By Tom Kenworthy

Yesterday the Center for American Progress and the Sierra Club released a series of short documentary videos called “Public Lands, Private Profits.”   The first two stories profiled the new rush to extract uranium near Grand Canyon National Park and a proposed expansion of a coal mine near Bryce Canyon National Park.

Part three explores a remote corner of the Bridger-Teton National Forest and how it might be transformed by a natural gas drilling plan.

The Noble Basin sits in the shadow of the Wyoming Range, most of which was protected from energy development by Congress in 2009.  But previous leases bought by energy companies can still be developed, and that includes one proposal for 136 wells to be drilled by Plains Exploration and Production (PXP), a Texas company.

Opponents of drilling the Noble Basin say it would destroy an area that is vitally important for deer, antelope, moose, bear and other wildlife, and radically alter a way of life for people who live there or who depend on the area for hunting and other recreation.

Those who are battling PXP and urging the Forest Service to find a way out see what unbridled energy development can bring. Thousands of gas wells dot the lands near the town of Pinedale, and have turned a remote region of Wyoming into an industrial center, with huge impacts on wildlife and air quality.

The U.S. Forest Service is conducting a final environmental review of the gas drilling project.  If officials decide that tighter restrictions on drilling near existing roads apply, it’s possible that the PXP leases would be less valuable and could be bought out by those who want the Noble Basin preserved in its current wild state.

To find out more about this issue or to take action, visit the Sierra Club’s website or the Citizens for the Wyoming Range website.

Tom Kenworthy is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

The U.S. Agriculture Department has issued a natural disaster declaration for more than 1,000 U.S. counties facing severe drought. This disaster declaration is the largest ever from the Agriculture Department and includes one-third of counties and spans 26 states. Some 53 percent of the Midwest is facing moderate or severe drought, but areas beyond the drought’s borders could pay higher world grain prices, due to a poor harvest.

This disaster declaration makes farmers eligible for disaster assistance, but lawmakers will continue to remain silent on the root cause: Climate change. The year of record heat isn’t a chance occurrence, but comes from a climate system on steroids, “juiced” by manmade greenhouse gas emissions.

More than one-third of U.S. counties are facing severe drought.

Related Posts:

• We’re Already Topping Dust Bowl Temperatures — Imagine What’ll Happen If We Fail To Stop 10°F Warming
• Biologist On The Midwestern Drought: ‘It’s Like Farming In Hell’

Romney and the GOP are throwing clean energy under the bus.

Once again, the clean energy industry is collateral damage in an election year war of words.

After being repeatedly called out by fact-checkers for straight-up lying in political ads attacking clean energy jobs, the GOP is doubling down on claims about the stimulus package that the Washington Post has called “ridiculous.”

The Republican National Committee just rolled out a new website that rehashes many of the party’s widely-debunked assertions that the President sent jobs overseas through the stimulus. Responding to the Obama campaign’s charges that Romney outsourced jobs while at the private equity firm Bain Capital, the GOP is attempting to weave an outsourcing story of its own — this one centered on clean energy jobs.

Even with 660,00 jobs supported by green buildings, 75,000 jobs in the wind industry, 100,000 jobs supported by the solar industry, and 155,000 jobs in the clean and efficient vehicle sector, the RNC is stepping up its claims that the Obama Administration hurt jobs through his promotion of clean energy in the stimulus package.

(Apparently, somebody forgot to send the RNC a copy of the Brookings Institution report showing that jobs in renewable energy grew by 8.3 percent during the height of the recession due to the stimulus.)

This latest RNC narrative is based almost entirely on fiction. As the Washington Post’s fact checker, Glenn Kessler points, out in his debunk of the RNC campaign:  “Most of the examples are ripped out of context, involve strange leaps of logic or are so minor that it’s barely worth paying attention.”

But the campaign itself — no matter how untruthful — is definitely worth paying attention to. It puts clean energy square in the GOP’s political cross hairs and will likely serve as key piece of Mitt Romney’s talking points.

In fact, at a campaign rally earlier this week, Romney repeated some of the RNC’s claims almost word-for-word, calling Obama an outsourcer by “putting money into solar and wind energy companies that make their products outside of the U.S.”

So what are the facts? The website provides more than two dozen “ripped out of context” examples of jobs being created overseas; however, it provides no documentation backing up them up. Only when you dig deep into the “Research Briefing” section of an alternative GOP website can you find the stories they reference.

