| Jan. 25, 2011 -- | Marriott Salt Lake City -- | Salt Lake City, Utah
Jan. 27, 2011 -- | Mine Safety and Health Administration -- | Arlington, Va.
Researchers with the U.S. Geological Survey have discovered a population of birds in Alaska with potentially significant beak abnormalities. Scott Streater of Environment and Energy Daily reports on two studies of wild birds that conclude the deformed beaks are showing up in at least 10 times the number of birds as in an unaffected bird population. The deformity impairs the ability of the bird to eat, hunt, tend their feathers and can make them dependent on household birdfeeders.
Researchers have been unable to identify the source of the problem. Suspected causes include toxic contaminants, genetic mutations, parasitic infections and even changes in diet. Steve Zack, a scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Society, told Streater, "We have no idea what it is, but it's occurring at such a rate it's affecting a significant number of the populations that are being investigated. It's clearly something worth sounding the alarm on." Matt Kirchhoff, director of bird conservation at Audubon Alaska in Anchorage, said, "it's clear it's something in the environment." He added: "The way it's spreading suggests that there are hot spots, that it's not genetic but triggered by something in the environment. So not knowing the cause is a big concern." ( Read more, subscription required)
Publisher John M. McClelland Jr. (Photo, left, in 1975), owner of a small regional newspaper chain, died Oct. 30, at the age of 95. Crosscut.com writer Knute Berger wrote a tribute to the long-time publisher of The Daily News, in Longview, Wash. Berger said of his one-time boss, "John McClelland loved Washington, loved quality and reporting, loved publishing, and he had the cash and other resources to make it happen." He compares his experience working on Washington magazine, which was launched by McClelland about the area of the county that he loved, to the media landscape now: "How many publishers today, who are mostly numbers or sales guys, are passionate about historic preservation? ... McClelland would always look at some grand dining room and imagine his office there. ... He had a foot in both the future and the past. He was a man who loved the details of history (he oversaw the publication of an important book on local place names), yet he also drove his Trans Am into the future of the high-tech suburbs. He was a man of dignity and tradition who took big risks. He loved old books and maps, but in his prime, was always ready to try something new."
At one time, McClelland wanted his dailies to compete with the two large Seattle newspapers, The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer, but he eventually sold his chain of newspapers, as well as Washington magazine. "We, the staff, felt the loss keenly because we knew no owner would be as passionate about the content as John McClelland," writes Berger. ( Read more)
In September, we reported that an open records request from the Courier-Journal showed a Mayfield, Ky., zoning board had been pressured into rejecting a permit to open a mosque. On Tuesday, the Mayfield Board of Zoning Adjustments unanimously approved a conditional use permit for the downtown building to be used as a place of worship, Shelley Byrne of The Paducah Sun reports. At the hearing, Heather Weaver, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, explained that federal statutes protect buildings that are used for religious purposes, adding that federal statutes superseded any city ordinances.
"Board member Don Costello made the motion to approve the permit, saying the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 seemed to require it and noting that a city ordinance did not require downtown businesses to have a specific number of parking spaces available," Byrne writes. No one spoke at the Tuesday hearing against using the building for prayers. The city had expressed concerns about parking at the building, but Weaver noted the group had met in the building for awhile before learning they needed a permit. ( Read more, subscription required)
On Tuesday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued its final rules requiring oil and gas facilities and some electronic manufacturing plants to monitor greenhouse gas emissions. "The new regulations will add those industries to EPA's Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, which kicked off at the beginning of this year," Gabriel Nelson of Greenwire reports for The New York Times. "Companies are not required to achieve any emissions reductions through the program, but they must produce annual emissions reports that are intended to inform the public and guide policymakers in the quest to address global warming."
