This is the 545th edition of the Spotlight on Green News & Views (previously known as the Green Diary Rescue) usually appears twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Here is the February 7 Green Spotlight. More than 28,410 environmentally oriented stories have been rescued to appear in this series since 2006. Inclusion of a story in the Spotlight does not necessarily indicate my agreement with or endorsement of it.
OUTSTANDING GREEN STORIES
Besame writes—Daily Bucket: Rogue Wolf Girl Looking for Hot California Lover: “A young female wolf from Oregon’s Rogue Pack was tracked entering eastern Siskiyou County California in late January. OR-54 probably is the daughter of the first wolf to enter California in a 100 years, OR-7, and likely is dispersing in search of a mate or another pack. She was trapped in Oregon in early October 2017 and outfitted with a radio collar to help key tabs on southern Oregon’s Rogue Pack and is the only member of that pack wearing a tracking collar. Around the time she was trapped, biologists also spotted OR-7 on a camera trap so as of last fall, he was still alive and well. In 2014, OR-7 fathered the first wolf pack in southwestern Oregon in more than six decades. He and his mate also had litters each of the next three springs. OR-7 will turn 9 years old this spring. The average life span of wolves in the wild is 6 years, fish and wildlife statistics show. [...] If I were a young wolf in Oregon, I’d want to GTFO too. Some ranchers don’t bother to follow livestock predation risk reduction practices and then are fired up when they lose cattle. They want the state to list wolves as “invasive species” (because yeah sure cattle are totally natural and have precedence due to their ecosystem importance). Wolves have been killed for the joy of being a mighty wolf hunter AKA poaching.”
FishOutofWater writes—Polar vortex splits, record high heat into polar stratosphere, record low Arctic sea ice: “The most powerful episode of poleward heat transport into the stratosphere on record has split the stratospheric polar vortex in two. The polar vortex forms in the winter in the stratosphere when there is no UV energy to heat the ozone in the upper stratosphere. A zone of high winds, called the polar night jet, normally spins high above the Arctic. Normally there is one cyclonic vortex centered near the pole. Right now, there is a weak, warm anticyclone above the pole and there are two cold cyclonic vortices spinning over north America and Eurasia. There is intense compressional heating above the Labrador sea and central Eurasia caused by this planetary wave number 2 of unprecedented power. The image [below] shows what Northern Hemisphere planetary wave no. 2 looks like — warm over the Arctic and oceans — cold over the continents. This wave pattern is intensified by the presence of warm water and the loss of sea ice on the Atlantic side of the Arctic. [...] The possible impact of the polar vortex split on the weather is complicated, but there has been consistency between models and consistency within models that cold air will be be displaced towards northern Eurasia for the next six weeks. Thus, northern and central Siberia, which are normally very cold this time of year will be even colder than normal. Western Europe may also be colder than normal because cold easterly flow off of the continent will be enhanced by strong Siberian high pressure. Most of the continental U.S. will likely be cooler than normal in March while Alaska will be likely be warmer than normal.”
CRITTERS AND THE GREAT OUTDOORS
RonK writes—The Daily Bucket - Part I: “Roll on Columbia” The River that Drains the Pacific Northwest: “I grew up along this river in the Tri-City area and have had occasion to travel along much if its 1,200 mile course from British Columbia to its mouth where it joins the Pacific Ocean. The Columbia River and its adjacent territory has a long and storied geologic and human history. More recently it was in large part instrumental in the settlement of the west and particularly the Pacific Northwest. The river was the last leg of Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery Expedition which ultimately contributed to the opening up of the Washington and Oregon territory for settlement. I’ll present the river in a two part diary as it got kind of lengthy. This first part covers the river from its origins in Canada to The Dalles and Celilo Falls Oregon. The second part will cover its last 180 or so miles as it approaches and then meets the Pacific Ocean. I’ve used some of the photos in previous diaries on other topics so some might seem familiar.”