It’s no wonder the citations were hidden. The stories they link to are either laughably inconsequential, contradictory, or completely outdated. Speaking to the Washington Post, here’s how one reporter described the RNC’s use of his previous investigative work on whether foreign products were being used for renewable energy projects being constructed in America:

“The RNC’s website does correctly cite some of the data we uncovered in the course of our investigation, however most of that reporting is over two years old and the RNC site presents just a snippet of what we found. The focus of our reporting was whether or not the Obama administration created as many jobs domestically as they promised they would — not on the question of whether there was “outsourcing” of jobs. I don’t think we saw anything that indicated the Obama administration pushed jobs overseas. What we found is that a large portion of the money from that program was given to foreign-owned companies to build wind farms here in the United States. We found those projects did create jobs here in the United States in construction and operation of those wind farms, but in many instances, the farms used turbines that may have been manufactured overseas. In many cases, manufacturers told us that domestically manufactured turbines were not available. When we last reported on the issue, we found that more and more domestic companies were getting involved, but I can’t say what the situation is today.”

In its breakdown of the campaign, The Washington Post rips down almost new every claim made in the campaign. It’s well worth checking out Glenn Kessler’s detailed analysis to see why he calls the narrative so “ridiculous.”

But there are a few other key points worth highlighting. If the Republican party has made a decision to aggressively target renewable energy in its political attacks, they need to answer a few questions.

1) Is the GOP opposing foreign investment to increase America’s competitiveness?

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The US corn crop, in the in the height of its vulnerable pollination phase, is already under siege from intense heat and devastating drought.  Experts are continuously revising predicted crop yield lower and lower. In fact, as of July 11th, this year’s corn crop is no longer projected to be history’s largest. At the same time, almost 1 billion people world wide are going hungry. However, plans remain in place to use about 40% of America’s corn crop, the world’s largest, for biofuel purposes.

The nearly 5 billion bushels of corn that will be cordoned off for to create ethanol could feed about 412 million people for an entire year. Instead, it will be turned into 13.5 billion gallons of corn ethanol. This is a problem because:

1. Life cycle studies show that corn ethanol ranges from barely better than petroleum fuels to significantly worse, especially if you take into account land and water use issues, increased deforestation, and increased fertilizer use.
2. Corn ethanol contributes to rises in food prices because of competition for arable land to grow food. With more corn for biofuels taking up that space, the price of grains and other agricultural products increases.
3. For many in the developing world, rising prices mean they don’t eat. People in poor countries, especially in import-heavy sub-Saharan Africa, feel the impact of rising food prices far worse than in developed countries. This is because they spend so much more of their income on food….Poor people do not have that luxury. As the UN Reported (in October), 26 countries, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, are still at extreme risk of hunger, with biofuels playing a significant role in exacerbating the problem.
4. Climate change mitigation from biofuels will be “very limited” before 2050. “We will not have any greenhouse gas savings for the next 20 years…because they are working with first generation crops,” according to Mahendra Shah, an advisor to Qatar’s food security program.
5. By focusing our national investments on corn ethanol, we prevent other technologies, including other biofuels such as cellulosic ethanol and micro algae biodiesel, which are low greenhouse gas emitters, from competing with corn ethanol.

President Bill Clinton believes that an over emphasis on corn ethanol could lead to food riots. A point underscored by the fact corn futures are less than 15 cents from an all time high.

The only reason environmentalists and clean energy advocates even tolerated energy deals with corn ethanol mandates is the hope that jumpstarting the infrastructure for corn ethanol would pave the way for next-generation cellulosic ethanol.  That turned out to be a mistake (see “Are biofuels a core climate solution?“).

We have gone far beyond what is tenable.  Yes, peak oil (and the energy-intensive nature of food production) means that oil prices will rise in tandem with food prices, thus increasing the profitability of biofuels.  And yes, we are a rich country, the  breadbasket of the world, politically far more impervious to higher food prices than higher oil prices.

But as population grows, developing countries’ diets change, and the extreme weather of the last year increasingly becomes the norm in a globally warmed world,  food insecurity will grow and our biofuels policy will, inevitably, collapse.  It must.

There are other potential biofuel sources. Some are food by products, others aren’t even food at all. Its time that we realize the failings of corn ethanol, stop devoting so much of a valuable resources to this wasteful project, and feed the hungry.

Max Frankel is a senior at Vassar College and an intern at the Center for American Progress.

ABC’s Bill Blakemore has a 5-part interview of the most vindicated climate scientist in America, Michael Mann. All 5 videos are posted below with links to their transcripts.

