Democracy is working. At least that’s the news for now from my friends at the Natural Resources Defense Council, which has filed a lawsuit against last-minute Bush Administration plans to lease huge swaths of majestic wilderness in Utah for oil and gas extraction.

Late last night, NRDC and a coalition of environmental and preservation groups filed an agreement with the Bureau of Land Management that could save 100,000 acres of pristine land that are endangered. The deal temporarily prevents the Bureau from issuing leases on 80 contested parcels of Utah wilderness, including land adjacent to national parks, for 30 days (until January 19).

Although the Bureau will go forward with the auction today, based on the agreement it will not issue the contested leases. The delay will give a federal court time to hear the case.
As I’ve written previously, words alone cannot do justice to the beauty of these places, but they do capture the absurdity of the Bush plan. Oil and gas drilling in Desolation Canyon? Industrial development along the meandering Green River? The thought makes one wince.

Utah’s Red Rock country is one of America’s few remaining wilderness treasures . It’s our land, it’s our legacy, but will it still be here for our children and grandchildren?
The Bureau’s agreement has delayed the potential destruction. We will now get our day in court and I know that NRDC, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) and their partners will continue to do all they can to protect Utah’s unspoiled landscapes

If you’d like to take action, check out this site and maybe you can help save the Redrocks [bit.ly]

- Robert Redford

You can’t put a price on silence or solitude. You can’t quantify the beauty of wilderness. And yet that’s not going to stop the Bush administration from trying to sell off what should be the birthright of future generations.

In three days, this Friday, 110,000 acres of majestic Utah wild lands go on the auction block, to be sold to the highest bidders in the oil and gas industry. It’s a last-ditch effort by a corrupt administration to further enrich its friends in the dirty fuels business. If they succeed, they’ll leave a wasteland behind them.

Never mind that we the People of the United States just rejected the failed energy policy of “drill, baby, drill!” Never mind that once industrialized, these precious lands will be marred for centuries. Ravaging these places will put cash in the pockets of greedy speculators, even if it won’t solve our energy problems.

The miraculous thing about America though, is that we the People have options. And one of those options is to take a corrupt and foolish administration to court.

This morning I stood with my friends at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Cong. Brian Baird (D-WA) to announce an emergency lawsuit aimed at stopping this wanton destruction of Utah wilderness. Sharon Buccino, the head of NRDC’s lands program, has been fighting the Bush administration for eight years, holding the line against an industrial juggernaut. She says it’s illegal under federal law for the Bureau of Land Management to just snap its fingers and sell off national treasures. In its rush, BLM just ignored the rules.

Sharon’s case will be among the last lawsuits NRDC ever files against the Bush administration. Most of those lawsuits have been successful. I don’t know the odds on this one, but my fingers are crossed. It could be our last chance to protect these irreplaceable lands.

Bush may be a lame duck president, but he can still quack.

- Robert Redford

PASADENA, California, September 21, 2008 (ENS) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must set standards to control stormwater pollution from the construction of strip malls, subdivisions and other new developments, according to a decision of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The EPA and the National Association of Homebuilders had appealed a district court injunction requiring the standards in a case brought by conservation groups.

In its ruling Thursday, the appeals court upheld the injunction granted in the 2006 case brought by the Natural Resources Defense Council and Waterkeeper Alliance. The states of New York and Connecticut supported the conservation groups.

The conservationists said the decision will help to ensure that runoff from construction sites will not cause beach closings, waterborne disease, flooding, fish kills and contaminated drinking water supplies.

“This decision will go along way towards protecting America’s streams and rivers from the construction and development industry,” said Melanie Shepherdson, staff attorney at NRDC. “The court made it very clear that EPA can’t just shirk its responsibilities to rein in pollution from this industry.”

Excessive sediment, which is often the result of construction activity, is one of the leading causes of impairment of U.S. waters. Construction runoff threatens rivers, pollutes clean water sources and leads to excessive plant growth in water bodies.

“For too long EPA has turned away from the real work of protecting our waters. This decision forcefully reminds them of their duty to the American people and our waters,” said Jeffrey Odefey, staff attorney at Waterkeeper Alliance, a nonprofit organization with member groups throughout the United States and around the world.

“It’s time that EPA and the building industry demonstrate real leadership and took the necessary steps to prevent the destruction of our lakes, rivers and streams.”