RonK writes—The Daily Bucket - Part 2, The Columbia River Rolling Into the Pacific Ocean: “We left off in Part 1 at Celilo Falls and The Dalles Dam, the last dam before the river meets the ocean. This remaining portion of the river’s journey is also spectacular although the landscape takes on a different character. After leaving the Canadian Rockies, the terrain along the river has been relatively barren, semi-arid plateau with the river cutting deep canyons through ancient basalt flows. The vegetation is largely shrubs and grasses with some pine where it approaches the mountains. Leaving The Dalles, the arid brown landscape of the Columbia Plateau gives way to greens of a more marine climate as it heads toward the ocean. This change is exemplified by the lushness and pastoral beauty of the Columbia Gorge National Scenic Area.”
cardinal writes—Dawn Chorus: Birds of Costa Rica: “Good morning birders, twitchers, twitchy birders, bitchy twirlers, and anyone looking to emigrate somewhere outside North Korea’s missile range. In January, my wife and I fulfilled our long-time dream of visiting Costa Rica. We went on three guided bird walks during the 11-day trip, and I kept my long lens on the camera during most of our hikes and other activities (but not the snorkeling). All told, I saw about 80 different species, 60-70 of which were new to me. By contrast, I think I’ve had <20 lifers in 15 years in my current house. [...] Not counting the first and last nights near the San Jose airport, we made four stops. First up was Arenal Volcano National Park in the rain forest of the Caribbean slope. We stayed at the Arenal Observatory Lodge and Spa, the only hotel within the park. Although birds are abundant on its forested trails, my best pictures came from the fruit feeder on a deck near its restaurant. Is that cheating? Eh, maybe a little. But you can’t argue with my yield: Costa Rica has six toucan species, and I managed to see five of them. Above is a collared aracari, and below is a keel-billed toucan. I snapped this picture from a great distance, ran through a parking lot to get a better angle, and it flew away just as I found it in the viewfinder.”
PHScott writes—The Daily Bucket: Early Spring Flowers from the Florida Panhandle: “Journey along if you please. Here’s some photos from around my woods in the last few days. Spring is really here. Temps in the 70s and pushing 80. Soil is moist so weeds pop out easily with my pointy sparkleberry stick. Good plants are finding their way up. Like the Ladies-tresses up by the gate — a single blade-like leaf appearing before the foral spike rotates thru the pine needles and leaves.”
OceanDiver writes—The Daily Bucket - Ellen Creek shifts her course: “Another change I saw at the beach this winter out on the Olympic Peninsula was much more obvious than the subtle rotations of Big Log out in front of the cabin I described in my last Bucket. However, it also involved driftwood. And big surf. Possibly even the gigantic storm that had just blasted this coastline a week before. No way to know when, since I visit infrequently, but that kind of force is quite capable of shifting the configuration of the mouth of a creek. Ellen Creek is halfway along Rialto Beach, about a mile from the parking lot by the Quillayute River. For years my Rialto beach walks have taken me all the way to Hole-in-the-Wall at the northern end of this exposed beach of rounded black cobbles that rattle in every outgoing wave. But crossing Ellen Creek requires clambering over the driftwood log jam there, and that’s become less easy for me. Now Ellen Creek is where I have to turn around. This year, the turnaround point was even sooner than I was expecting.”
OceanDiver writes—2018 Backyard Bird Race: Tally #2: “”We’re off once again, with old timers as well as new participants. We’re just getting started after a year’s hiatus, so we have some categories empty so far. We’ll see if we can muster up some participants for them this time. Here's what the race is all about: The Daily Kos Backyard Science Yardbird Race is a birding competition where, over the course of one year, participants strive to identify the most bird species—by sight and/or by sound—from the confines of their yards. Everyone is welcome—new birders, experienced birders, and anyone in between. We're a very supportive group and will help as much as we can. If you're not sure about an ID, just do your best to give us a good written description. Images, even mediocre ones, can be a great help, too. There are a number of categories, so that people who live in urban centers don't have to compete against others who have a lot of open space or waterfront views.”
6412093 writes—The Daily Bucket--The Storied Migrations into the Frog Mitigation Area: “In late summer, 2014, I excavated a foot-deep card-table-sized pond fed by an artificial waterfall and a foot-wide creek. I designed it to provide a safe space for my yard’s native frogs to mate and breed. I had frequently found tiny inch-long frogs hunkered under our garden’s plants, and I wanted to encourage the frogs to stay, and multiply, and eat slugs. I called the new pond and creek The Frog Mitigation Area. [...] Chorus frogs and their close relations can be found almost from the Arctic Circle to the Equator, and have adapted to the local conditions in all of these disparate climates. They generally spend most of their lives on land, within a quarter mile of where they were born. They only return to water in early Spring to breed in the pond of their birth. Now the Frog Mitigation Area in my back yard is the birth pond for a cadre of Chorus Frogs. They’ve returned every late February or so for three years now, since I originally dug the ponds, and I’m expecting to hear from them again soon.”