Mann discusses climate science and the ongoing “efforts to intimidate climate scientists and create confusion about their findings.” Mann is author of a terrific new book, The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches From the Front Lines.

Science writer Chris Mooney put it well in his review of the book, “A Decade Ago, Conservatives Attacked a Scientist—And Created a Leader.”

Here are the videos:

Part 1 — “ ‘New McCarthyism’ Described by Climate Scientist Michael Mann” (transcript here):

Part 2 — “Climate Denialists Worse Than Tobacco CEOs Lying Under Oath, Says Mann” (transcript here):

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by Max Frankel

As Roy Oswalt toed the pitching rubber to deliver a pitch in the fourth inning of a scoreless game in Arlington, Texas on Sunday, a lightning bolt striking just outside the stadium sent the players and umpires scrambling for cover. Check it out:

Ranger’s catcher Mike Napoli ran for the dugout without hesitation; Josh Willingham, the runner on first at the time, fell to all fours; and Ben Revere, a Twins outfielder who wasn’t on the field at the time later tweeted: “My heart stopped when I heard the thunder at the stadium. Glad no heard me scream like a little girl too!!! Lol.”

Rain and lightning delays have always been common in baseball and every other outdoor sport. But an increase in extreme weather has the potential to dramatically alter the sporting landscape.

You may recall two years ago, the heat that marred the  Vancouver Olympics (see “Is that airlifted snow on your Olympic ski mountain, or is your enormous helicopter just happy to see me?“). As Tim Gayda, a leader of the Olympic organizing committee, said at the time “Hopefully, winter will come back.”

The UK  just experienced their wettest June on record, and the London Olympics are only a couple weeks away, so there has been (fast and) furious planning:

A quarter of a million rain ponchos, an army of volunteers equipped with umbrellas and rain jackets, and five dedicated weather forecasters….

Across the pond, in late June, Tropical Storm Debby sat over Florida for four days, inundating the state with torrential rains. Some areas of Florida received more than 20 inches of rain. On June 24th, Debby reached Clearwater, Florida, where it dumped enough water to turn Bright House Field, home of the Clearwater Threshers of the Florida State League, into a small inland sea.

Courtesy of TheBigClint

Some of that rain would have been helpful in Colorado, where the Waldo Canyon Wildfire is now 98% contained after burning some 18,000 acres since June 23rd. The fire destroyed roughly 350 homes and will costs tens of millions of dollars to fund a recovery.

On June 27th, organizers of the 90th annual Pikes Peak International Hill Climb announced the delay of the race from July 8th until August 12th due to the fire. The Climb is a unique motorsports even that draws competitors from all over the world. While certainty certainly a superficial impact compared to the real tragedy of deaths, destruction, and displaced residents, the situation is an example of how extreme events can impact outdoor sports.

The Colorado fire was exacerbated by an intense heatwave that set thousands of high temperature records across the U.S. The Midwest was hit with triple digit temperatures and Washington, DC set a record for number of consecutive days above 95 degrees. The impact was not lost on Washington Nationals Pitcher Stephen Strasburg.

Strasburg, the first-place Nationals’ best starting pitcher, had to be removed from a game on June 30th after only 3 innings due to heat sickness and extreme dehydration:

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AslanMedia, via Flickr

by Ron Pernick, via Clean Edge

At Clean Edge, we spend a great deal of time looking at innovative policy, business, and financing models that can support the broad and steady growth of solar, wind, energy efficiency, green buildings, and other clean-tech sectors. And in many ways, we believe it’s no longer really an issue of technology development. Costs continue to come down across the clean-tech value chain while the industry, along with the products it offers, expands and matures.

“The technologies are here,” explains Aaron Berg of Portland-based Blue Tree Strategies and one of the key architects behind Clean Energy Works Oregon, an on-bill energy efficiency financing vehicle for homeowners. “It’s no longer a technology problem but more about creating and enabling breakthrough business and finance models.”

In the past few months two financing options, one which we’ve been tracking closely and the other which came as a surprise, have been gaining traction and support. And in many ways they couldn’t be more different. One relies on tried and true capital models historically deployed around the exploitation of traditional fossil fuels, in particular natural gas. The other plans to use the power of 21^st century, web-based crowdsourcing to democratize the financing process of solar installations. While attacking the clean-energy finance conundrum from very different angles, each approach has the power to tap the value of efficiency and renewables in potentially remarkable ways.