Muddy runoff from a construction site in Monroe
County, Pennsylvania. (Photo courtesy
Monroe County)

The district court decided in favor of the plaintiff groups on the basis that the EPA failed to comply with the Clean Water Act by not performing its “non-discretionary duty” to promulgate new source performance standards and effluent limitation guidelines, or ELGs, for the construction industry.

The district court issued a permanent injunction requiring the EPA to issue these guidelines and standards for the construction industry no later than December 1, 2009. The appeals court upheld that ruling and the EPA must now abide by the injunction.

On bahalf of the three judge appellate panel, Judge Milan D. Smith, Jr. wrote, “The EPA explained its decision ‘not to promulgate [ELGs] and standards’ by stating that it believed that construction site storm water discharges were already ‘being adequately addressed’ because the ‘existing NPDES’ regulations require permits for the vast majority of construction sites nationwide, and that the cost was “simply too high and … disproportionately large” given the reductions that would be attributable to the proposed ELGs.”

The EPA told the court that the annual cost of the proposed ELGs would be more than half a billion dollars and would result in the displacement of a number of jobs while the existing permit programs were capable of controlling 80-90 percent of sediment runoff from construction sites and the proposed rule would only remove an additional one percent more.

The EPA also decided not to promulgate new source performance standards because it said that discharges associated with construction activity generally are “not appropriately characterized as new sources,” and the definition of new source should be read to exclude construction sites.

So, the EPA removed the construction industry from effluent plans it published.

Although the EPA had identified stormwater discharges from the construction industry as a new category in its 2000 and 2002 effluent guidelines program plans, the agency did not identify the construction industry in its 2004 and 2006 plans based on the idea that discharges from this activity consist mostly of conventional pollutants, in this case, total suspended solids.

In its 2004 plan, the EPA stated that analysis under the Clean Water Act applies only to industrial categories of sources that are discharging non-trivial amounts of toxic or nonconventional pollutants to waters of the United States.

The EPA said it did not consider industrial activities where conventional pollutants, rather than toxic or non-conventional pollutants, to merit regulation under the 2004 and 2006 plans.

To read the appeals court’s decision, click here [docs.nrdc.org].

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LOS ANGELES, California, September 10, 2008 (ENS) – The Clean Truck Program for the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach has survived a legal challenge by the American Trucking Associations. This federation of motor carriers, state trucking associations, and national trucking conferences had challenged a provision of the program that provides the ports with greater oversight over the trucks coming onto their property.

The ports, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club and the Coalition for Clean Air argued that truckers need to sign contracts with the ports agreeing to proper and timely maintenance of trucks entering port property.

In a ruling issued late Tuesday U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder agreed. The decision was based on a hearing Monday in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

Calling the ruling an important clean air victory, David Pettit, NRDC senior attorney, said, “It is not enough to replace old dirty trucks with new dirty trucks, but that’s what will happen if the new trucks aren’t maintained adequately. We need to ensure that the clean air gains from the ports’ clean trucks programs remain over the long haul.”

“The judge’s ruling supports properly maintained, well-managed goods movement at the ports, which is good for business and good for the health of people living in ports communities,” Pettit said.

But the American Trucking Associations said today it will seek immediate review of Judge Snyder’s denial of ATA’s request for a preliminary injunction against the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to halt implementation of their concession agreements.

Trucks entering the Port of Los Angeles
(Photo courtesy Port of Los Angeles)

ATA attorney Robert Digges Jr. told the court that ATA opposes the concession agreements but supports the Ports Clean Truck Programs, including the phased retirement of older trucks from the port operations and their replacement with newer, cleaner vehicles.

The port concession agreements that ATA opposes are not needed to meet the ports’ environmental goals, Digges argued.

Digges says the judge acknowledged that the ATA would likely succeed on the argument that the Ports’ Clean Truck Programs are preempted by federal law.

The judge also determined that the ports’ argument that they are sovereign tidelands was without support. However, the judge sided with the ports based on the security aspects of the ports’ plans.

In June, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa signed into law the Clean Truck Program, requiring all 16,000 diesel trucks at the ports to meet some of the toughest environmental standards in the nation.

The law is designed to reduce the numbers of premature deaths caused by inhaling the air pollution from port activities. Every year 2,400 premature deaths statewide and 1,200 in the South Coast Basin are caused by port-related pollution, according to the California Air Resources Board.

ATA said in a statement today that it is in full support of the ports’ environmental and security goals and supports the October 1, 2008 implementation of the elements of the Clean Truck Program necessary to address those goals, including the ban of pre-1989 trucks and the clean truck fee.

