Liberty Matters News Service

October 8, 2003  

California to Instigate Global Warming Lawsuit

California is on the brink of suing the Environmental Protection Agency to force the agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from tailpipes and other sources. The suit is in response to an August announcement by the Bush administration that such duties are beyond the scope of EPA's responsibilities. Many believe the move is an attempt to protect the state from lawsuits by the auto industry because of California's clampdown on automobile carbon monoxide emissions. (Former Governor) Gray Davis said the suit was necessary to protect the state from global warming, sure to result from tailpipe emissions. "It affects important resources like our rich agricultural lands; Sierra snowpack; the safety of our forests and our seaside communities." New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, Illinois, Oregon and Washington, along with the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council are expected to join the suit. There is a different climate-view on the Russian front, however. President Vladimir Putin has announced that Russia will not be signing the Kyoto Treaty, as expected. Christopher C. Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute says [if that is indeed the case] then the Kyoto Protocol is dead because only ratification by the U.S. and Russia will make it happen. According to Horner, "Senators John McCain and Joseph Lieberman now assume the burden of crippling America's economy in the name of a hysterical and spectacularly debunked theory." Since Russia could not count on sufficient revenue for a promise to trade "carbon dioxide credits," officials decided to bail. "The only people...hurt by abandoning the Kyoto Protocol would be several thousand people who make a living attending conferences on global warming," said Kirill Kondratiev, head of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
States Plan Suit to Prod US on Global Warming

Environmentalists Broker Deal to Demolish Dam

There should be little doubt who is dictating public policy in the United States. An environmental coalition agreed to pay PPL Corporation, the power company that operates dams on Maine's Penobscot River, $25 million to tear down two dams to aid in the recovery of Atlantic salmon. The environmentalists generously allowed the power company to increase power generation on six other dams on the river, meaning Maine residents will only lose ten percent of their current energy source. Observers believe the "voluntary" agreement will pave the way for the removal of other dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers in the Northwest to improve the recovery of the Pacific salmon. "This could be used as a model across the country," said Andy Goode, vice president of the Atlantic Salmon Federation's American program. The groups have five years to raise the $25 to $27 million to close the deal and, as usual, they aren't going to put up their own money, but expect it will be paid for by federal and state grants (taxes) and private donations.
Agreement in Maine Will Remove Dams

As Far As the Eye Can See

A land-use organization called Scenic America doesn't think property owners ought to be allowed to build on their land or rearrange the landscape if it interferes with the activists' selfish notions of scenic views. They, along with other "thought-police" environmentalists believe that the view belongs to everyone and no one should be allowed to spoil it for future generations. The U.S. government even reaches beyond the boundaries of its national parks to control development that it deems harmful to the precious "viewscape," as experienced by developer Steve Musslewhite, who had plans to build 150 homes on his 40 acre parcel next to the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia. After two years of negotiations he finally understood the government's message that it would be better to only build 100 homes and hide them from view if he wanted to run a sewer line under the NPS property. Scenic America listed the Gaviota Coast in California, along with the Blue Ridge Parkway, as places in "danger of disappearing" on their "Last Chance Landscapes" list and demanded the government protect them. Longtime Gaviota area residents opposed the government's plan to protect the Gaviota as a National Shoreline believing it would only invite destruction from recreationists and besides, as Bernice Stableford said; "It is very well protected (by local residents). The viewshed is not going anywhere."
Who Owns the View?

Utah Wilderness Agreement Affects all 50 States

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the state of Utah have worked out an agreement that only Congress can designate wilderness areas opening the door for similar actions by the rest of the 49 states. The agreement lifted the "iron curtain" of restrictions from 9 million acres of Wilderness Study Areas (WSA) in Utah that had prevented motor vehicle use and any "impairment" to wilderness values there. BLM Deputy Director Jim Hughes said the land would no longer be treated as formal wilderness under the illegal rules of the Clinton administration. "The [Clinton] process was tilted too much toward wilderness values. It appeared to many that it administratively created WSAs." Under the new rules, land-use plans "will not designate any new WSAs nor manage any additional lands under the…non-impairment standard." BLM will evaluate the lands under their jurisdiction to determine if they are suited to multiple uses such as mining, development, or off-road vehicle use or if some areas would benefit from special protections to mitigate impacts on wilderness characteristics.
BLM Lifts Some Wilderness Protection