Lenny Flank writes—Photo Diary: Shingle Creek Nature Trail: “This is a 3 mile trail in Kissimmee, near the Pioneer Village Museum.”
CLIMATE CHAOS
Pakalolo writes—Shrinking Mountain Glaciers Are Affecting People Downstream: “People living in arid climates near mountains usually rely on glacial melt for their water for part of the year. Though rivers are fed largely by snowmelt, in late summer, a significant part of river flow comes from melting glaciers according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. In recent decades, global climate change has had a huge impact on high mountain environments. Snow, glaciers and permafrost are especially sensitive to changes in the atmosphere because of their proximity to warming conditions. [...] If the melting continues over the next few decades, some of the world’s most populous areas could run out of water during the dry season. For awhile, the increase in flow from melting ice and snow during the dry season will seem like a boon, but in the future, the downstream flow’s variability will increase and eventually flow could disappear altogether, impacting food production, biodiversity and economic growth.”
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—WSJ Generously Donates Ink to Fellow Fake News Peddler Rebekah Mercer: “There’s an old saying in journalism that a reporter’s job is to comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable. Every J school grad worth his or her salt knows this central tenet describes how media should hold the powerful accountable while lifting up the voice of the disadvantaged. The importance of this saying has grown in sincerity since its origin: the Chicago Evening Post satirist who first penned the phrase in 1902, intended it to be taken as a criticism of a press who fawn over the powerful and attack the weak. A hundred and fifteen years later, it looks like the satirical version of this journalism golden rule may be a better way to describe the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page choices. Yesterday, the Journal’s opinion editors gave a Valentine to Rebekah Mercer, allowing the billionaire funder of Breitbart who has a direct line to the President she funded to defend herself in their pages. Apparently Mercer feels like the calls for her ouster from the board of the American Museum of Natural History are unwarranted—she claims she is ‘deeply committed to research and the scientific method.’ She laments how she has been described as ‘supporting toxic ideologies such as racism and anti-Semitism.’ But it’s hard to look at her support for Breitbart and take her words for face value.”
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—TV Screens Absent of Climate as Stars of Screen Call Out Pruitt: “Once again, broadcast news has failed to keep the public informed on climate change, according to Media Matters for America’s annual TV News report, released yesterday. There’s good news and bad news in the report, Rebecca Leber at Mother Jones writes. In 2017, ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS and Fox did cover climate more in 2017 than they did 2016. Unfortunately, this coverage was mainly related to Trump (79% of total coverage) and largely focused on his intention to pull out of the Paris agreement. (PBS stood out as a leader in climate coverage, but unfortunately Trump's budget proposes eliminating PBS funding.) There was hardly any coverage of the Clean Power Plan repeal, no mention of Keystone and Dakota Access pipeline’s climate impacts, no scientists on the agenda-setting Sunday morning shows, no connection made between climate change and California’s wildfires and only two segments on climate change’s influence on the three major hurricanes.”
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—A Tale of Tuvalu and Sea Level Rise: ”Last week, deniers celebrated the good news that the tiny Pacific island nation of Tuvalu isn’t sinking beneath the rising seas, but in fact growing. From Murdoch’s Daily Mail to the Mercer family’s Breitbart to fracking-billionaire-Wilks-family-funded Daily Wire, deniers were respectfully celebratory that the country wouldn’t be erased from our maps. Just kidding. Deniers, of course, used this story of a potentially averted loss of an entire people as a reason to bash alarmists. Our favorite was JoNova’s headline, which channeled Tim and Eric’s classic ‘Free Real Estate!’ bit. She suggested that ‘since our emissions helped create nearly a square kilometer of free real estate in Tuvalu, it seems only fair that they return any climate funds, and pay a royalty. [Wink emoji]’ ”
ian douglas rushlau writes—Carbon combustion induced climate change: much worse, much faster than we thought: “An article in the latest edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) takes a grim picture for the next hundred years, and makes it all the more grim: … the observed acceleration will more than double the amount of sea-level rise by 2100 compared with the current rate of sea-level rise continuing unchanged. This projection of future sea-level rise is based only on the satellite observed changes over the last 25 y, assuming that sea level changes similarly in the future. If sea level begins changing more rapidly, for example due to rapid changes in ice sheet dynamics, then this simple extrapolation will likely represent a conservative lower bound on future sea-level change. In contrast, few potential processes exist to suggest that this estimate is too high. We knew that sea levels were rising, due to the melting of the ice sheets, and also due to the expansion of water volume as it is heated. The data from this research says that not only will sea levels continue to rise, but they will do so more quickly over time—the amount sea levels change 20 and 50 years from now will be greater than in the next 10 years.”