But the ATA said the ports are not prepared to put in place the systems needed to collect the ports’ clean truck fee and administer the ban on pre-1989 trucks by the October 1 program startup date.

In a detailed letter to the ports, the secretary of the Marine Terminal Operators noted that the ports’ have failed to develop and populate the Drayage Truck Registry, which will provide the individual truck data necessary to administer the program.

The Terminal Operators warned the ports that attempting to implement the program “without adequate preparation, testing and outreach could result in long truck lines at terminal gates, decreased productivity, and dissatisfaction among truckers, ocean carriers, and the shipping public.”

To avoid these problems the Marine Terminal Operators suggested that collection of the clean truck fee be postponed until January 1, 2009, and that the ban of pre-1989 trucks be delayed until at least November 1, 2009, and begun then only if the Drayage Truck Registry is in place.

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LOS ANGELES, California, August 11, 2008 (ENS) – The association representing most of the country’s municipal sewerage agencies says it is satisfied with an settlement reached Friday that ensures its members will be represented as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency develops new criteria for beach water quality.

The head of the National Association of Clean Water Agencies said today he is pleased with the agreement the association reached Friday with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Los Angeles County in litigation over new recreational water quality criteria.

“The number one goal of NACWA member agencies is to provide strong protections for public health and the environment,” said Ken Kirk, NACWA executive director.

“This agreement will help ensure that the best scientific data available is used in developing recreational water quality criteria so that we can continue to responsibly provide those protections,” said Kirk. “We welcome the opportunity to work with EPA and other key stakeholders in this important process.”

The new clean beach water criteria are required by Congress under the Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health Act, commonly called the BEACH Act.

Beach at Santa Cruz, California
(Photo by Carlos Martinez)

The settlement, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, resulted from a lawsuit filed in September 2006 by the Natural Resources Defense Council after the EPA did not meet its 2005 deadline under the BEACH Act for publishing new criteria for recreational water quality.

The settlement requires the EPA to complete the necessary scientific studies to develop new recreational water quality criteria by December 2010 and will publish the criteria in the Federal Register no later than October 2012 – seven years after the original deadline.

EPA has committed to carry out a study that will determine indicators for the new water quality criteria that will be protective of public health and based on sound science.

Under the settlement, the EPA has agreed to conduct studies in a variety of different geographic regions across the country as well as beaches impaired by different forms of water contamination.

The federal agency also has committed to following many of the recommendations and suggested studies outlined in the agency’s Critical Path Science Plan, drafted in August 2007 by a panel of international water quality experts, outlining the key studies necessary to develop new or revised water quality criteria.

The agreement also commits the EPA to validate and publish a rapid test method for the new criteria by October 2012. The rapid test method will be based on indicators selected by the agency during the research period and will be validated through an inter-laboratory study.

Stakeholders will be able to have input during the scientific study period and criteria development process.

The agreement requires EPA to convene at least one stakeholder workshop a year during 2009, 2010, and 2011 to provide an opportunity for people to receive an update on EPA’s efforts and offer input.

Additionally, the agency will convene an experts scientific workshop no later than December 2011 involving both EPA and external scientists to review the data collected during the scientific study period and determine if there are additional studies and data required to develop scientifically valid recreational water criteria.

Kirk says this experts workshop will provide “an important off-ramp” during the criteria development process to ensure that the necessary scientific data needed for meaningful criteria development has been obtained and was a key priority raised by NACWA during the settlement negotiations.

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WASHINGTON, DC, June 4, 2008 (ENS) – Millions of U.S. workers already have the skills and experience to fill the jobs needed to fight climate change and build a green economy in the United States, finds a report issued today that was commissioned by the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council, NRDC.

As its standard, the report focuses on six key strategies for tackling global warming – building retrofitting, mass transit, energy-efficient automobiles, wind power, solar power, and cellulosic biomass fuels.

The majority of jobs associated with these strategies are in areas of employment that people already work in today, in every region and state of the country, according to the report, which was authored by Robert Pollin and Jeanette Wicks-Lim of the Department of Economics and Political Economy Research Institute of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

It is being released in cooperation with the Green Jobs for America Campaign, a partnership of the Sierra Club, Blue Green Alliance, United Steelworkers, NRDC and with the Center for American Progress and Green for All.

Today’s unemployment rate stands at five percent, and job losses totaled 240,000 in the first three months of the year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor said May 2. Employment continued to decline in construction, manufacturing, and retail trade, while jobs were added in health care and in professional and technical services.