"Industry groups such as the American Petroleum Institute have criticized the new rules, saying EPA has underestimated the cost of compliance," Nelson writes. "Because many oil and gas producers rely on smaller facilities in remote areas, the industry will have a harder time complying than other sectors, some of the nation's largest energy companies argued during meetings with White House economists this fall." The oil and gas industry was the last high-profile sector not addressed when EPA issues reporting requirements last year. Petroleum facilities are estimated to contribute about 2 to 3 percent of the nation's greenhouse gases.
"For far too long the public has been kept in the dark about the large volumes of pollution released from facilities in the oil and gas sector," said Emma Cheuse, an attorney at Earthjustice. "EPA's action will strengthen public accountability for this major source of global warming pollution." EPA estimated the cost to the industry would be $62 million for the first year and $19 million for following years or about $22,000 per facility next year. Industry officials said some companies would need to spend between $100,000 and $850,000 on data management software. ( Read more)
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency subpoenaed Halliburton for information about its hydraulic fracturing formula after the company failed to comply with EPA's prior request for information. "In September, the EPA had asked nine companies that practice hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to reveal the mix of chemicals they use in the practice which is opposed by environmental groups worried about its effect on drinking water," Timothy Gardner of Reuters reports. "All but Halliburton provided the necessary information, the EPA said." EPA plans to use the data in its comprehensive fracking study.
"EPA is slated to release preliminary results of the study, commissioned by Congress, by the end of 2012," Gardner writes. Halliburton said it is working with EPA to supply the information and had already handed over at least 5,000 pages of documents as of last week. A company spokesperson said Halliburton "was meeting with the EPA 'in order to help narrow the focus of their unreasonable demands' that could require them to prepare about 50,000 spreadsheets," Gardner writes. ( Read more) In October, Halliburton announced it planned to make the list of chemicals it used in fracking available on a public website on Nov. 15, Casey Wooten of the Houston Business Journal reported.
Cabot Oil & Gas Co. has been assessed a $12 million fee to provide municipal water service to 18 rural residents whose water wells were contaminated by the company's drilling activities in Marcellus Shale, reports Environment and Energy Daily. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has evidence linking the company drilling to the contamination and has proposed connecting the residents to the water main from the nearest town. Cabot would be required to pay the $12 million cost, which breaks down to more than $650,000 per resident. ( Read more, subscription required)
Andrew Maykuth of the Philadelphia Inquirer also reported on the Cabot Oil & Gas decision, explaining the political circumstances surrounding the decision. Pennsylvania DEP Secretary John Hanger and Cabot have "been locked in an increasingly hostile public battle over responsibility for the contamination of the water wells in Dimock Township, which has become an icon for anti-drilling activists," Maykuth writes.
"Cabot may not be concerned about its reputation, but there's been a huge damage to Pennsylvania's reputation throughout the world," Hanger told Maykuth. Cabot spokesman George Stark countered the company maintains its drilling did not contaminate the Dimock wells, but the company was willing to pay for less expensive remedies including individual well-water treatment systems. Hanger said DEP had assembled an "overwhelming case" implicating Cabot in the contamination. "There is no ideal solution," he said. "The only ideal situation would have been had the contamination not occurred in the first place." ( Read more)
Drivers around the country should be especially cautious in the coming weeks as it's peak season for deer-automobile collisions. "Costly auto-deer collisions make a special jump during the mating season, usually October through December, and peak each November," Erik Eckholm of The New York Times reports. Billy Higginbotham, a wildlife specialist at Texas A & M University, explained, "The bucks throw caution to the wind as they chase does during the breeding season. If this happens to carry them across a roadway, they don’t seem to care."
State Farm Insurance estimates that deer collisions over the past two years reached 2.3 million, up 21 percent compared with five years ago, and still more encounters go unreported, Eckholm writes. Terry A. Messmer of Utah State University estimates the true number of annual deer-automobile collisions may be as high as two million. "These crashes are usually most catastrophic for the animals, but they also account for billions of dollars in car repair and medical costs and hundreds of human deaths annually," Eckholm writes.
