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Saturday, December 13, 2008
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Here's a background piece on Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Arizona) who is on President-elect's short list for Secretary of Interior, from John Dougherty writing in the Washington Independent. Click through and read the whole thing. Here are a few excerpts:
The possibility that President-elect Barack Obama will select Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Arizona) as his secretary of interior has environmentalists, Interior Dept. employees, Native Americans and Latino groups giddy. If appointed and confirmed by the Senate, the three-term Democrat, who represents the state's 7th Congressional District, is expected to launch widespread reforms at Interior, which has been riddled with scandal, plummeting employee morale and deteriorating conditions in the nation's national parks...
The 61-year-old son of a migrant Mexican farm worker has been sharply critical of the Bush administration's management of the 500 million acres controlled by Interior. If appointed, Grijalva would become the third Arizonan to lead the department. Stewart Udall served as its secretary under President John F. Kennedy, and former Arizona Gov. Bruce Babbitt held the post under President Bill Clinton.
Grijalva, who was elected co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus last month, has a reputation for being politically combative. He has been extremely outspoken in his opposition to what he sees as the anti-labor and anti-immigration policies of congressional Republicans. He has taken shots at his own party, branding Democratic leaders "spineless" for failing to take on comprehensive immigration reform. And he's called leaders of anti-amnesty groups "cockroaches."
"The word extremist could get tossed around to describe Grijalva," the Tucson Citizen noted in Nov. 28 commentary. "He compromises when he must but prefers conquest to consensus."
Grijalva's strident nature may cost him the Interior appointment. A Washington Post columnist wrote Tuesday that a source close to the Obama transition team said that Grijalva had fallen off the short list.
Here's the column referred to above from Al Kamen writing in the Washington Post. From the article:
...buzz over [last] weekend centered on Interior, with sources saying Obama may be weighing some dark-horse alternatives to the longtime front-runners, Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.). Grijalva faced some hiccups in recent days and fell off the shortlist, said a source close to the transition.
Thompson, meanwhile, has been hit by a barrage of environmentalist attacks in recent days for his ties to industry groups and his love of hunting.
Sources said some new names are popping up. One is Kevin Gover, director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. Gover, 53, is a former law professor at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University and was assistant secretary for Indian affairs at Interior during the Clinton administration. He took over at the Smithsonian museum last year in the wake of a scandal involving the museum's founding director, W. Richard West Jr.
A member of the Pawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, Gover could become the first Native American nominated to be a Cabinet secretary, and the potential to make history could prove irresistible for Obama. But Gover's spokeswoman, Eileen Maxwell, said he has not "heard anything from the transition, nor does Kevin expect to."
More Coyote Gulch coverage here.
"colorado water"
9:03:34 AM 
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Climate Change deniers are always asking for more indications of the coming problems if we don't do something about greenhouse gas emissions. Here's an article about the loss of coral reefs as a harbinger of the sixth mass extinction period in Earth's history, from the Environmental News Network. From the article:
The world is on the brink of a massive extinction event, according to the United Nations. Rapid releases of greenhouse gas emissions are changing habitats at a rate faster than many of the world's species can tolerate. "Indeed the world is currently facing a sixth wave of extinctions, mainly as a result of human impacts," said Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme in a statement.
A study earlier this year in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science said the current extinction period, known as the Holocene extinction event, may be the greatest event in the Earth's history and the first due to human actions. Unlike previous events, however, extinctions are happening over the course of decades rather than centuries. Recent studies suggest that a quarter of the world's species may go extinct by 2050...
The latest global coral reef assessment estimates that 19 percent of the world's coral reefs are dead. Their major threats include warming sea-surface temperatures and expanding seawater acidification. Zooxanthellae, the tiny organisms that give coral reefs their vibrant colors, are emigrating from their hosts in massive numbers as oceans heat up, killing themselves and the coral they leave behind - a process known as coral bleaching. The report, released by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network Wednesday at the international climate change negotiations in Poznań, Poland, predicts that many of the remaining reefs may disappear within the next 40 years if current emission trends continue.
"cc"
8:27:09 AM
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Here's an article with some San Luis Valley and statewide environmental groups views about the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission's new rules for exploration and development, from Ruth Heide writing in the Valley Courier. From the article:
Local and statewide environmental groups are pleased with the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission's approval this week of updates to state rules but do not feel that the fight to implement these rules is over. "The next step is for the state legislature to pass a bill approving these rules," said SLV Ecosystem Council Director Christine Canaly in emails to colleagues and media this week. "The oil and gas industry and some state republicans are going to use this opportunity weaken them, so the struggle isn't over."
Todd Malmsbury, Rocky Mountain Energy Campaign, said, "Wednesday's action by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) is remarkable, precedent setting and one of the major accomplishments of our coalition. RMEC groups and key partners spent thousands of hours to win approval for rules that set a national precedent. And the predictable reaction from the Pleistocene wing of the Republican Party underscores the work ahead in the legislature and with the new administration." Malsmbury added that the COGCC's rules meant a great deal to him personally since he had worked on wildlife and natural resource issues for a third of century in Colorado.
The environmental groups plan on letter-writing campaigns to legislators including newly elected House District 62 State Representative Ed Vigil of Costilla County. Some of the key points to be addressed to legislators and newspapers through letters to the editor include: the rules were passed unanimously by COGCC which includes three members from the industry as well as members with diverse backgrounds; the rules were created after 18 months of effort, input and public hearings; and the legislature does not have to rewrite the rules, just determine that COGCC did the job it was asked to do...
The new and modified rules will:
- Establish protection zones around streams that serve public drinking water supplies.
- Require companies to keep track of and disclose to state and emergency responders chemicals they use in drilling operations.
- Manage erosion and reduce water pollution around oil and gas operators during storms and snow run-off seasons.
Proponents of the rules said they were balanced, responsible and fair. They said the energy industry in Colorado should be viewed in the context of the state's entire economy that in large part depends on protecting natural resources...
Hunting, fishing and wildlife viewing inject $3 billion into Colorado's economy every year and support 33,000 jobs.
A July 2008 poll conducted by RBI Strategies and Research showed that a majority of Coloradans believe that oil and gas drilling must be done but only in a safe and responsible manner that would not cut corners and endanger public health. Seventy percent of those polled favored responsible drilling over rapid oil and gas development.
More Coyote Gulch coverage here.
"cc"
6:48:38 AM
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A researcher at Boise State is experimenting with using radar to measure snowpack. Potentially this method will be able to cover a much wider area than humans lugging measuring sticks and snotel equipment can. Here's a report from Cynthia Sewell writing for the Idaho Statesmen:
Rather than sending a scientist to trudge up a mountain with a measuring stick and scales to determine snowpack depth and water content and the composition of different snow layers, Hans-Peter Marshall and an international group of scientists are working on "snow radar." It would provide the same information from a helicopter and - possibly soon - from a satellite...
Today, Marshall's system can be used at ground level by passing the radar over snow-laden surfaces while skiing. The technology is being tested and modified for helicopter use. But soon, scientists may be able to obtain snowpack data from high-flying aircraft and space-based satellites. "Interpreting the signal from satellites and aircraft radar systems is much more complicated," Marshall said. "The math is quite complicated, and there are a number of people at different universities and institutions working on retrieval algorithms for doing this."
This winter Marshall will continue fine-tuning his snow radar by comparing high-tech snowpack measurements with old-fashioned hand-gathered data, which means donning skis and heading into Idaho's mountains.
"colorado water"
6:38:09 AM
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2009
John Orr.
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