The green jobs report indicates that many unemployed people will be able to find work that utilizes their skills in the upcoming green economy.

“The commitment to a clean energy economy will not only lead to quality jobs in manufacturing unions and the building trades,” says Leo Gerard, international president of the United Steelworkers. “It will help stop good-paying jobs from continuing to be exported.”

For instance, constructing wind farms creates jobs for sheet metal workers, machinists and truck drivers, among others. Increasing the energy efficiency of buildings through retrofitting relies on roofers, insulators and electricians.

Employee Garth Johnson works in the hub of a
new wind turbine rotor at the National
Wind Technology Center. (Photo by
Lee Fingerish courtesy National
Renewable Energy Lab)

The report presents data on employment in Florida, Indiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, and Wisconsin, including the number of people employed in the occupations affected by the six green strategies, and what the average wages are for each of these jobs.

“Achieving a clean energy economy through green industries like wind and solar are just part of the story. This report is also about job security,” said Dan Lashof, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Climate Center. “We’re talking about jobs at every skill level from construction to research, already available here at home.”

What makes these familiar occupations “green jobs” is that the people working in them are contributing their labors toward building a green economy, the report states.

“Making homes and offices more energy efficient not only saves money and energy, but also represents growth opportunities for workers who build our communities and keep them running,” Lashof said.

This report provides information on what kinds of jobs are needed to fight global warming and build a green economy in the United States based on the efficient use of energy, reducing polluting emissions, and the use of renewable sources of power.

“The term ‘green jobs’ has spread rapidly over the past year,” write Pollin and Wicks-Lim in their report. “We seek to make the term concrete by highlighting many – but by no means all – of the occupations that will play a central role in building the green economy.”

For instance, the authors report that there are about 168,000 sheet metal workers now employed throughout the country. Roughly 10,000 are in Florida, 5,000 in Ohio, 1,000 in Nebraska, and 3,000 in Oregon. Depending on where they work, they are now earning, on average, between about $15.50 (Tennessee) and $27.00 (New York) per hour.

“A push to dramatically increase the country’s supply of wind energy will mean increased demand for these workers. Rising demand could also lead to rising average wages,” the report states.

“Everyone is talking about how the transition to a clean energy future will create millions of new green-collar jobs,” said Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club. “This report shows that millions of Americans are already working in exactly the kinds of jobs we’ll need to build that clean energy future. Those millions and millions more – from steelworkers to software engineers – stand to benefit from implementing the clean energy solutions we need to fight global warming.”

The authors do not attempt to estimate how much growth there is likely to be in any area of green investments or green jobs in the United States but to provide what they call a “snapshot” of some of the key industries and occupations that will experience increasing growth through green investments.

In work with the Center for American Progress that is will be published later this summer they intend to provide a detailed study on what employment growth could be in the United States under various green economy scenarios.

“This report shows that solving global warming means new investments in jobs and infrastructure, and the reconstruction of our economy,” said Bracken Hendricks, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

“As Congress debates climate legislation it should keep in mind that investing in energy efficiency and alternative energy means more opportunity for today’s job market including welders and machinists, carpenters, insulators and electrical engineers,” Hendricks said.

“In a very real sense, green jobs are America’s jobs,” he said. “We can strengthen career ladders and restore America’s middle class by rebuilding our economy to solve global warming.”

“This report demonstrates that given the right strategies, green jobs can be the engine that allows us to build an inclusive green economy strong enough to lift a lot of people out of poverty” said Van Jones, founder and president of Green For All.

He said, “With good policies and strong investments that prepare people who most need work for the work that most needs to be done, green jobs can fight poverty and global warming pollution at the same time.”

To read the report, “Job Opportunities for the Green Economy,” click here [www.umass.edu].

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WASHINGTON, DC, May 23, 2008 (ENS) – If global warming continues unchecked, by 2100, New York City will feel like Las Vegas does today and San Francisco will have a climate comparable to that of today’s New Orleans. In 2100, Boston will have average temperatures like those in Memphis, Tennessee today.

These higher temperatures will be uncomfortable financially as well as physically, according to a report released Thursday by researchers at Tufts University, commissioned by the Natural Resources Defense Council, NRDC.

Over the next 100 years, global warming will increase the average temperature across most of the United States by 13 degrees Fahrenheit and by 18 degrees in Alaska, the report estimates.

