The Great American Cleanup begins today with a national launch event in Waveland, Miss., which will help  restore a hurricane-ravaged town along the Gulf Coast. It will continue through May 31 with additional national events being held in New York City on Earth Day and Nashville on May 14.

Millions of volunteers will work to rid streets, waterways and public spaces of litter and illegal dumpsites.  Communities will green up parks, schoolyards and other public spaces and hold recycling drives and educational events.

Read more of this story »

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.

Read more of this story »

I’ve never really been one for making New Year’s resolutions. I have trouble being resolute about things because it gets in the way of my contingency. But that doesn’t mean other people shouldn’t make resolutions, nor does it mean they are necessarily void of any real utility. And Jeff Ruch, the Executive Director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) apparently thinks they can be useful as well. Ruch released a list of nine resolutions for the whistleblowing, watchdogging PEER for 2009.

Dear Tim,

In the New Year, PEER resolves to -

1. Free the political prisoners - not those in Guantanamo but the domestic whistleblowers who have suffered for speaking truth to perverse power. At the top of our list is returning Chief Teresa Chambers to the U.S. Park Police;

2. Protect scientists from political reprisal. We aim to enact new, tough whistleblower laws in ‘09 that include strong safeguards for scientists and their work. Along with new laws, we expect new, sane appointees administering these laws who have no reason to appear before grand juries;

3. Push for greenhouse gas regulations that work. Many of the global warming plans are more hot air than real curbs. PEER will provide EPA specialists charged with operating the system with a loud voice about what works and what doesn’t;

4. Make the Pentagon obey environmental laws. PEER will strive to return civilian oversight over out-of-control domestic military abuses;

5. Agitate for an effective federal response to off-road vehicle abuse. ORVs have become the top threat to American landscapes. The federal land management agencies need an effective enforcement and restoration strategy;

6. Follow the water. PEER programs to protect wetlands, curb prescription drug and other chemical contamination of drinking water and shield aquatic wildlife will all expand in ‘09;

7. End the use of infants, schoolchildren and other vulnerable populations for human subject experiments for pesticides and harmful chemicals. The gaping loopholes in the Bush human testing rules must be closed;

8. Focus land management agencies on their lands - not their minerals. From reviving a genuine park wilderness agenda to ceasing irresponsible energy leasing, PEER will use all the tools at our disposal; and

9. Provide a lifeline to public servants in crisis. When the moment of conflict between conscience and career arrives - who you gonna call?

Image: Paul Mannix via flickr under a Creative Commons License

Public land near Arches National Park, Dinosaur Monument, and Canyonlands N.P. may get spared from a “midnight fire sale” on Friday for energy leases in Utah.

National Park Service officials have protested over some of the lease sales near the parks and monuments, resulting in deferrals for all or part of 23 parcels (37,731 acres) near national parks.

I can’t help but think that the deferral is just throwing a bone to the environmentalists to keep them quiet…

The energy lease sale in Utah puts 300,000 acres of public lands up for grabs to oil, gas, and geothermal development, including some of the West’s most environmentally sensitive areas. On the block are 132 oil and gas parcels (163,935 acres) and 44 geothermal parcels (142,333 acres) in Uintah, Carbon, Duchesne, Grand, Emery, Garfield, and San Juan counties, some of the wildest and most remote places in Utah.

Read more of this story »

A coalition of conservation groups has just filed a formal protest opposing the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) decision to auction off 100,000 acres of public lands for oil and gas leasing and development. Leases will be auctioned for wild and remote public lands in Utah, including White River, the greater Desolation Canyon region, Labyrinth Canyon, and the benches east of Canyonlands N.P.

The coalition includes Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA), The Wilderness Society (TWS), Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), Grand Canyon Trust (GCT), and the Sierra Club. Together they represent over a million Americans who support conservation efforts.

Read more of this story »

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released a Google Earth-based interactive website that pinpoints opportunities for solar, wind or biomass siting on contaminated properties. The site combines the Google Earth platform with an EPA database that lists each property’s attributes for renewable energy development.

According to the EPA, many lands tracked by the agency, such as large Superfund sites, and mining sites offer thousands of acres of land, and may be situated in areas where the presence of wind and solar structures are less likely to be met with aesthetic, and therefore political, opposition.

Read more of this story »