Lobbying price tag: A quarter billion dollars by year’s end, By Cindy Baker, Capitol Weekly | 11/23/11
Lobbyists have a lot to be thankful for this holiday season. The powerful interests that employ lobbyists spent nearly quarter of a billion dollars -- $217 million from Jan. 1 through Sept. 30 – to persuade government to meet their clients’ needs. The amount is a record. Some of the most lavish spending came from those whose own programs appeared threatened by the looming chopping block of the state budget, and they in included groups representing education, energy, utilities, healthcare organizations and organized labor....
DRAFT INTERIM STRATEGIC VISION RELEASE, Public Review Meetings to be Held, California Fish and Wildlife Strategic Vision, November 22, 2011
SACRAMENTO – The California Fish and Wildlife Strategic Vision Executive Committee today released the draft interim strategic vision for public review. This document is the first draft of potential recommendations for a strategic vision for the California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) and the California Fish and Game Commission (F&GC) that will be presented to the Governor and California State Legislature in February 2012 as required by AB 2376 (Huffman, 2010).....
GAO report links Arizona wildfires to immigrants, By FELICIA FONSECA, Associated Press, Santa Cruz Sentinel, 11/22/2011
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz.—A study by Congress' investigative arm shows investigators have linked 30 fires that erupted in a five-year period in Arizona's border region to people who crossed into the United States illegally. Sen. John McCain said it backs up earlier statements he made about illegal immigrants and wildfires. An opponent dismissed the finding as meaningless.
McCain said earlier this year that fires are sometimes caused by illegal border crossers, but he did not immediately specify to which fires he was referring as blazes scorched the southern and eastern parts of the state. The statements quickly drew criticism from activists who jumped on him for "scapegoating."....
Shakeup at Sierra Club and The Wilderness Society, By Don Amador, Founder, The Trail PAC, November 22, 2011, Opinion on Political Events at Sierra Club and The Wilderness Society
Not since the radical departure of Dr. Patrick Moore from Greenpeace in the mid 1980s has the green lobby been rocked by two large seismic events. Last week, Carl Pope, resigned from the Sierra Club and The Wilderness Society cut their staff by 31 percent.....
Anderson biomass facility getting new life, PG&E, Kiara work together, By David Benda, Redding Record Searchlight, Monday, November 21, 2011
A San Francisco Bay Area energy company and north state timber firm are working to restart a biomass plant that's been idle for nearly 10 years. Kiara Solar Inc. of San Ramon purchased the former Wheelabrator facility off Highway 273 in Anderson about two years ago from Siskiyou Forest Products for $1.6 million.
"We are working in conjunction with Siskiyou Forest Products," said Bob Chaudhuri, vice president of business development for San Ramon-based Kiara Solar. "We will use their waste wood and provide steam for their dry kilns. So it's really a symbiotic relationship."......
Greenhouse gases soar; no signs warming is slowed, By SETH BORENSTEIN, San Francisco Chronicle, Monday, November 21, 2011
Heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are building up so high, so fast, that some scientists now think the world can no longer limit global warming to the level world leaders have agreed upon as safe.
New figures from the U.N. weather agency Monday showed that the three biggest greenhouse gases not only reached record levels last year but were increasing at an ever-faster rate, despite efforts by many countries to reduce emissions......
USDA Announces Funding to Convert Biomass to Energy, Forest Business Network, November 20, 2011
HALIFAX, Va., Nov. 17, 2011 –Deputy Agriculture Undersecretary for Rural Development Doug O’Brien today announced that USDA is funding a series of projects to convert biomass to energy through USDA’s Rural Energy for America program. (REAP). The announcement was made during an event in Halifax, Va., to mark USDA Rural Development’s participation in construction of a biomass plant to be operated by the Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative (NOVEC)......
Battle over the best way to be steward of our land, San Francisco Chronicle Editorial, Sunday, November 20, 2011
The battle in Congress over American values has come to the mountains, rivers and deserts of the West. A barrage of legislation in the Republican-led House seeks to lift protections on public lands and waters to allow access for mining, grazing, off-road recreation and other uses. Former Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt decries the actions as an unprecedented assault on our environmental laws; House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings, R-Wash., suggests it is a return to the original purpose of public lands - multiuse.....
What will climate change mean for California?, Matt Weiser,Sacramento Bee, Published Sunday, Nov. 20, 2011
The songbirds at the feeder outside your window are not the same as they used to be. The goldfinch, the grosbeak and even the ever-present sparrow are all a little bit bigger. The reason is climate change, according to a new study, which found that 70 bird species, all common to Central California, have evolved a longer wingspan and greater body mass over the past 40 years......