The collision risk is greatest in West Virginia where a drivers' odds of hitting a deer over the course of a year are one in 42. State Farm noted in a report last month that Iowa is second, with a 1-in-67 chance, and Michigan is third, at 1 in 70. A driver in Hawaii, on the other hand, has only a 1-in-13,011 chance of hitting a deer — "roughly equivalent to the odds of finding a pearl in an oyster shell," Eckholm writes. Feral hogs also run up the risk of collisions during the fall in states like Texas, Florida and California. ( Read more)
 A Kentucky sheriff has been indicted by a special grand jury appointed in part because a local newspaper kept reporting on problems in the sheriff's office. Among the problems the Corbin Times-Tribune found were irregularities in how Whitley County sheriff Lawrence Hodge, right, accounted for guns his officers had seized, problems with Hodge’s alleged payments to informants, the failure to present cases against anyone arrested for felony drug violations, and officers' failure to appear in court. In one case, charges were dismissed against a Corbin man arrested for operating a methamphetamine lab near a school after sheriff’s deputies failed three times to appear before the grand jury, the paper reported.
The 6,000-circulation daily also reported that Hodge’s department failed to send seized drugs to the state crime laboratory for examination. It uncovered the information by requesting records from the lab, finding that the department had submitted drugs for testing only once during 2009, though the sheriff said he had been making arrests throughout the year. The paper also requested documents related to the seizure of 18 weapons. Hodge initially told the paper that agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had seized the weapons instead of his department. Later, Hodge reported that his office had been burglarized. The paper's review of the serial numbers indicated as many as 16 of the missing guns were among those Hodge had reported stolen.
The Times-Tribune's editor at the time, Samantha Swindler, right, told The Rural Blog: "It was a lot of work and, honestly, sometimes it was a little scary. But it is by far the most important work I've done in my career. I know resources in a newsroom can be scarce, but investigative work is essential in small towns, where the good ol' boy system still thrives. I'd just encourage editors to push their reporters to go after these types of leads. It's important. And I'm not taking about important for circulation or ad sales. It's important for society. God help me if I see a wrong in my community and think I don't have the time to right it. If I get to that point, it's time to quit the business." Swindler is now general manager of the Tillamook Headlight-Herald, on the Oregon coast west of Portland. The Times-Tribune is owned by Community Newspaper Holdings Inc.; the chain's vice president for news, Bill Ketter, told The Rural Blog that the work "illustrates what a small, rural paper can do when it holds public officials accountable and doesn't get scared off by the big, powerful sheriff."
Hodge was indicted Monday on 18 charges of abuse of public trust and three counts of tampering with physical evidence — all felonies, the paper reports. The grand jury said Hodge began taking money the first year he was in office. The thefts totaled about $350,000, Commonwealth's Attorney Allen Trimble said. Trimble told The Rural Blog that the paper's "very persistent" reporting "was a very significant influence on me." Without it, he said, Hodge probably would have been indicted anyway, but not before his term ends in January; he lost the primary election.
A coalition of farm, food and petroleum industry groups has sued the Obama administration in an attempt to block its approval of higher levels of ethanol in gasoline, reports Allison Winter, of Environment & Energy Daily. The Environmental Protection Agency issued a waiver that allows E15 fuel only in cars and light trucks manufactured in model year 2007 or later. The lawsuit claims EPA does not have the authority to issue the waiver for selected vehicles. The groups argue that the waiver should not be issued until the fuel is safe for all engines -- not just newer vehicles. The suit also claims the EPA did not have enough information to make a decision and did not take enough public comment. ( Read more, subscription required)
The top financier of mountaintop removal coal mining announced Monday it would stop lending for projects that use the controversial mining technique. PNC Bank, which becomes the "the latest of a group of major commercial lenders that have backed away from underwriting mountaintop removal projects after pressure from environmental activists," Dylan Lovan of The Associated Press reports. Following recent announcements from other banks that they would no longer finance mountaintop removal, PNC had ascended to the top financing spot according to the Rainforest Action Network, a California-based environmental group.