“Some important impacts are priceless, so the real situation is worse than the numbers can convey,” said the report’s lead author, Frank Ackerman. “But the numbers, for those impacts we can put prices on, are bad enough. Climate change is on a collision course with the U.S. economy, long before the end of the century, unless we act now.”

Heat waves will become more commonplace
across the United States if no action is
taken to limit climate change.
(Photo credit unknown)

The Tufts researchers present two ways of estimating the costs of inaction on climate change.

A comprehensive estimate based on state-of-the-art computer modeling finds that doing nothing on global warming will cost the United States economy more than 3.6 percent of Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, by 2100. That amounts to $3.8 trillion annually in today’s dollars.

On the other hand, a detailed, bottom-up analysis finds that four categories of global warming impacts – hurricane damage, real estate losses, increased energy costs and water costs – will add up to a price tag of 1.8 percent of GDP by 2100. That’s almost $1.9 trillion annually in today’s dollars.

Dan Lashof, director of NRDC’s Climate Center, said, “The longer we wait, the more painful and expensive the consequences will be. This report’s findings are undeniable – we must act now.”

“The Climate Security Act currently in the U.S. Senate is our best opportunity to set a concrete limit on global warming pollution and provide an accompanying market that rewards companies for making real reductions,” Lashof said.

Also known as the Lieberman-Warner bill for its authors – Connecticut Independent Senator Joe Lieberman and Virginia Republican Senator John Warner – the bill was introduced last October and approved by the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works in December 2007. It is expected to be debated in the full Senate in early June.

The bill would impose emission limits on electric utility, transportation, and manufacturing industries under a national cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gas emissions.

Polluters would mostly be allocated right-to-emit credits based on how much greenhouse gas they currently emit. The cap would get tighter over time, until by 2050, emissions would be reduced to 63 percent below 2005 levels.

Presently, greenhouse gases emitted in the United States are not subject to regulation.

“Many economic models have attempted to capture the costs of climate change for the United States,” the report states. “For the most part, however, these analyses grossly underestimate costs by making predictions that are out of step with the scientific consensus on the daunting scope of climatic changes and the urgent need to reduce global warming emissions.”

For its model, the report’s authors referred to “The Economics of Climate Change,” a report commissioned by the British government and released in 2006, also known as the Stern Review after its author, Sir Nicholas Stern.

Marc Lipsius considers the remains of his
home at Shell Point, Florida that was
destroyed by storm surge following
Hurricane Dennis. July 18, 2005.
(Photo by Andrea Booher
courtesy FEMA)

“We used a revised version of the Stern Review’s model to provide a more accurate, comprehensive picture of the cost of global warming to the U.S. economy,” Ackerman and his colleagues explain.

Global warming is already melting sea ice and glaciers that will contribute to sea level rise. Sea level is expected to rise 23 inches in 2050 and 45 inches by 2100, with grave impacts expected for the low-lying coastal communities of the southeastern United States.

By 2100, an estimated $360 billion per year will be spent on damaged or destroyed residential coastal real estate in the United States as a result of the rising sea levels, the Tufts report shows.

The effects of climate change will also be felt in the form of more severe heat waves, hurricanes, droughts, and other erratic weather events and in their impact on our economy’s bottom line.

“Curbing global warming pollution will require a substantial investment, but the cost of doing nothing will be far greater,” the authors conclude. “Immediate action can save lives, avoid trillions of dollars of economic damage, and put us on a path to solving one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century.”

To read the full report, “The Cost of Climate Change,” click here [www.nrdc.org].

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BOSTON, Massachusetts, April 25, 2008 (ENS) – Historic Fenway Park – home of the World Champion Boston Red Sox – is getting greener. The work to address environmental issues at the 96 year old baseball stadium has earned an “Environmental Merit Award” for excellence from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA.

The award, presented by the EPA to both the Natural Resources Defense Council, NRDC, and to the Boston Red Sox, is for a new program that is already showing results in putting environmental considerations at the forefront of logistical decisions about how the organization presents events at the ballpark.

The NRDC has teamed up with Major League Baseball, and is piloting a program with the Red Sox, to help address the environmental issues associated with bringing tens of thousands of fans together at dozens of stadiums nearly every day for six months at a stretch.

NRDC has developed a “Greening Advisor” for major league sports teams to use and apply across the country.

