who reads this blog knows, there's a big fight on right now about whether or not to list the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act.

This week, there have been hearings on the issue, and today the AP put out a story on the state of Alaska's response to the proposed listing.

Let's pick it apart a little, shall we? From the AP story:

Tina Cunnings, the special assistant to the Department of Fish and Game in Alaska questioned whether polar bears really need sea ice to survive and they are adaptable to use land for hunting. And, though their preferred food, ice seals, may be declining, bears are adapting to alternative food sources

This is ridiculous - she's suggesting that if we take away their land and food, the bears will be fine.

And, again from the AP story, a suggestion so hilariously out of left field, it sounds like an Onion article:

She also testified that a listing in the United States ultimately could harm bears in Canada because Inuit villagers would no longer have an incentive to preserve them for American hunters. An ESA listing would ban importation of polar bear trophy hides.

So, the Inuit, who 'preserve' bears so they can take rich Americans on big game hunts are going to kill them more? Does this kind of logic remind anybody else of 'war is peace' from 1984?

Alaska Gov. Palin wrote a letter to Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne decreeing the listing saying, "It is highly probable that [there] will be third-party law suits from litigants with a variety of motivations, to list large portions of Alaska's North Slope as critical habitat or to limit the emission of greenhouse gases throughout the United States."

Neither of these seem particularly bad to me - in fact, that sounds like progress!

Thankfully, it appears the second hearing on listing the polar bear was more balanced than the first in Anchorage. Held in DC last night, Rep. Jay Inslee spoke on behalf of listing, along with environmentalists like Melissa Waage of the Center for Biological Diversity who said, "We need to ultimately recognize the threat that global warming poses not just to polar bears but countless other species, from Caribbean corals to the California butterflies to us as well."

Unfortunately, the proposal had its detractors as well. Nobody's surprised about the usual detractors, like the Nunavut Environmental Minister (the Nunavut have launched a campaign to keep the bear off the list - Nunavut guides earn upwards of $25,000 for taking big game hunters on polar bear kill trips). But I was a little surprised to see the American Farm Bureau throw down. From the Houston Chronicle:

"The scientific underpinnings of the proposal are woefully inadequate," said Richard Krause, senior director of regulatory relations for the American Farm Bureau Federation. "Rather than basing the proposal on direct scientific observations, the Service bases its proposal on speculative predictions and assumptions that may or may not be valid."

I was surprised that is, until I looked into it a little bit. In 1998,
the AFB fought against listing a species of wolf on the ESA, and a 2000 story from 'In These Times' quotes an AFB policy manual, "We believe that modern society cannot continue to operate on the basis that all species must be preserved at all cost." The same story calls the AFB, "a conglomerate of insurance companies that operate under the auspices of a nonprofit organization devoted to promoting agricultural interests."

And the AFB, as of 2004, was a funder and partner in the 'National Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition'. Let's see who else is in that coalition:

* American Farm Bureau Federation
* American Petroleum Institute
* American Public Power Association
* Colorado River Energy Distributors Association
* Edison Electric Institute
* Mid-West Electric Consumers Association
* National Association of Counties
* National Association of Home Builders
* The National Grange
* National Rural Electric Cooperative Association
* National Water Resources Association
* Northwest Horticultural Council
* Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association

Interesting. And the AFB gives out the 'Golden Plow Award' every year to members of congress who best push the AFB's interests. Who are some past winners? Some of the most anti-environmental members of congress our nation has ever known. Here's a partial list:

Sen. Bill Frist (2005)
Sen. Pete Domenici (2003)
Rep. Richard Pombo (2003)
Sen. Jesse Helms (2002, 1990)
Sen. John Ashcroft (1999)
Rep. Billy Tauzin (1995)
Sen. Strom Thurmond (1990)

I suppose it makes more sense now why the American Farm Bureau is opposing protection for that pesky farm rodent, the polar bear.

Well, if you do, go make your voice heard tonight.

The Fish & Wildlife Service is holding only three public hearings on listing the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act. Sadly only one is happening in the lower 48 - and it's tonight, in Washington DC, from 6-9PM. Please go, if you can, and speak out on behalf of the polar bear, and the fight to stop global warming.

U. S. Department of the Interior
Sidney Yates Auditorium
1849 C Street N.W.
Washington, D.C.
6:00 - 9:00 p.m.

As we might've expected, the results from the first public hearing on listing the polar bear don't seem particularly favorable. As I mentioned yesterday, the first one (last night) was in Anchorage.

The San Diego Union Tribune reports some of the quotes from testimony:

Marilyn Crockett, deputy director of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association said, "The listing likely will force anyone in America whose business requires the emission of greenhouse gases to go through an additional layer of consultation with the Fish and Wildlife Service, creating delays and expenses."

And Carl Portman, deputy director of the Resource Development Council, said "It is virtually impossible to say with any certainty that polar bears are likely to become extinct in the foreseeable future".

Ok, Marilyn and Carl, hope you're listening.

a) What exactly is the problem with industries engaged in one of the most destructive practices the world has known (emitting GHG) having another level of consultation? That doesn't seem particularly bad to me.

b) I seem to recall the tobacco companies saying something along the lines of, "It is virtually impossible to say with any certainty that smoking causes any health problems". True - you could say that life, by definition, makes any certainty virtually impossible, except perhaps death and taxes. But you know what? I'm ok siding with caution.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has announced a series of public hearings around the proposed listing of the polar bear on the endangered species list.

Thankfully, the hearings are all in convenient areas for us to attend (detect note of sarcasm here):

March 1, 2007 in Anchorage, Alaska at the J. Z. Loussac Library, Wilda Marston Theatre, 3600 Denali Street, Anchorage, Alaska.
7:00 - 10:00 p.m.

March 5, 2007 in Washington D.C. at the U. S. Department of the Interior Sidney Yates Auditorium, 1849 C Street N.W., Washington, D.C. 6:00 - 9:00 p.m.

March 7 , 2007 in Barrow, Alaska at the Inupiat Heritage Center multipurpose room 5:00 - 10:00 p.m.

Obviously, if you live near any of these places, GO and speak on behalf of the listing.