PNC said it will not fund individual projects or provide credit to coal producers whose primary extraction method is mountaintop removal, which the bank said is "the subject of increasing regulatory and legislative scrutiny." In June, a group of 50 environmental activists protested the bank's ties to mountaintop removal outside PNC's downtown Lexington, Ky., branch. "We're definitely seeing this as a victory and looking at who's next," Martin Mudd, a member of the group Kentucky Mountain Justice which helped organize that protest, told Lovan.
PNC declined to say whether activists' protests prompted the change, Lovan writes. The policy change was part of a corporate responsibility document that was updated late last month. One Kentucky coal industry official acknowledged the announcement was a victory for environmentalists, but said it wouldn't have a large impact. "I think (activists) are successful in this instance, but I do not think it will reduce the amount of mountaintop mining that occurs in Kentucky," Bill Bissett, president of the Kentucky Coal Association, told AP. ( Read more)
A report released Monday by the Department of Commerce's Office of the Inspector General calls for more oversight of federal stimulus package broadband funding. The report concluded: "The National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the agency that has been managing the program, isn’t doing enough to monitor how grantees are spending the stimulus money," Jennifer Martinez of Politico reports. The Inspector General found problems with the program's internal processes, including a recommendation that "NTIA staff needs more training in using the technology systems developed by outside contractor Booz Allen Hamilton to monitor the program’s winners," Martinez writes.
"This transfer of IT knowledge is of particular concern because NTIA is a relatively small-staffed agency charged with the execution of a major program, and it has relied heavily on the expertise and capabilities of (Booz Allen Hamilton) in virtually every aspect" of the program, the report said. Congress did not allocate enough money to manage the program after Dec. 3, but the report argued that NTIA had other strategies to ensure the program's effectiveness. The report also recommended that NTIA complete "tasks more quickly and clearly [outline] responsibilities for other agencies that support NTIA’s grants program," Martinez writes.
"Despite the potential lack of funding, NTIA’s post-award monitoring and oversight practices need to be strengthened in several ways," the report said. "Some agreements with other Commerce agencies are unclear and have not been carefully managed" and "some aspects of award monitoring are not being completed promptly or efficiently." NTIA is waiting for Congress to authorize an additional $24 million so it can monitor its grantees. ( Read more)
As more Republican governors took control of state governments in last week's election, more states are likely to take a limited, free-market approach to implementing health care reform. "Although the law is a federal statute, it tasks states with administering many of its most important provisions and grants them considerable leeway," N. C. Aizenman of The Washington Post reports. "It is up to states to run markets, known as 'exchanges,' through which individuals and small businesses will be able to buy health insurance plans, often with federal subsidies, beginning in 2014."
Many newly elected Republican governors made disapproval of the Obama administration's health care reform law a central point of their campaigns. States can't prevent the laws' implementation as the federal government is permitted to step in to run an exchange if the state hasn't done so by 2014. Still, the law gives states a fair amount of discretion, leading analysts to predict "Democratic governors and legislatures are likely to emphasize vigorous regulation and government oversight, while Republican state leaders are likely to put greater stock in privatization and other free-market approaches," Aizenman writes.
Republicans gained at least eight gubernatorial seats last week and now control both branches of government in at least 20 states. While many governors have openly campaigned against the law, several analysts predict they will still work behind the scenes with the Obama administration in implementing the law. "I have yet to meet a governor who has said, 'I'm going to intentionally do a bad job at this to make another level of government look bad,'" Alan Weil, executive director of the nonpartisan National Academy for State Health Policy, said. "They're accountable to the people, and the voters are too smart to let someone get away with that." ( Read more)
Acceptance of hydraulic fracturing has been anything but uniform, but southern communities appear to be quicker to approve the natural gas drilling technique than their northeastern counterparts. "In the sparsely populated pastures of De Soto Parish in Louisiana, the ability to extract gas from shale — which can involve a process known as fracking — has been welcomed as an economic windfall," Clifford Krauss and Tom Zeller Jr. of The New York Times report. "But 1,400 miles to the north, in Susquehanna County in Pennsylvania, shale gas development has divided neighbors, spurred lawsuits and sown deep mistrust."