Tapping in to the expertise and advice of NRDC, the Red Sox have started a five-year effort to make Fenway Park one of the greenest destinations in baseball, culminating in 2012, when baseball celebrates the 100th anniversary of the ballpark. “We are not only committed to preserving the history, beauty, and integrity of Fenway Park, but we are also determined to enhance the park’s environmental attributes so it can serve our team, our fans, and our community in the 21st century as well as it did in the 20th century,” said Larry Lucchino, President and CEO of the Red Sox. “We look forward to beginning this process with the help of some key partners.”

The Red Sox organization is setting strong but attainable goals, such as to recycle the majority of plastic drink containers used in the park, and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent.

The Red Sox have enlisted local university students to make up Green Teams who will be present at every game at Fenway to roam the stands and to enable fans’ to get rid of their used plastic cups and bottles by recycling on the go.

Members of the Red Sox World Series Championship team will record announcements to be played over Fenway Park’s public address and video screens, encouraging fans to care for the environment by recycling at the ball park and at home.

“As America’s largest recycler, Waste Management is proud to join the Boston Red Sox in launching this “Going Green” recycling program,” said Lee Solheid, Waste Management’s area vice president for New England. “This eco-partnership with the Red Sox reflects the commitment of both of our organizations to environmental stewardship and a greener future for our children, families, and fans.”

While many teams are going green when building new stadiums, the Red Sox organization has made the more difficult commitment: to transform a 96 year old historic ballpark into a modern, green, environmentally-friendly place.

Plans include installing solar panels to help heat water and installing energy-efficient LED lighting displays in the park, which use just one-tenth the power of equivalent, traditional lighting displays.

ARAMARK, the concessionaire at Fenway Park, will be cooking up more environmentally-friendly food products, including locally-grown organic produce, at all the ballpark’s concession services. Fans will find sustainable food and agriculture, Earth-friendly procurement, energy conservation and waste management at Fenway’s food service concessions.

“Fenway Park is one of America’s most beloved buildings,” said Allen Hershkowitz, senior scientist at the NRDC and coordinator of the organization’s greening initiatives.

“The tangible and important ecological steps that the Red Sox and their team sponsors are advancing will have a lasting impact,” he said. “By committing to the greening of this historic building, the Red Sox organization is showing leadership that reaches far beyond the game of baseball.”

Hershkowitz said, “The Red Sox are demonstrating that every organization can make a difference by joining in our collective efforts to combat global warming, biodiversity loss, and other ecological ills.”

“As a professional sports franchise, we have the opportunity to reach millions,” said Lucchino. “As so many are doing in Red Sox Nation and around the world, we will continue to increase our efforts to protect the environment in a cost-competitive way.”

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PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania, April 8, 2008 (ENS) – An alliance of labor and conservation groups today launched the national Green Jobs for America campaign.

The United Steelworkers, the Sierra Club [www.sierraclub.org], the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Blue Green Alliance [www.bluegreenalliance.org], which is a partnership of the Steelworkers and Sierra Club, will campaign from now through September 15 to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs.

The campaign aims to create over 820,000 new green jobs nationwide in the field of clean, renewable energy in an effort to make the United States more energy independent and reduce the country’s dependence on fossil fuels.

“The time for a national push for renewable energy is now,” said USW International [www.usw.org] President Leo Gerard. “What is really exciting about this campaign is the opportunity to create jobs, help fix our broken economy and contribute to solving the biggest environmental challenge of our generation at the same time.”

The Green Jobs for America campaign believes that investing in renewables is the best way to fight global warming, bring skyrocketing energy costs back under control, and create new, good-paying jobs.

The campaign will take place in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, Tennessee, Florida, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Indiana, Missouri, Nebraska and Oregon from now through

An independent study conducted last year for the Blue Green Alliance by the Renewable Energy Policy Project found that these 12 states in particular stand to gain nearly 170,000 new manufacturing jobs in wind turbine manufacturing and almost 93,000 new manufacturing jobs making the parts for solar power equipment.

Blue Green Alliance Executive Director David Foster said that green jobs are not only those that produce a green product designed for a specific environmental purpose.

Workers install a wind turbine in
Colorado. (Photo by Warren
Gretz, courtesy NREL)

They include existing jobs that involve a green process or a green purpose. He said that steelworkers building components for wind turbines are performing green jobs, as are chemical workers making products that are not harmful to humans or the environment.

“The green revolution isn’t just creating new and different jobs,” Foster said. “It’s revitalizing and creating new investment in a lot of the jobs we already have.”

The campaign builds on the momentum of the Good Jobs, Green Jobs National Conference held in Pittsburgh last month, which brought together over 1,000 participants, over 80 organizations, elected officials, and leaders from industry, community groups, environmental organizations, and labor unions.