Sierra Pacific's clear-cuts impoverish forests, economy, By Katherine K. Evatt, Special to The Bee, Sacramento Bee Viewpoints, Nov. 20, 2011
I spent a recent Monday on a Sierra Pacific Industries' forest tour outside the rural Calaveras County town of West Point. Sierra Pacific has clear-cut thousands of acres in Calaveras. It has removed nearly every tree on each site, scraped off and burned the surface vegetation, deep-ripped the soil and sprayed herbicides to kill leafy plants that compete with newly planted conifers......
County plan to cut greenhouse gases locally is up to supervisors, David Sneed, San Luis Obispo Tribune, November 20, 2011
Supervisors are set to vote Tuesday on a plan that maps out how the county would reduce its contribution to global climate change. The EnergyWise Plan focuses on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and ways to prepare for the anticipated effects of climate change. Greenhouse gases are emissions such as carbon dioxide that tend to trap the heat from the sun near the Earth’s surface......
Sierra Club leader departs amid discontent over group's direction, By Louis Sahagun, Los Angeles Times, November 19, 2011,
The chairman of the Sierra Club, one of the nation's most influential environmental groups, has stepped down amid discontent that the group founded by 19th century wilderness evangelist John Muir has strayed from its core principles. The departure of Carl Pope, 66, a member of the club for more than 40 years, comes as the nonprofit group faces declining membership, internal dissent, well-organized opponents, a weak economy and forces in Congress trying to take the teeth out of environmental regulations.....
The squeeze around our neck of the woods, By The Oregonian Editorial Board, The Oregonian, Saturday, November 19, 2011
If a governor cuts down 20 years of forest mismanagement and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound -- or more importantly, a difference? We'll see. Gov. John Kitzhaber recently delivered a powerful but little noticed speech to the Oregon Board of Forestry in which he argued that current policies across the sweep of federal, state and privately owned forests that cover over 30 million acres of Oregon conspire to hurt rural communities, the economy, fish and wildlife and the forests themselves......
Calculator shows trees do pay off, JIM CHATFIELD, Akron Beacon Journal, The Times Leader, November 19, 2011
What do trees have to do with energy? Trees and other plants are energy. They are the ultimate collectors of solar energy, using the energy of the sun to produce food through photosynthesis. Plants jump-start the entire food chain with this energy, synthesizing carbon-based food by taking carbon dioxide and water and that energy from the sun and producing carbohydrates for their own metabolism. In turn, this food feeds animals such as us, or animals that eat animals that ultimately ate plants......
Cellulosic ethanol won't reach first-generation price until 2020 -- study, ClimateWire, November 18, 2011
Even with subsidies, ethanol made from crop waste or wood chips won't be competitive with fuel made from corn until 2020 at the earliest, which is at the tail end of the most optimistic industry predictions, a new study said this week. So-called second-generation ethanol faces significant extra costs due to the need for pre-treatment of the sturdy, cellulose-rich raw materials, as well as the more complex enzymes employed, says the study by the Department of Wood Science at the University of British Columbia......
Wilderness Society sheds 17 percent of staff, seeks new president, by Phil Taylor, E&E News, November 18, 2011
The Wilderness Society, one of the nation's largest public lands advocacy groups, this week cut about 17 percent of its workforce, a reflection of challenging economic times for nonprofits. The staffing change comes shortly after the group's president, William Meadows, announced he will transition out of his position over the next year to become a counselor until a new president is chosen. The Washington, D.C.-based group, which currently runs on a $26.7 million annual budget, cited reduced donations amid a sluggish economy as one reason for the cuts......
Monopoly for forest certification is wrong, By Patrick Moore, Special to The Vancouver Sun, November 18, 2011
Imagine a situation in which an activist group with certain political ambitions and close ties to a computer manufacturer engaged in a campaign of threats against specific retailers. Targeted retailers were told that they must buy computers from only a select manufacturer (the one closely associated with the activist group) and no other, to the detriment of the retailer, market competition and consumers at large. If retailers dared to purchase from any other computer manufacturer, the activist group would continue a campaign to spread misinformation, harass and embarrass the retailer, and sully its name brand. If this fictional scenario were made real, it would likely be cause for an investigation. In the world of organized crime, this type of strategy has a name: racketeering......
Local logger says Forest Service felled him, Alicia Knadler, Indian Valley Editor, Plumas County News, 11/16/2011
“So long, and thanks for all the memories,” might be what Randy Pew will be saying to the community this time next week, if nothing happens to save his family business, Pew Forest Products. The business is teetering on bankruptcy. Pew blames the Forest Service for mathematical and surveying errors in its timber cruise data, which bidders use to determine whether or not a job will be profitable enough to bid on......