Sierra Club Greenblawg

Mascots and Motor Trends

2007-04-17T12:57:00.000-07:00

Check out Der Spiegel's shrine to Knut the polar bear cub, who shares the US cover of Vanity Fair this month with Leo DiCaprio, but who, in Germany, gets it all to his fuzzy little self. The Berlin Zoo has apparently been mobbed with folks who want to see the little guy in his (un)natural element. Indeed, he's become a sort of de facto mascot of Earth Day 2007.

But while folks in Deutschland love the little guy, they also love their cars -- emissions from which are not helping to assure the future survival of Knut's wild brethren. Not only were recent proposals to put speed limits on the famous autobahn met with heavy public resistance, but, according to Der Spiegel, SUV sales have risen by 45 percent in Germany over the last 3 years. Even putting SUVs aside, the general trend in Germany is toward higher horsepower, not higher mileage. Witness the demise of VW's 80-mpg Lupo. The company killed it after painfully slack sales.

So what gives? DaimlerChrysler CEO Dieter Zetsche calls it a case of eco-schizophrenia. Whatever the diagnosis, it does not bode well for Knut's kind.

Mississippi Nukes

2006-10-12T16:04:00.000-07:00

Port Gibson, Mississippi is home to one of the first post-Three Mile Island nuclear plants to apply for a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission - the so-called "Grand Gulf" nuclear plant. We call it "Grand Goof." A coalition of companies called NuStart has received a federal subsidy of $260 million, as part of the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Power 2010 program, just to cover the cost of applying for a construction and operating license at the Grand Gulf site. (This is the entire annual budget for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory).

Today we filed a claim with the Atomic Safety Licensing Board (a sub-unit of NRC) demanding that they take a hard look at the risks from a possible terrorist attack on this facility when they evaluate its environmental impacts. The NRC has, until recently, refused to look at terrorism risks, calling them "speculative." That was until the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling in another one of our cases (teaming up with the organization Mothers for Peace) taking the NRC to task for refusing to look at terrorism risks. We are asking that NRC do the right thing and look at the possible terrorism risks associated with the Grand Gulf plant.

You don't have to be a CIA agent to know that nuclear power plants are natural targets. People have a right to know the potential dangers they face in their own neighborhoods. That’s not only common sense; it happens to be the law.

Hogs and Justice

2006-10-05T17:50:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I'm giving a speech to the American Bar Association in San Diego about the role of "common law," i.e. tort law, in protecting our environment. Among other things, I plan to tell them how a Jackson County, Missouri jury recently slapped Premium Standard Farms with a $4.5 million nuisance damages verdict. PSF is a major meat producer that operates "concentrated animal feeding operations" in which thousands of hogs or chickens are confined in factory farm facilities. The $4.5 million verdict was to compensate a group of rural residents from the unbearable stench caused by PSF's massive hog feedlot in northwest Missouri. This kind of legal action is a powerful complement to the kind of environmental law that the Sierra Club specializes in - the enforcement of statutes like the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Superfund, etc. We have used these laws to protect communities from noxious feedlots in places like Kentucky, Oklahoma and Alabama, and we welcome the added umph that the trial lawyers bring to the table. Congratulations to Charlie Speer who led the charge on the PSF victory.

Gas Guzzlers and Global Warming

2006-10-03T17:35:00.000-07:00

One of our cases now in progress challenges the Bush administration's new fuel economy standards, i.e. MPG, for light trucks and SUVs for model years 2008-2011. The new standards are 22.5 MPG for 2008, 23.1 for 2009 and 23.5 for 2010......incredibly weak when you consider that motor vehicles are one of the primary causes of global warming pollution. When I dug into this case, I was amazed to find out how the MPG-setting process works. Basically, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) obtains future production plans from the car companies, then tweaks them by adding on additional pieces of fuel-efficiency equipment until the cost of the equipment outweighs the incremental benefit of the gasoline savings. In other words, NHTSA doesn't really challenge the automakers to innovate from scratch, they just put lipstick on the gas guzzlers. Making matters worse, the agency acknowledged that the reduction of greenhouse gases would be a huge benefit in the overall cost-benefit equation, but then assigned that benefit a $0 value because they claim it is too "uncertain." This case is being briefed right now and will go to the court in early 2007. We can do so much better - we should be getting at least 40 MPG out of our light trucks and SUVs.

The Biggest Polluter in the Country ??

2006-10-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

We are challenging a massive coal plant project in western Kansas that appears to be the largest source of global warming pollution proposed in three decades. The "Holcomb" coal plant would involve the construction of three new coal-fired boilers at a site in western Kansas. Once operational, this project would emit up to twenty million tons of carbon dioxide annually for fifty years or more (the expected life span of a new plant). By comparison, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) adopted by the governors of seven Northeastern states calls for reducing carbon emissions from their region's power plants by twenty-four millions tons annually.

