Rick Piltz Rick Piltz was best known for blowing the whistle on the George W. Bush White House over political interference in federal climate change science programs. As a senior associate for the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) for ten years, in 2005 he sought whistleblower protection representation from Government Accountability Project and [...]
Part 2: Coal, Fracking, Pruitt, and NEPA "We know that it is impossible for humans to flourish without clean air, land, and water. We also know that a strong, market-driven economy is essential to protecting these resources." President Donald Trump, April 22, 2018 For Earth Day 2018, President Trump declared in effect that environmental regulation [...]
Part 1: Leaks, Spills, & Explosions, On Land & Offshore The agenda of the current administration puts fossil fuel revenue above health, safety, and science. Tax breaks and public-land giveaways are just parts of this administration’s efforts to increase production of and dependence on coal, oil, and natural gas. Indiscriminate deregulation threatens the safety of [...]
Fights over pipeline construction are not new, but they have become central of late to the debate between safe, sustainable energy and extractive, polluting, fossil-fuel reliance. While many factors contribute to the increased focus on pipelines, chief among them is the boom in natural gas production in the US, brought about via developments in fracking [...]
The fossil fuel cancer comes out of its brief remission After a moment of optimism, during which it seemed the United States might finally begin planning for a future free of fossil fuel dependence, pipelines are back. Since the November election, the pendulum of public benefit versus private gain has swung sharply in the wrong [...]
Source: “Where the Sidewalk Ends” by Shel Silverstein, adapted by Adam Arnold. The DC Court of Appeals has given the go ahead for construction of the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), which opponents say will threaten the environment, human health, and sites sacred to the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. Despite the setback, there [...]
There was big news from Great Britain last month, and it wasn’t all about leaving the European Union: on June 1, Scotland voted to permanently ban fracking within its borders, reaffirming an earlier moratorium. Not long before, a council vote in North Yorkshire, England, allowed for renewed shale oil exploration and fracking for the first [...]
By Anne Polansky and Adam Arnold On September 17th of 2014, the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology voted 4-3 to grant subpoena powers to the Committee Chair, useable without consultation of the Committee as a whole. This extraordinary power became available for the first time during the current Congress, with Rep. Lamar Smith [...]
Our prior Notes from Underground post offered Precautionary Principle 101. To reiterate, the Principle is simple and even obvious: one should not carry out a plan until one has some understanding of the likely consequences – that is, until one can be reasonably certain that enacting said plan will not lead to disastrous outcomes that [...]
The smoking of e-cigarettes on airplanes has been banned by the FAA. Why? Because studies have not conclusively shown that “vaping” has no adverse impacts on human health. And why is an article ostensibly about fracking and pipelines starting with this information? Because it is a rare example of the correct application of the Precautionary [...]