Extreme Weather & Natural Phenomena
Walter Einenkel writes—Despite record hurricane and fire seasons, Trump aims to slash 355 National Weather Service jobs: “Once again, the Trump/Republican budget proposal wants to end funding for weather forecasters. Because who needs them, right? The Huffington Post writes that Trump’s budget would cut over a billion dollars in funding to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) thus reducing their workforce by 8 percent, including 248 forecasting jobs. Government forecasters were faced with a particularly active hurricane season in 2017 that, alongside other natural disasters, caused a record of more than $300 billion in damage. NOAA said in January the country was hit with 16 separate billion-dollar disasters last year, including hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, and a string of wildfires in California. [...] Other proposed cuts at the NWS include $11 million slashed from the tsunami warning program, and a $15.5 million reduction to ocean surface and marine observation programs. Estimates of the damage caused by weather disasters this past year run upward of $300 billion. Those costs are likely conservative and do not take into account all kinds of other ongoing costs. So, the team of non-scientists in the White House figure the best plan of attack is to continue to give away taxpayer money to rich people and hope that they can build big enough gated communities to hide from nature in.”
OCEANS, WATER, DROUGHT
Dan Bacher writes—Brown administration releases incomplete Delta Tunnels cost-benefit analysis: “The Brown administration today released the long-awaited cost-benefit analysis for the Delta Tunnels, claiming that the plan could ‘bring billions of dollars in benefits.’ Delta Tunnels opponents countered that the analysis is ‘incomplete,’ as it only examines the initial phased-in tunnel and states that analysis for the second tunnel would need to be completed in the future. The Department of Water Resources (DWR) published a Cost-Benefit Analysis for California WaterFix conducted by Dr. David Sunding, a professor of natural resource economics at UC Berkeley. The report claims that the project's first stage, based on one tunnel with a 6,000 cubic feet per second (bfs) capacity, ‘could bring billions of dollars in benefits to Californians who obtain their water from participating State Water Project (SWP) contractors.’ Sunding said the benefits would include improved water quality, more reliable water supplies, and enhanced disaster preparedness.”
CANDIDATES, STATE AND DC ECO-RELATED POLITICS
durrati writes—Woman Bodily Removed From W. Virginia Statehouse for Reading Lists of Reps' Gas and Oil Donors: “Lissa Lucas is a political activist and a candidate for the W. Virginia Statehouse seeking to represent the 7th District, or ‘The Hollers’ as she likes to call them. She went to the West Virginia House of Delegates on Friday to speak against HB 4268, a bill that would allow gas and oil companies to take advantage of an exercise of eminent domain with only 75% consent from landowners. Current West Virginia law requires 100% approval, greatly strengthening an individual’s ability to determine the use of his property or, at least, it’s worth. Lissa decided to use her short allotted time at the Public Hearing to list the Gas and Oil industry donors to State House members, a tactic that was quickly determined to be disallowed ‘personal comments’ and she was told to desist. We can all guess what happens next, when a woman determined to speak her mind runs up against the ‘good ole boy’ patriarchy…”
WILDERNESS, NATIONAL FORESTS AND PARKS & OTHER PUBLIC LANDS
billofrights writes—The Future of Maryland's Threatened Forests: Economics and Ecology Deserve a Better Relationship: “Dear President Miller, Speaker Busch, Chairman Barve, Members of the House Environment and Transportation Committee, Distinguished Legislators: I write to you today to ask you support for improvements to Maryland’s 1991 Forest Conservation Act, as contained in the bills HB 766 and SB 610. Therefore, please consider what follows as my formal testimony on the bills. [...] Maryland and New Jersey share many geographic and ecological features - and development pressures as well. In New Jersey, caught between the real estate markets of Philadelphia and New York, forests didn’t stand a chance until they were protected by explicit, powerful regulations in the form of protective zoning: first in the NJ Pinelands (at 1 house per 20/40 acres) in 1979, and then in the Highlands, our watershed area, in 2005 with similar stringencies. Of course, under the ideological pressures of our time – its reigning Neoliberalism economics and the anti-regulatory, anti-tax and anti-government commandments that form its basis, these pioneering land-use protections, what I have since come to call ‘Social Democracy for Nature,’ have been greatly weakened under Governor Hogan’s former good friend, now retired, Chris Christie. Chris Christie was an environmental horror story for New Jersey. And Social Democracy for people has been on the defensive, in retreat, for decades now in its Western European heartland.”