"Support for drilling has proved fairly easy in many states, including Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas," Krauss and Zeller write. "But it has met with major resistance in the Northeast." Lawsuits are driving up natural gas drilling production costs in Pennsylvania, where the governor recently ordered a moratorium on new drilling permits in state forests. "They have been drilling oil and gas wells in the South for the last 100 years," Jerry Dugas, a well superintendent for Cabot Oil and Gas in Pennsylvania, told the reporters. "Everyone there is accustomed to seeing all of this stuff and they understand what’s going on, so it’s nothing new. That’s the environment I grew up in."
"Once I came up here [to Pennsylvania]," he added, "it became real clear to me real quick that this is a whole other animal." Southern communities affected by the shale gas boom are more accustomed to the boom-and-bust cycle of the drilling industry, the reporters write. The region hasn't been spared from drilling accidents that have caused controversy in the northeast, but local outcry has been relatively slim. "There was no reaction, really," Charlie Waldon, the mayor of the tiny Stonewall, La., told the reporters. "It’s going to take something major to wake them up." ( Read more)
The Georgia Department of Transportation is building ursine underpasses along the routes that Georgia's bears traveled before a soon-to-be-widened highway was even envisioned. S. Heather Duncan of the Macon Telegraph reports State Route 96 will bisect the homeland of about 300 black bears in and around the Ocmulgee and Oaky Woods wildlife management areas and the Bond Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, which runs from Interstate 16 to the Ocmulgee River a few miles south of Macon. ( Telegraph photo)
The road is expected to become a major east-west trucking corridor between I-16 and I-75, and road officials were concerned. The bears constitute one of three populations in the state. "Road kills will go up," said Bobby Bond, wildlife biologist for the state Department of Natural Resources. "The last thing I want is to hear someone died hitting a 200- to 300-pound bear." Of the $132 million project, $5 million will pay for the 12 wildlife underpasses, reports Duncan. The Federal Highway Administration, which is providing part of the funding, is requiring the underpasses. ( Read more)
While many politicians, environmentalists and consumers continue to express a desire for more renewable energy, more projects are being canceled as governments try to avoid increasing electricity bills. "Deals to buy renewable power have been scuttled or slowed in states including Florida, Idaho and Kentucky as well as Virginia," Matthew L. Wald and Tom Zeller Jr. of The New York Times report. "By the end of the third quarter, year-to-date installations of new wind power dropped 72 percent from 2009 levels, according to the American Wind Energy Association, a trade group."
"They have to look for the ratepayers’ long-term interest," Michael Polsky of renewable energy company Invenergy told the reporters, "not just the bills this year." Invenergy recently had a deal to sell power to a utility in Virginia rejected after regulators concluded, "the ratepayers of Virginia must be protected from costs for renewable energy that are unreasonably high." Renewable energy sources, which already cost more than fossil fuels, have been hurt as the price of coal and natural gas has dropped during the recession.
"The gap in price can pit regulators, who see their job as protecting consumers from unreasonable rates, against renewable energy developers and utility companies, many of which are willing to pay higher prices now to ensure a broader energy portfolio in the future," Wald and Zeller write. In Kentucky, the state public service commission rejected a contract for Kentucky Power to buy electricity from NextEra Energy Resources. The deal was opposed by state Democratic Attorney General Jack Conway, who recently lost his bid for Kentucky's senate seat, and business and industrial electricity users.
