Environmental Roundup - September 15, 2007

IN THE NEWS: Sen Majority Leader Reid Opposes All New Coal Fired Power Plants Most Polar Bears Gone by 2050 Plug-In Hybrids at Frankfurt Auto Show GE to Step Back from Environmental Initiative?

CURRENT ACTIONS: Don't Let the Military Subsidize Liquid Coal Fight Bush's New Mountaintop Mining Rule Save Armenian Forest from Copper Mine

INTERNATIONAL WORK: Stop Amazon Dam Project in Bolivia Fighting GMO Crops in Europe Malaria and Climate Change

ENVIRO ALLIES: NRDC: Get Toxic Chemicals out of New Orleans Earth Justice: Stop Logging in the Tongass National Forest

Environmental Roundup: September 15, 2007



Following FoE's Lead, Government Announces Public Lands Are Endangered By Global Warming


Five years ago, Friends of the Earth's Bluewater Network released a groundbreaking report of the dangers that U.S. public lands, including national parks and forests, face from global warming - and exposing the failures of government to protect public lands. In addition to the report, we persuaded Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) to ask the U.S. Government Accountability office to review government actions regarding global warming and public lands. Last week, the GAO finally released its official report on the subject, which found that the threat to public lands is severe and Bush administration has a lot of room for improvement, to put it mildly.

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Also in this issue:

1. 20^th Anniversary Of Montreal Protocol Is This Sunday

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1. After Stalling Out Energy Bills, Liquid Coal Backers Turn To Military

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1. TXU Buyout Likely To Lead To New Coal Pollution

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1. Federal court ruling major win for California's vehicle greenhouse gas law

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20^th Anniversary Of Montreal Protocol Is This Sunday

Sunday marks the 20^th anniversary of the signing of the Montreal Protocol, the international agreement that led to dramatic reductions in CFCs and other pollutants that were shrinking the Earth's ozone layer. The agreement - brought about in part because of the leadership of Friends of the Earth activists around the world - has been strikingly successful, with the ozone layer already beginning to recover. Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has called the protocol "perhaps the single most successful" international agreement to date. At a time when global warming sometimes seems intractable, the success of the Montreal Protocol serves as a reminder that when international community works together to protect the environment, we can prevail.

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After Stalling Out Energy Bills, Liquid Coal Backers Turn To Military

For months now, coal companies have been trying to add to their bottom lines by getting taxpayers to pay for the production of liquid coal - a dirty, expensive fuel that they want to use to replace gasoline in cars and other vehicles. Unfortunately, liquid coal can actually result in twice as many greenhouse gas emissions as regular gasoline, plus its production requires dangerous and environmentally damaging coal mining. While the industry failed to get subsidies written into the congressional energy bills, the Wall Street Journal is now reporting that coal companies have a new target for subsidies: the military budget. Help us stop this bad idea before it goes any further—add your name to our petition by clicking here.

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TXU Buyout Likely To Lead To New Coal Pollution

When Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and TPG announced this spring that it intended to buy Texas power company TXU, it received a lot of good press for scrapping plans to construct several new coal plants. But in an example of a classic bait-and-switch, TXU then announced that it would build nuclear plants - which have plenty of problems of their own -- instead. Thousands of Friends of the Earth activists responded, urging the company to pursue wind and solar power instead. Now, we're learning of another drawback to TXU's plans. Instead of building new coal plants, the company is increasing power production at older, dirtier plants, and because of increasing demand for a more limited supply of power, the company's profits are likely to increase at consumers' expense—a dirty plan any way you look at it. Read the Wall Street Journal article

Federal Court Ruling Major Win For California's Vehicle Greenhouse Gas Law

A federal district court in Vermont ruled on Wednesday that automakers must comply with a law adopted by California and 14 other states that limits automobile greenhouse gas emissions. The court said that California's law is not preempted by federal standards and that California and other states have the authority to adopt global warming-related regulations for vehicles. Friends of the Earth's Bluewater Network was instrumental in passing the California law being challenged in this case, and Friends of the Earth's program director for the West Coast, Danielle Fugere, is a counsel in defense of the law in a nearly identical case in federal court in California.

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