ENERGY
Michael Klare via TomDispatch writes—Militarizing America's Energy Policy: “The new U.S. energy policy of the Trump era is, in some ways, the oldest energy policy on Earth. Every great power has sought to mobilize the energy resources at its command, whether those be slaves, wind-power, coal, or oil, to further its hegemonic ambitions. What makes the Trumpian variant—the unfettered exploitation of America’s fossil-fuel reserves—unique lies only in the moment it’s being applied and the likely devastation that will result, thanks not only to the 1950s-style polluting of America’s air, waters, and urban environment, but to the devastating hand it will lend to a globally warming world.”
gmoke writes—The Best Speech by a Politician on the Future of the Grid I've Ever Read: “Jeremy Corbyn really understands what the future of the grid needs to be in an age of anthropogenic climate change. A green energy system will look radically different to the one we have today. The past is a centralised system with a few large plants. The future is decentralised, flexible and diverse with new sources of energy large and small, from tidal to solar. Smart technologies will optimise usage so that instead of keeping gas plants running just in case there is a lull in renewable generation the system fulfills needs by identifying the greenest, most local energy source. There will be much more use of local, micro grids and of batteries to store and balance fluctuating renewable energy. We will still need a grid to match energy supply with demand and import and export renewable energy abroad because the wind won’t always blow where energy is needed. But it will be a smart grid, radically transformed.”
Fossil Fuels
Mark Sumner writes—The Coal War in the West: Wyoming legislature considers suing Washington to force them to take coal: “For two decades, coal companies with operations in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana have been looking for a way to ship their coal across the Pacific. There are existing ports that could handle some coal, but nothing that could handle the millions of tons that the companies hope to ship to steam plants across Asia. Volume was an important factor, because Powder River coal is relatively low-BTU low-price coal. Making a new port designed to handle coal worth it means making something that can handle, at least, tens of millions of tons per year. But that sheer scale—a new port, tens of millions of tons of coal being shipped through by rail, handling of that coal on the ground, etc.—has led coastal states to turn down every proposal. In many cases, these projects have been strongly opposed not just by activists, but by local residents who don’t want to turn their town into the gateway for Wyoming coal. But at the other end if the rail line is Wyoming, a state that’s structured their finances around the fees that come in from fossil fuels. With hundreds of millions of tons of coal rolling out of the Powder River Basin, and a hefty tax on every ton, Wyoming residents have enjoyed top flight schools and facilities, while having no state income tax. The state has even socked away billions in savings. But the rise of cheap natural gas from fracking, and the rapidly falling prices for solar and wind has resulted in a sharp decline in demand for steam coal in the United States. That’s left Wyoming in a pickle.”
Dan Bacher writes—Western States Petroleum Association & members have dumped $170 M into CA campaigns since 2001: “The Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA), the most powerful corporate lobbying group in California, and its members have contributed $170 million to California political campaigns since 2001, according to a new data analysis from MapLight released on February 14. WSPA is the trade association for oil industry interests in the western states of Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. WSPA members include multinational oil corporations such as Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP, Valero and the Plains All American Pipeline Company, the corporation responsible for the Refugio Beach Oil Spill of 2017. WSPA and its members have contributed more than $112 million to ballot measure campaigns, $8 million to state candidates, and $50 million to other California political action committees and party committees, according to the MapLight analysis of data from the California Secretary of State compiled by Laura Curlin and Ashleigh McEvoy. ‘Chevron tops the list of political donors from WSPA’s membership, contributing $89 million overall since 2001, the first year in which online data is available,’ Maplight reported.”
Dan Bacher writes—Yurok Tribe opposes Trump’s offshore drilling development plans: “There is no offshore oil drilling taking place now off the Northern California coast — and the Yurok Tribe, other Tribes, fishermen and environmentalists want to keep it that way by stopping the Trump administration plan to open federal waters off the California, Oregon and Washington coasts to new oil extraction leases. On February 8, 2018, representatives from the Yurok Tribe attended two events in Sacramento to speak out against the Trump Administration’s dangerous oil drilling plan, a proposal that has the potential to permanently damage California’s coast and exacerbate global climate change, according to a news release from the Tribe. Yurok Representatives attended the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s single public meeting in California on the controversial Draft Proposed National Oil and Gas Program that includes the creation of 7 new offshore oil leases along the Pacific coast, including two off the coast of Northern California.”