"One of the problems in the United States is that we haven’t been willing to confront the tough questions," Paul Gipe, who sits on the steering committee of the Alliance for Renewable Energy, a group advocating energy policy reform, told the reporters. "We have to ask ourselves, 'Do we really want renewables?'" he said. "And if the answer to that is yes, then we’re going to have to pay for them." ( Read more)
As the debate over the 2012 Farm Bill heats up, the editorial vice president of one agriculture industry trade magazine is getting out in front of one myth about the bill: that farm subsidies cause obesity. "Because grains are subsidized, it's argued, meat is cheap, as are corn-sweetened foods and beverages. Because they're cheap, Americans over-eat them. Because they over-eat them, they're obese," Urban C. Lehner of DTN/The Progressive Farmer writes. Lehner notes while that chain of causation seems logical, a recent study reveals that subsidies "had 'negligible' effects on what Americans pay for food and how many calories they consume."
The study from Justin Alston of the University of California at Davis, Brad Rickard of Cornell University and Abigail Okrent of U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service used computer simulations to probe "the effects of eliminating subsidies for 11 different commodities on calorie consumption of 10 categories of food," Lehner writes. Some situations yielded calorie increases while others yielded decreases but the results in both situations were too small to be considered significant. Three simulations suggested eliminating all farm subsidies would actually increase American calorie consumption.
"Why?" Lehner writes. "Because some farm programs that act as subsidies, like our import restrictions on sugar, raise retail food prices. Still, the effect was small -- from 200 to 1,900 extra calories per adult per year." Lehner notes the authors restrict their argument to simulations, but one could use the fact that other countries without subsidies but with obesity problems are further evidence. "As the 2012 farm bill debate intensifies, opponents of subsidies will no doubt advance some respectable arguments," Lehner writes. "But the Choices study makes a strong case that obesity is not one of them." ( Read more)
The move by the agriculture industry to craft standards for "sustainable agriculture" has been left in shambles after 10 members of the 60-member coalition recently resigned. The resigning groups from the Leonardo Academy "included representatives from the National Corn Growers Association, the American Soybean Association, the American Farm Bureau and the United Fresh Produce Association — in other words, all the major production groups," Bill Bishop of the Daily Yonder report. "Nearly 50 other ag groups – from the American Seed Trade Association to Washington State Potato Commission — co-signed the letter of resignation."
The resignation has become "another example of how contentious — and impossible to resolve — agricultural issues have become," Bishop writes. The definition of sustainable agriculture set out in the 1990 Farm Bill was vague and broad but "generally meant agriculture that would protect the environment, sustain farmers and produce food," Bishop writes. The definition is evolving as noted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service, which recently wrote, "As more parties sign on to the sustainable agriculture effort, perceptions about what defines sustainability in agriculture have multiplied."
"The Leonardo Academy is a nonprofit group that helps develop standards for sustainability," Bishop writes. "Leonardo creates large committees with people from all sides of an issue. The committee then develops the standard." The Academy, which developed the LEED system for rating energy savings, has been working on sustainable agriculture standards since 2007. The standards wouldn't carry the weight of government rules but could be used by states and the federal government. The Academy has asked for volunteers to take the place of the 10 resigning members, but critics question whether meaningful standards can be developed without the input of the largest agriculture groups. ( Read more)
In April, we excerpted a National Public Radio report that the Mine Safety and Health Administration and Massey Energy were the targets of a federal investigation regarding allegations of bribery of MSHA officials. Now that report is being refuted as R. Booth Goodwin II, the U.S. Attorney for Southern West Virginia, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in an email, "The United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of West Virginia knows of no evidence concerning bribery of MSHA inspectors in connection with the Upper Big Branch mine, nor are we conducting an investigation in that regard."
"Goodwin would not comment on any other aspects of the investigation, including whether he has empaneled any grand juries," Daniel Malloy and Dennis B. Roddy report. Goodwin's email was his first on-the-record comment since the beginning of the investigation. "MSHA, as of Oct. 27, had conducted 247 interviews in its investigation, but several top Massey officials have declined to be interviewed and are challenging the agency's subpoenas in court," Malloy and Roddy write. "By conducting the interviews behind closed doors, the company argues, the agency gave up its Congressionally authorized subpoena power." ( Read more)
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