Energy efficiency and renewable energy such as wind power, abundant in Kansas, are a better way. Investment in these smarter energy solutions would create more jobs and leave the planet safer for our children. The Club has called on Kansas Governor Sebelius to impose a moratorium on these proposed plants and take leadership on clean, safe energy.

Global Warming in the Supreme Court

2006-09-29T16:42:00.000-07:00

From David Bookbinder:

To my surprise, last June 26th the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case of Massachusetts v. EPA and look at whether the Clean Air Act gives EPA the authority to regulate the greenhouse gases that cause global warming. We did not expect the Court to take this case, and had written the petition more as an exercise in educating the Court about this issue. We wanted to give the Court a heads-up that they would be hearing more about the issue as other cases presenting this question of EPA's authority over greenhouse gases percolated up through the courts. In fact, it was precisely because these other cases are in the pipeline that we expected the Justices to wait and review one of those decisions, as they generally prefer to have a sample of lower court opinions chewing things over before they get involved.

Every reporter who called me in late June began with the same question: "So, what does this mean?" Given that our opening brief was due August 31, my response was "It means that my summer is completely screwed." My vacation plans aside, our best guess is that the Justices recognized the mega-policy issues involved here, and at least four of them (the number needed to take a case) decided they had better deal with this sooner rather than later.

On the one side, Sierra Club and ten other environmental organizations, 12 states and a couple of cities, plus a host of amici - "friends of the court". On the other side, the Bush Administration, 10 other states, and every major industrial and business interest in the country. (They have so many trade associations, such as the American Petroleum Association, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, the National Association of Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, etc., that they appeared in this case under the umbrella title of "The CO2 Litigation Group." Because they certainly deserved a more descriptive name, the winner of a bottle of fine single-malt in my re-branding contest was "The Flat Earth Gang.")

I'll keep y'all posted as this progresses.

Victories on Wind Power and the Owens River

2006-09-28T16:50:00.000-07:00

The last couple of days have brought more good news on the legal front. The first is a victory that clears the way for wind power development. Under pressure from a Sierra Club lawsuit, the Department of Defense finally issued its report to Congress concerning the possible interference of wind turbines with military radar. The report confirms that wind power and radar can coexist. As a result, wind projects are no longer being stopped by a de facto moratorium that was in place while the overdue DoD report was pending.

In another case, the Club won a huge victory from the California Court of Appeals, which upheld a trial court's order to the City of Los Angeles to begin restoring the Lower Owens River, an area long degraded by excessive water pumping by the City. As a result, the river will get healthier. Congratulations to Larry Silver, our lawyer on the case and member of the Club's Litigation Committee.

Welcome to Greenblawg

2006-09-27T10:36:00.000-07:00

Greetings from San Francisco. This is the first post to Greenblawg, the Sierra Club legal team's on-line journal. We aim to keep a journal on environmental cases and issues like global warming, Giant Sequoias and the connection between wind energy and Donald Rumsfeld.

Giant Sequoias -- We're wrapping up our recent victory against the current administration's management [logging] plan for the Giant Sequoia National Monument, by filing a proposed judgment with the court. The judgment will stop logging inside the Monument, home to two-thirds of all the Giant Sequoias on Earth. The judgment also protects the Pacific fisher, a rare animal inahbiting the Giant Sequoia ecosystem. Stay tuned for much more here about why logging big trees in the wilderness does not protect communities from forest fires.

The Coal Rush -- I talked with folks in Georgia today about LS Power's proposal to build an 1200-megawatt coal-fired power plant along the Chatahoochee River. To give you an idea of what this means, the plant would burn pulverized coal and emit millions of tons of greenhouse gases every year, not to mention mercury, soot, sulfuric acid mist...... This plant is just one of over one hundred such plants now in the pipeline, just in the U.S. Nobody's waiting around for greenhouse laws to kick in...........
We view this as one of the front lines of global warming, and we are devoting our staff to bringing legal actions that challenge dirty coal plants -- they perpetuate a 19th century technology, instead of promoting a safer future. Check out our "Stop the Coal Rush" work and join the effort if you confront one of these beasts in your neck of the woods.

Stopping the Coal Rush - Our colleague and leader of the Midwest Clean Energy Campaign Bruce Nilles phoned in today from Wisconsin, elated to report that we won our legal case against the proposed Indeck-Elwood LLC coal-fired power plant outside Chicago. The federal Environmental Appeals Board ruled that the permit granted to this enormous coal plant was filled with errors. Congratulations Bruce! and thank you to the Chicago Legal Clinic for their assistance. This victory will keep approximately five million tons of pollutants, including greenhouse gases and mercury, out of the air.... for now.

Global Warming - I just finished preparing a talk I'm giving to a group of lawyers in San Francisco tomorrow, called: "An Incovenient Law." It's about the upcoming Supreme Court case Massachusetts v. EPA and, among other things, whether the Clean Air Act says that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are "air pollutants" or not - stay tuned for our Washington D.C. lead counsel David Bookbinder's post on the case.