blogs archives

Start with a pristine mountain lake in the Alaskan wilderness. Add toxic waste. Kill all the fish. Wipe the lake off the map.

Bad for that lake, yes. But is it pollution?

The seemingly obvious answer to that question (umm, yes?) is at the heart of a case the Supreme Court has agreed to hear this winter.

In this corner, weighing in at 140,000 ounces of gold per year, is the Kensington mine, owned by Coeur Alaska (and the state of Alaska, which approved its plans to spoil the lake). And in the other corner ...

In a political tactic that seems more appropriate in an elementary school than in the hallowed halls of government, Bush Administration officials allegedly ignored an important email about global warming because they didn't like the looks of the subject line, the New York Times reports today.

Picture a kid with his hands over his ears yelling "Nah Nah Nah Nah! I can't hear you!"

The e-mail in question was the Environmental Protection Agency's response to a Supreme Court decision that deemed carbon dioxide a pollutant because of its role causing global warming. As such, it can be regulated by the EPA today under the authority it has under the Clean Air Act.

The EPA concluded that the landmark 2007 Supreme Court decision compelled the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from the likes of power plants, factories and automobiles. But when it tried to tell the White House, it was ignored, according to EPA officials who spoke to the Times ...