Renewables, Efficiency & Conservation
Mark Sumner writes—Judge forces Perry to enforce energy efficiency standards, but Energy Star is probably dead: “There are things Donald Trump has done that seem petty and vindictive, then there are some that go beyond petty. They’re petty-plus. Super-spiteful and at the same time, deeply, deeply picayune. Things like killing the Energy-Star program. Trump’s budget would get rid of Energy Star. The government labeling program for energy-efficient appliances and consumer products is on the chopping block as the president tries to slash spending so he can steer $54 billion more a year to the military. It’s not that the Energy-Star program isn’t important—it has saved American consumers over $430 billion in electrical expenses, while cutting back on the pollution that energy would use. But it’s not really the program costs that Trump is after. [...] Energy Star is on the chopping block for two reasons: First, the idea of saving energy, whether it’s with hybrid cars or LED bulbs, offends the rolling-coal conservatives who view an erg not turned into smoke as an erg wasted. And second because Trump has a personal stake in this game.”
Pipelines & Other Oil and Gas Transport
SneathernForCongress writes—Why Being Against the Atlantic Coast & Mountain Valley Pipelines is so Important to Me: “Months ago, I was the first Democratic Candidate in Virginia’s 5th Congressional District to come out against the Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley Pipelines that would devastate our communities. Since then I’ve signed Activate Virginia’s pledge to refuse any contributions from Dominion or Appalachian Power, and the No Fossil Fuel Money pledge to make it clear that my constituent’s health, the environment, and economic security comes far above the profits of the fossil fuel industry. But running on a progressive platform in a rural R+6 district isn’t just about the press releases a campaign puts out. Instead, caring about the environment and speaking out against pipelines is about the message, values, and vision that a candidate has never backed down from and is going to bring to every part of this district. I think this short speech I gave below sums up who I am and more importantly why coming out against the pipeline, supporting family farms, and rural issues facing Virginians are the core of my platform. The pipeline threatens our community’s land and our safety. It threatens the integrity of our water supplies. It’s perpetually unstable because of the karst topography and the constant threat of pipeline failures. It will speed up erosion, harm habitats of regional species, lower the surrounding property values, disrupt economic growth, and destroy acres of untouched land.”
REGULATIONS & PROTECTIONS
Meteor Blades writes—EPA, researchers, congresswoman seek to shield truck-makers from rule to control killer pollution: “They call them ‘gliders.’ They are big rigs built and sold without engines, transmissions, and rear axles. Then they are supplied with these items from salvage yards and wrecked trucks, and the engines are totally rebuilt down to the core. Rebuilt engines that, thanks to a loophole, aren’t required to meet limits on emissions from diesel-fueled trucks because they were originally built before 2001. Engines that, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, spew 43-55 times more emissions than other new big rigs. [...] Since 2010, according to the Department of Transportation, sales of gliders rose tenfold from 2010-2015. Using its authority under the Clean Air Act, the Obama administration sought in an updated emissions rule in 2015 to close this loophole by limiting to 300 the number of glider kits sold each year. But, in November, a month before the rule came into full effect, the Trump regime in the person of EPA-hating EPA Chief Scott Pruitt exempted three makers of gliders on the ground that the agency has no authority to limit sales in this manner. And he opened a 60-day public comment period on the prospect of EPA eliminating the annual cap on gliders. That comment period is now over. Pruitt made it appear the decision was all about jobs, of course.”
Mark Sumner writes—Scott Pruitt makes it clear—He flies first class to avoid the dirty hippies at the back of the plane: “Why does EPA chief Scott Pruitt require an absolutely unprecedented army of at least 30 personal security guards? Why did he clear a whole floor of the EPA for his private use? Why did he institute a new security system within the security system to keep people out of the building, and a $25,000 cone of silence within in his office? Most of all, why does he fly around the world in first class, surrounded by his security entourage? What horrible threat requires that the public spend—at least—hundreds of thousands on giving Pruitt special waivers to grab first class tickets not just to Europe, but on even the shortest flight? Now we have an answer. Someone … hurt Pruitt’s feelings.”
