Nissan goes electric

Just like that, the Supreme Court chips away at one of the foundations of this country’s Environmental Law.
Court Splits Over Wetlands Protections – New York Times

By DAVID STOUT. WASHINGTON, June 19 — The Supreme Court set the stage for a re-examination of the 1972 Clean Water Act, as it narrowly ruled today in favor of two Michigan property owners who have sought to develop tracts designated as wetlands.

By 5 to 4, the justices overturned lower court judgments against the Michigan land owners, who had run afoul of the Clean Water Act over their plans to build a shopping mall and condominiums.

The ruling was not the resounding, unambiguous triumph that the land owners, John A. Rapanos and June Carabell, may have hoped for. Instead, five justices found that regulators may have gone too far in trying to thwart their plans, and it returned the case to lower courts for further deliberation. One of the five justices, Anthony M. Kennedy, even suggested in a separate opinion that the property owners might lose once again in the lower courts.

I was very afraid when I last thought about this challenge way back in February. It was pretty clear at that point that Kennedy was the swing vote and that 8 out of 9 minds were probably made up. Kennedy’s lawmaking seems to be a little incoherent in this case. He was obviously not comfortable with the Scalia-Alito-Roberts-Thomas cabal’s clearly ideological decision, but can’t bring himself to make the centrist decision.

But Justice Kennedy wrote that the evidence in the long-running Rapanos and Carabell cases suggests “the possible existence of a significant nexus,” or connection, between their properties and navigable waterways — a connection that, if established in the lower courts, would reaffirm the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act over the tracts and could cause the property owners to lose again.

If you thought that there was a “significant nexus”, what kind of logic would then make you turnaround and support the opinion that there is no connection?

But Justice Scalia had a different perspective as he questioned the extent of federal jurisdiction. Under the government’s logic, he said, “a storm drain, even when not filled with water, is a tributary.”

“I suggest it’s very absurd to call that ‘waters of the United States,’ ” Justice Scalia added. “It’s a drainage ditch.”

Where Hon. Justice Scalia pretends to misunderstand the concept of drainage? I wonder if he would feel the same way if it was a pollution issue in his neighbor’s backyard.

This will make things confusing for a while, and you all know who confusion favors!

Hidden in the beginning of an article on a county heavily dependent on coal contemplating a switch to natural gas heating…

“Heritage should account for something,” said James J. Rhoades, a Republican state senator from Schuylkill County.

King Coal Country Debates a Sacrilege, Gas Heat – NYTimes.com

Of course, this argument can be made to defend any practice including child marriage, the caste system, widow burning, slavery, genocide (the list goes on…). Coal is in august company.

Some of the issues with anthracite:

But what makes this brittle and lustrous rock, often known as black diamond, so hard and pure is that it is often deeper and under greater pressure than other forms of coal, which also explains why it is expensive and dangerous to extract.

The anthracite mines in this area have seen more than 30,000 deaths since 1870.

The argument about local jobs being lost and local economies being damaged is a valid one and needs to be addressed. In theory, destructive practices cannot be continued in order to prop up local economies. But decisions are made locally and it takes a lot of political courage to shutdown a destructive economy and possibly doom a town to fast death. I guess the solution is to provide alternative modes of economy and employment growth during the transition, easier said than done. Problem with being a one horse town, you better hope your horse stays forever young!

When 500 ducks died earlier this month after landing on a tar sands tailings pond, Canadians got a glimpse into how unfettered tar sands development is taking its toll.Members of the Mikisew Cree and Athabasca Chipewyan First Nations living downstream from the massive industrial projects have been feeling the effects for a lot longer.The backyard of the tiny community of Fort Chipewyan, Alberta contains the second largest reserve of petroleum in the world. The tar sands development is Canada’s fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions, the cause of rapid pollution of the Athabasca river basin, the reason for strip mining of thousands of square kilometres of boreal forest; a huge consumer of natural gas, and the likely cause of alarming rates of cancer in nearby Cree communities.

The Tar Sands, Downstream :: Views :: thetyee.ca
More on this later, but for all its feel good actions in other areas, the Tar Sands are, and will remain Canada’s symbol of hypocrisy when it comes to the environment.