Green Options » dirk kempthorne

Feds Establish New Renewable Energy Coordination Office

Timothy B. Hurst — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 09:08:34 +0000

Outgoing Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne issued a Secretarial Order authorizing the Bureau of Land Management to establish offices to expedite the permitting of renewable energy and associated transmission facilities on BLM lands.

The offices will oversee the the siting and permitting of wind, solar, biomass and geothermal projects on BLM-managed lands in the American West. This process will be similar to other energy permitting work the BLM does for coal, oil and gas—like lease auctions, public meetings, comment periods and other tools of stakeholder management—except a lot less contentious.

The offices will be known as Renewable Energy Coordination Offices, and will initially be located in Arizona, California, Nevada and Wyoming.

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$236K Newly-Renovated Bathroom Awaits Salazar at Interior Department HQ

Timothy B. Hurst — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:59:47 +0000

Ah, the executive bathroom, one of the unheralded perks of holding a cabinet-level seat. But unfortunately for outgoing Interior Department Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, the $236,000 renovation of the Main Interior Building Executive Suite bathroom was finally completed just in time to hand the keys over to Interior Secretary-nominee, Ken Salazar.

It is the first time any such renovations have been done at the building since it was built in 1936, but for $236K, that must be one heck of a water closet.

As part of the renovation, workers modernized and upgraded the plumbing, mechanical and lighting systems in the bathroom of the Executive Suite. The modernization is part of a larger $243 million makeover of The Main Interior Building’s mechanical, electrical, plumbing and ventilation systems in all of its office spaces.

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As You Read This, Bush is Messing With the Endangered Species Law

Meg Hamill — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 22:02:19 +0000

In a last minute effort to alter the endangered species rules before Bush leaves office, officials are speed-reading 200,000 public comments. If the Administration goes through with their plan, they will implement the biggest changes to the rules since 1986.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has called 15 people to Washington this week to speed read 200,000 comments in 32 hours. The public comments are regarding a proposal by the interior department to exclude greenhouse gases and the advice of federal biologists from decisions about whether dams and power plants could harm species.

Dale Hall, Fish and Wildlife Service Director, told the Associated Press on Tuesday that the short time frame for processing the comments was requested by Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and, indeed would set a record. Usually the review process takes months.

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Polar Bear Finally Listed as ‘Endangered’

Joshua S Hill — Thu, 15 May 2008 19:17:57 +0000

For a long time now we’ve spoken about the continuing effort by US and other environmental and animal rights groups to get the polar bear listed on the United States Endangered Species Act.

Polar bear populations have been declining over the past few years, attributable, some claim, to man-made global warming. Al Gore helped the plight of the polar bear by including in his award winning An Inconvenient Truth a cartoon of a polar bear swimming, unable to find land. The cartoon was inspired by evidence that some polar bears had drowned – a hitherto unforeseen occurrence.

So it is good news that on Wednesday the Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne announced that the polar bear has finally been listed as “threatened” under the ESA. However he was certain to ensure in his announcement that the decision should not be “misused” to regulate global climate change.

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