Understanding Government

More and more authoritative scientific studies are saying — categorically — that mountaintop mining is dangerous to people’s health and the environment, and Allen Hershkowitz at NRDC is calling for the government to take action.  He calls for the National Research Council to look at these reports and issue its own opinion.  Until that happens, he says that

the US EPA, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Interior should implement a categorical moratorium on the issuance of new permits, regardless of a mine’s size or location.

If mountaintop mining is stopped, it will inevitably be called a sign of “aggressive government action.”  On the other hand, stopping private companies from severing mountains in America’s last wildernesses would seem to be the perfect example of healthy conservatism.

After years of admonishment about wasting water, residents of perennially dry California are watching billions of gallons of the life giving liquid roll out to sea as a prodigious rainy season draws to a close.

With irrigation districts, water districts and enviros engaged in battles spreading out across the decades, Matt Weiser 0f the Sacramento Bee wades into the battle with a primer on efforts to boost water supplies in California and the substantial hurdles these projects must clear. (more…)

Talks aimed at forging a compromise in California’s intractable water wars — in process for more than a decade — hit a potentially serious snag as the nation’s largest irrigation district announced it would no longer contribute to the cost of studies. (more…)

Construction workers broke ground on a massive solar thermal power plant in the California desert near the Nevada border Wednesday, David Becker of the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Scheduled to generate its first watt of electricity in 2013, the project will use thousands of billboard-sized mirrors to focus light on tanks turning water into steam to generate enough juice to power 140,000 homes. (more…)

Two German companies received the go ahead from California officials to build a massive 1,000 megawatt solar thermal electricity plant near the California-Arizona state line. The plant is only one of nine solar projects set to be considered by the end of the year. The nine planned plants would more than double the amount of electricity derived from the sun in the US, reports Cassandra Sweet of Dow Jones Newswires. The plans now to the US Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management for further study.

Generous matching funds available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the federal stimulus, has set off something of a gold rush (more…)