Jen Hayden writes—EPA chief says he has no choice but to fly first class because someone once yelled at him: “What has Pruitt so spooked that he has to have a 30-person security team with round-the-clock protection and simply, positively has to be booked in the most expensive travel seats possible? As an example, Barnet recounted on incident from October at the airport in Atlanta. An individual approached Pruitt with his cell phone recording, yelling at him ‘ “Scott Pruitt, you’re f---ing up the environment,” those sort of terms,’ Barnet said. Unbelievable. And they call liberals ‘snowflakes’? Here’s an idea for Scott Pruitt and Republicans like him—maybe just stop acting like jerks and enacting policy after policy to harm people and the environment? Maybe, as the man at the airport said, stop fucking up the environment?”
Jen Hayden writes—EPA Director is blowing through taxpayer money on luxury flights to meetings shrouded in secrecy: “From the Washington Post: These overseas trips are largely untethered to the kind of multilateral environmental summits that dominated his predecessors’ schedules, and Pruitt rarely discloses where he plans to be. In an interview Friday, Bowman said the agency doesn’t release Pruitt’s schedule in advance ‘due to security concerns’ and because it could be a ‘distraction’ from the trips. But she added that he has received government invitations for all his foreign trips. One thing is for certain, when he heads out to these undisclosed meetings, he’s going first class all the way! On Monday, June 5, accompanied by his personal security detail, Pruitt settled into his $1,641.43 first-class seat for a short flight from the District to New York City. His ticket cost more than six times that of the two media aides who came along and sat in coach, according to agency travel vouchers; the records do not show whether his security detail accompanied him at the front of the plane. [...] Four trips alone cost taxpayers a minimum of $90,000. Knowing how unnecessarily large his security detail is, you can imagine that number is considerably higher.”
Mary Anne Hitt writes—Clean Air On The Way As Nation’s Largest Polluter Ceases Operation: “This is big news that will literally save lives - in a major clean air and water victory for Dallas-area residents and the nation, today the massive Big Brown Coal plant ceased operations. Big Brown is the nation’s single largest source of the deadly sulfur dioxide pollution that’s linked to asthma, heart attacks, and other severe health problems - not just the biggest coal plant source, but the biggest source, period. For Texas families and downwind communities as far afield as Illinois and Michigan, pollution from the plant is a matter of life and death. ‘Any parent with an asthmatic child from Dallas to Denton knows that smog and our dangerous air quality has been a problem for decades,’ said Misti O’Quinn, a Beyond Coal organizer with the Sierra Club in Dallas. The problem extends far beyond Texas. Big Brown is also one of the nation’s top sources of mercury pollution, a potent neurotoxin that affects babies in utero and can lead to lifelong developmental delays, like lowered IQ. The retirement of Luminant’s Big Brown coal plant will save an estimated 163 lives every year, prevent nearly 6,000 asthma attacks, prevent tens of thousands of lost work and school days, and save $1.6 billion in in annual public health costs, according to analysis conducted with EPA-approved air modeling.”
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—EPA Admin Scott Pruitt’s First Class Security Blanket Putting Him in Hot Seat: “There are lots of great reasons to want Scott Pruitt out of the EPA, and his obvious prioritization of industry over public health is right at the top of the list. But of course, the big Pruitt story this week is his tens of thousands of dollars of first class travel expenses. After the initial Washington Post report Sunday, CBS ran their own segment yesterday and revealed Pruitt took a first-class Arab Emirates flight in May (and got Republican Senator John Kennedy on the record criticising the waste). Politico ran another follow-up story yesterday featuring several other Republican senators questioning the first class flights. In hindsight, Pruitt’s tweets about making pasta and eating prosciutto in Italy don’t exactly convey a seriousness of purpose for his $43,000 trip. The EPA’s ever-changing defense is that because of security concerns, Pruitt has a ‘blanket waiver’ to always fly first class to avoid terrible threats like the one from a woman who got drunk while watching Rachel Maddow and fired off an angry tweet.”
jgand writes—Save the Planet - IMPEACH SCOTT PRUITT: “Anyone who has followed this a-hole’s career knows that he is one of the most egregious anti-environment actors in our country. The fact that Trump appointed him to be in charge of the EPA is a travesty, given Pruitt’s history as a shill for the fossil fuel industry, and a long-time climate change denier. Unfortunately, pressure to get rid of members of Trump’s clown car coterie based on policy or incompetency doesn’t seem to work. Today, however, courtesy of Taegan Goddard's Political Wire we have evidence that damns Pruitt for his fiscal irresponsibility. Like former Secretary of Health & Human Services Tom Price, Pruitt has an affinity for first class/private charter flying — as long as it is on the taxpayers’ dime. Like Price, he deserves to be fired or impeached for his arrogance, greed, and malfeasance. When asked for a justification of his high-flying wastefulness, Pruitt claimed, ‘We live in a very toxic environment politically, particularly around issues of the environment. We’ve reached the point where there’s not much civility in the marketplace and it’s created, you know, it’s created some issues and the (security) detail, the level of protection is determined by the level of threat.’ Wah, wah, wah. Poor Scotty! The minions are upset with him.”