Let’s look at master limited partnership (MLPs) first. Used successfully for traditional oil and gas investments for decades, these vehicles, which trade like corporate stock, allow investors to earn dividends that usually fall in the six percent range. However, current MLP rules are structured to cover only oil and gas, and exclude clean-energy investments. Simple tax code changes could enable these investment structures to leverage the built-in annuity streams of clean energy, and could expand decent-yielding investment opportunities to a broader retail market. Some members of Congress seem to think so, and the idea is rapidly catching on with support from corporate and industry stakeholders. Senator Chris Coons (D-Delaware) has introduced the Master Limited Partnerships Parity Act, which at approximately 200 words, is both simple and powerful.

As Senator Coons’ web site states: “By statute, MLPs have only been available to investors in energy portfolios for oil, natural gas, coal extraction, and pipeline projects. These projects get access to capital at a lower cost and are more liquid than traditional financing approaches to energy projects, making them highly effective at attracting private investment. Investors in renewable energy projects, however, have been explicitly prevented from forming MLPs, starving a growing portion of America’s domestic energy sector of the capital it needs to build and grow.” We fully agree. Read more

by Auden Schendler

Fracking isn’t only happening in the gas fields. Because of the never before seen and almost impossible to grok (or solve) problem of climate change, fracking is happening all over the environmental movement.

Moms are fighting kids. Boards are fighting staff. Nonprofits are fighting each other. Left is fighting right and left. Republicans are getting sick of their weird and lame leaders, like Romney, Gingrich, and McCain who clearly understood climate science until they didn’t understand it, and are spinning off on their own to fix the thing.

Just this year, I supported state legislation on a key climate issue—capturing methane from coal mines—and was opposed by an NGO I’m on the board of, and another one I’ve supported for years. In fact, I was fighting all my colleagues and friends in the environmental world—except for those who agreed with me.

Just last week I hiked with my friend Pete McBride, a green too, who didn’t quite agree with me on a local hydroelectric project. And last week, the business I work for partnered with a coal mine to protect climate.  To quote Steve Austin: “I can’t hold her, she’s breaking up! She’s breaking up!” Or as Vince Lombardi pointedly asked: “What the hell is going on out here?!!”

What’s going on out here is that Boulder and Colorado Springs recently looked like bad movie sets: They’ve been on fire. Sea level rise is accelerating. Temperature records are getting destroyed. Greenland’s ice sheet is destabilizing. The jackass in the local paper who keeps writing that we haven’t warmed since 1998 has finally shut his pie hole. People are eying the dry brush in their yards with a combination of paranoia and terror. Climate change might as well be called GAME change: it’s disruptive innovation all on its own. And it’s a monster.

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A round-up of the top climate and energy news.

A Texas judge has ruled that the atmosphere and air must be protected for public use, just like water, which could help attorneys tasked with arguing climate change lawsuits designed to force states to cut emissions. [Washington Post]

Adam Abrams, one of the attorneys arguing the case against TCEQ, said Triana’s ruling could be used as a persuasive argument in lawsuits pending in 11 other states.

In Texas, though, a ruling to protect air and the atmosphere has added significance. Republican Gov. Rick Perry is one of the most vocal opponents against widely accepted scientific research that fossil fuel emissions are causing global warming. And the state has refused to regulate greenhouse gases, forcing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to work directly with industries to ensure they comply with federal law.

“The commission’s conclusion that the public trust doctrine is exclusively limited to the conservation of water is legally invalid,” Triana wrote.

Power customers in Maryland will likely be fuming when they learn that electric utilities Pepco and BGE will be recouping lost revenue from the recent mass power outages from ratepayers. [Huffington Post]

The most destructive fire in Colorado history – which killed two people, scorched almost 29 square miles and destroyed more than 346 homes in less than three weeks – is now fully contained. [Los Angeles Times]

A plunge in the price of natural gas has made it cheaper for utilities to produce electricity. But the savings aren’t translating to lower rates for customers. [Huffington Post]

BP has abandoned its controversial £1bn plan to drill for 100m barrels of oil off the coast of Alaska. [Guardian]

A new report is warning hundreds of inland Australian towns could cease to exist by 2050 if locals do not adapt to climate change. [News Sydney]

New cars and vans in the European Union will produce one-third less carbon dioxide within eight years, under proposed new rules set out on Wednesday in Brussels. [Guardian]

U.K. Energy Secretary Ed Davey said arguments against pushing renewable energy policies are “dangerous” for the economy, signaling he’s resisting pressure from within the government to cut subsidies for the industry. [Businessweek]