The Green Jobs for America Campaign expects to add additional allies to this new national movement focused on making the clean energy future a reality.

“We saw a glimpse of the clean energy future last month in Pittsburgh,” said Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope. “The Green Jobs for America campaign will bring the power of that future to communities across the country.”

Teams of organizers from the four organizations will undertake grassroots organizing activities, conduct a series of public events, release independent studies highlighting the potential for tens of thousands of new green jobs in each state and generate thousands of signatures on a petition calling for green jobs, clean energy solutions and fair trade agreements.

“We aim to show people that we can start building that clean energy future today – a future that promises a strong economy, good jobs, fair trade agreements, a clean environment, and a stable climate for our children and grandchildren.”

The campaign holds that energy efficiency is a largely untapped resource that can save consumers and businesses money on their energy bills and cut our global warming emissions, all while creating tens of thousands of new jobs.

“Technologies like wind and solar are just part of the story. This is also about job security. Making homes, offices and factories more energy efficient not only saves money, it also represents a huge growth opportunity for the people who build our communities and keep them running,” said Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“We’re talking about architects and engineers. Drywall and lighting contractors. Electricians and carpenters. Everything from construction to computing. And these are jobs that cannot be shipped offshore, and pay lasting dividends to the American economy,” Beinecke said.

Founded in 2006, the Blue Green Alliance is a strategic partnership of the United Steelworkers, North America’s largest manufacturing union, and the 1.3 million members and supporters of the Sierra Club.

The Natural Resources Defense Council [www.nrdc.org] is a national, nonprofit organization of scientists, lawyers and environmental specialists dedicated to protecting public health and the environment. Founded in 1970, NRDC has 1.2 million members and online activists, served from offices in New York, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Beijing.

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NEW YORK, New York, February 15, 2008 (ENS) – New York City Council passed legislation Wednesday that makes New York the first major municipality in the nation to tackle the rising tide of discarded electronics in the waste stream.

Manufacturers of computers, TVs and MP3 players will have to take responsibility for the collection of their own electronic products when New Yorkers want to dispose of them.

The law phases in a city-wide electronics recycling program for the 25,000 tons of discarded electronics the city collects annually.

“Every time you turn around there’s a new iPod or iPhone, a new slimmer laptop or a bigger TV enticing you to purchase it,” said Kate Sinding, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, NRDC. “With the speed at which we upgrade our gadgets these days, it’s no wonder that electronics are the fastest-growing part of our waste stream.”

TV trashed in New York
City. (Photo by J.&D. Martens
via Flickr)

“But now, with the city’s adoption of a 21st-century recycling measure,” said Sinding, “New York has found a solution that will undoubtedly become the model for other jurisdictions around the nation.”

“Speaker [Christine] Quinn, chief sponsor Bill de Blasio and Sanitation Committee chair Michael McMahon, along with the rest of the bill’s sponsors, deserve a great deal of credit for passing this measure, which Mayor Bloomberg should quickly sign into law,” she said.

The law known as Intro. 104-A, was sponsored by 47 council members. Proponents say the measure will save the city money and give manufacturers the incentive to design less toxic and easier-to-recycle products.

The city’s Department of Sanitation will have to approve each manufacturer’s collection plan, which could include curbside collection, drop-off events or mail-in programs.

The new measure received support from major corporations such as Apple and GE, and Tekserve, one of New York City’s largest computer retailers.

Nearly two dozen environmental groups support the measure, including the Sierra Club, Environmental Defense, the League of Conservation Voters, the New York Public Interest Research Group and the Lower East Side Ecology Center.

The law requires companies to begin collecting old equipment in July 2009.

Starting in July 2010, the Department of Sanitation will no longer accept electronic products covered in the bill for collection and can fine manufacturers if they fail to submit approvable plans and/or fail to meet specific performance standards in implementing them.

By 2012, manufacturers must take back at least 25 percent by weight of their current sales for recycling or reuse; by 2015 they must collect 45 percent.

By 2018, manufacturers must collect at least 65 percent of their current sales.

“New Yorkers now have a clear, simple answer to the question: ‘What do I do with my old iPod, TV, or computer?’” said Sinding. “And, finally, all those old electronic products collecting dust in our homes can be disposed of properly, affording us a little extra closet space as well.”

Old electronics account for about 40 percent of the lead found in municipal landfills as well as mercury, cadmium, and other toxic heavy metals in landfills and municipal incinerators, the NRDC says.