AGRICULTURE, FOOD & GARDENING
Pakalolo writes—Warming planet putting many culinary crops in peril: “From our community: ‘In many crops, such as oilseed rape, premature seed dispersal is one of the major causes of crop loss. In the context of climate change, this could become increasingly severe. This study exposes the potential vulnerabilities of crop production in the warming world and paves the way for addressing this problem,’ co-senior author Vinod Kumar, a plant developmental biologist at the John Innes Centre in Norwich, England. Scientific researchers in the UK have discovered how a changing climate alters the way key culinary plant species function in higher than normal temperatures. Their findings, released Monday in the journal Molecular Plant, is not good news. Gardeners know that higher temperatures speed up seed dispersal in plants of the cabbage and mustard families (we call it bolting or flowering), both of which are important sources of food worldwide. Researchers found that the early release of seeds from bolting hampers plant reproduction and limits crop success. [...] The researchers found that a rise in temperature, from 71.6 F to 80.0 F, ‘accelerated pod shattering and seed dispersal in Arabidopsis plants and important Brassicaceae crops.’ The warmer temperatures “\’accelerated seed dispersal by enhancing the expression of the INDEHISCENT gene, which is known to regulate the development of seed pod tissue and promote fruit opening’.”
TRANSPORTATION & INFRASTRUCTURE
Besame writes—Oroville spillway disaster one year, $1 billion, rebuking reports, and >40 lawsuits later: “One year ago 10,000 Oroville residents raced north from town panicked by the threat of a 30 foot wall of water gushing down from Lake Oroville within an hour. Soon, another 170,000 people to the south also were evacuated. The wall of water never released, but the near-catastrophe has highlighted long-standing problems associated with the design, maintenance, and management of California’s second largest reservoir and the nation’s tallest dam. The crisis and evacuation frenzy followed decades of criticisms about Oroville Dam and its associated spillways, distrust of California Department of Water Resource, and nearly 60 years of broken promises to the community. [...] Promoted in the 1960s as an Disneyland-like tourist destination that would bring millions of dollars to economically depressed Butte County in northern California, Lake Oroville never met a fraction of the promised advantages. Instead, Oroville and adjacent areas along the upstream Feather River watercourses lost communities, thousands of acres of taxable lands, and beautiful forested riverine habitat supporting salmon runs. What they gained was basically a gigantic mud basin that stored water for residential and farming areas hundreds of miles away in Southern California. Habitat was lost forever, salmon were halted at the hatchery below the dam. Native American villages and sacred sites were flooded. The train, monorail, 250-seat restaurant and 1,000-seat amphitheater promised in state documents never materialized. The reservoir was managed for distant water customers not for boating, swimming, or fishing. As a recreation destination, Lake Oroville was a bust.”
MISCELLANY
subir writes—Republican state AGs have a secret bulletin board for donors to influence labor, environment policy: “While he has Oklahoma’s Attorney General, Scott Pruitt chaired the Republican Attorney General Association (RAGA). RAGA also has a policy arm called Rule of Law Defense Fund ‘RLDF.’ The ‘Rule of Law Defense Fund’ appears to be helping Republican Attorneys General violate public record-keeping laws. RAGA and RLDF routinely ask big money donors to provide policy documents, and these documents are then shared with the AGs via an offsite document folder on box.com. The Intercept has the scoop: Records show RLDF held at least seven policy conference calls with senior officials in attorneys general’s offices between June and November. Emails about four of the calls mentioned the Briefing Room. MapLight and The Intercept found references to RLDF policy calls in emails provided by the Nebraska, Arizona, and Ohio attorneys general’s offices. The Nebraska and Arizona attorneys general’s offices rejected requests for any Briefing Room materials referenced in emails received by their officials, on the grounds that the files were not produced by their offices and were posted to a third-party website. [...] The AGs appear to have adopted a complicated subterfuge to hide these e-mails and documents from the public. Government ethics experts believe this is a clear sign of corruption.”