Currently, much of New York City’s electronic waste is burned in the Newark incinerator, polluting the air in New York and New Jersey with heavy metals.

Sinding said, “We now have a smarter way to deal with old electronics that doesn’t include burning them or burying them in landfills.”

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JUNEAU, Alaska, January 25, 2008 (ENS) – Today, the Bush administration put a “for sale” sign on trees in pristine roadless areas of the Tongass rainforest in Alaska – America’s largest national forest.

This move by Bush officials to reverse roadless area protections parallels two others made recently in national forests located in Idaho and Colorado.

Conservationists from across the country are indignant that roads will be punched through some of the nation’s last, best roadless areas to allow private corporations to log America’s public lands.

“The few remaining roadless areas of our national forests are some of the only safe harbors for America’s wildlife,” said Mary Beth Beetham at Defenders of Wildlife. “As global warming threatens to dramatically change the landscape we must have the foresight to preserve these last remaining pristine forests for future generations. It’s folly for the Bush administration, in its last few months, to work to destroy these areas.”

In December 2003, Bush officials “temporarily” exempted Alaska’s Tongass rainforest from the Clinton era Roadless Rule, designed to protect 58 million acres of roadless wild forests in 39 states.

The Bush administration’s new management plan for the Tongass National Forest will raise no revenue for the U.S. government, as the U.S. taxpayers will have to pay to build the roads the timber companies need to access the forest.

“With so much of our forest heritage already lost, every roadless acre counts. The spectacular roadless areas in Alaska deserve as much protection as those in every other state,” said Larry Edwards with Greenpeace in Sitka, Alaska.

“The Roadless Rule and the courts have sheltered many of the last, best places in our national forests, even during an administration hostile to forest protection. Now, with one foot out the door, Bush officials are looking for whatever way they can to give away the family silver,” said Franz Matzner at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Tongass logging fell dramatically in the 1990s, and for years now has existed at levels that do not require slicing roads and clearcuts into virgin old-growth forests, as the Forest Service itself has acknowledged.

“The new plan suffers from the same central problem as the old plan. It leaves 2.4 million acres of wild, roadless backcountry areas open to clear cutting and new logging roads,” said Earthjustice attorney Tom Waldo. “The Tongass is worth a whole lot more to the American people as a standing forest than it is as a sea of stumps and logs.”

The land management plan released today was ordered more than two years ago by a federal court which concluded that the old plan justifying opening Tongass wildlands for development was invalid due to several factors, including a gross overestimation of demand for Tongass logs.

Congress also has expressed concern with Tongass wilderness logging. The House of Representative has voted three times to stop taxpayer dollars from funding new logging roads there.

In September 2006, the federal District Court of Northern California ordered the Bush administration to reinstate the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule to protect almost 50 million acres of National Forests and grasslands across the lower 48 states and Puerto Rico from road construction, logging, and other harmful development.

Roadless area of the Tongass
National Forest in southeast
Alaska. (Photo credit unknown)

Judge Elizabeth Laporte ruled that the Bush administration violated both the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act by when it repealed the Roadless Rule and put into place another rule without any substantial analysis or need.

But the long term status of the roadless areas in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska was not settled by Judge Laporte. In 2003, the Bush administration exempted the Tongass from the roadless rule by creating a separate amendment that was based on the validity of the Tongass Land Management Plan.

“The Forest Service is losing money hand over fist on roads that Americans don’t even want,” said Christy Goldfuss of Environment America.

“Today,” said Caitlin Hills with American Lands Alliance, “the federal government, in defiance of the facts and the strongly expressed sentiments of the American people to protect all roadless areas, has answered ‘fire up the chainsaws.’”

“The Tongass is the crown jewel of our nation’s roadless wildlands,” said Trish Rolfe at Alaska Sierra Club. “Wild salmon, bears, eagles, and wolves thrive there among moss-draped ancient trees, along crystalline fjords and untamed rivers. It has nine million acres of roadless areas that lack permanent protection. The Bush administration has just put some of the best of them on the chopping block.”

“All over the Tongass there are roadless wildlands that local people and visitors hold dear, jeopardized by this new plan,” said Gregory Vickrey with Tongass Conservation Society.

“These are special places critical to the region’s incredible fish, deer and other wildlife, world-famous recreational opportunities, cherished subsistence practices, and the businesses and jobs that depend on the region’s natural treasures,” said Vickrey. “These are the very things that make Southeast Alaskans most want to live here.”

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