Jon TesterThe junior senator from Montana, Jon Tester has stayed relatively quiet on climate legislation and thus remains in the “fence-sitter” category.

In late October, Tester expressed interest in Sen. Maria Cantwell’s (D-Wash.) climate bill, which thus far hasn't gotten any traction in the Senate: "I'd like to see what Maria’s got. I'm not real happy with [Kerry-Boxer]. I don't want something real, real complicated."
 
But Tester does believe action on climate change is necessary, as he told the Montana Audubon Society in June: “I think climate change is real, and we need to do something about it. We also have to do it right, and that starts with promoting clean, green renewable energy. Montana is the mother lode for renewable energy. Wind. Solar. Geothermal. Bioenergy from crops that don’t compete with food. We’ve got it all.”
 
As president of the Montana Senate, Tester sponsored a successful bill that established a renewable energy standard for the state. During his campaign for Senate in 2006, he promised to “fight to end America’s addiction to foreign oil, by investing in bio-fuel technology and wind power development, creating a national renewable standard and promoting energy efficiency and conservation.” More recently, in an interview with fiverthirtyeight.org, Tester expressed his support for clean-coal technologies as well as renewable energy. “[Coal] ain’t going away,” Tester argued. “So let’s figure out a way to burn it better.”

Tester sent the following letter to a climate skeptic in March, arguing that climate change is a serious problem and affirming his intent “to be a part of the solution”:

Thank you for taking the time to contact me with your skepticism regarding global warming. I appreciate your perspective on this important issue facing our nation, but respectfully disagree with your conclusion.

Climate change is causing devastating effects on our environment. In Montana, we are witnessing the disappearance of the glaciers in Glacier National Park, a lengthy drought, and wildly shifting weather patterns.

In north central Montana, we haven't had a "Montana" winter in nearly 30 years. Worldwide, the increasing frequency and intensity of wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, and snow storms threatens our safety and burdens global economics as we witness irregular precipitation patterns.

Because of my concern for our safety, economic well-being, and environment, I am committed to reversing the effects of climate change.

Congress will consider several important pieces of legislation this year on global warming, and I intend to be a part of the solution to global climate change. Promoting conservation efforts, reducing emissions from industrial sources and developing renewable fuels are just a few of our options, and I will look closely at all of them.
Track the climate debate and take action
Your input is an incredibly important part of the process. I hope that you will contact me again in the future if you have any further questions or concerns.

Sincerely,
Jon Tester
United States Senator, Montana

Do you know what your senators think about climate legislation?  Ask them, then tell us what you find out.

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Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said Tuesday he has “serious reservations” about climate legislation unveiled by his Democratic colleagues, signaling trouble for a proposal that is stronger in certain respects than a bill passed by the House.

In an effort to inject drama and conflict into a hearing that lack both, the Washington Street Journal and other media outlets trumpeted the fact that Baucus said he thought Boxer’s proposed bill was too strong.

In fact, it’s obvious to everyone else that one couldn’t get 60 votes for Boxer’s bill and the final bill is going to be different (see Breakthrough Senate climate partnership: Graham (R-S.C.) and Kerry (D-Mass.) join forces and assert they are “convinced that we have found both a framework for climate legislation to pass Congress“).  The WSJ story never mentioned this fact, but ominously writes, “Supporters of the climate proposal can ill afford to lose any Democratic votes in the Senate, given stiff Republican opposition.”  Baucus himself said (full remarks at the end):

I support passing common-sense climate legislation that reduces greenhouse gas emissions while protecting our economy. And the key word in that sentence is “passing.”

So Baucus will be voting for the final bill.

One part of the media focused on the real story that Montanans are increasingly concerned about:  Climate change is already hitting their state hard now and is poised to devastate it utterly.  American Public Media’s Marketplace has be done a terrific multipart series on climate change, which can be accessed here, along with a map of how different regions of the country are being affected now and how they are likely to be hit in the future.

The first piece “Climate change in our own backyards,” tells the amazing story of the warming-driven bark beetle infestation around Helena.  And yes, this is the same exact story that the NYT screwed up in July (see “Signs of global warming are everywhere, but if the New York Times can’t tell the story (twice!), how will the public hear it?“).

The figure above is from a major recent study, which projects a staggering increase in “wildfire activity and carbonaceous aerosol concentrations in the western United States” -- “with the forests of the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountains experiencing the greatest increases of 78 percent and 175 percent respectively” by 2050.  The graph “shows the percentage increase in area burned by wildfires, from the present-day to the 2050s,” if we only see an “average global warming of 1.6 degrees Celsius (3 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2050.”  If we don’t start reducing emissions sharply -- sharper than Baucus wants -- the U.K. Met Office says the plausible worst-case is 13-18 degrees F warming over most of U.S. by 2060. Montana would be an inferno.

You can see how serious Marketplace is about getting the climate story right from the very first words of Kai Ryssdal (audio and transcript here):

Marketplace sustainability reporters Sam Eaton and Sarah Gardner have been out the past couple weeks exploring the reality of global warming right here in the United States. They’ve come back into the studio to tell us, and each other, about what they found. Sarah?

American Public Media has “sustainability reporters”!

SARAH GARDNER: Thanks, Kai. So Sam let’s start with the “what is.” The changes that rising temperatures are already causing.

SAM EATON: Yeah, and I think a lot of people would be surprised. I talked to dozens of people over the past few weeks and there’s this one interview I did that’s really stuck with me. I was in Helena, Montana, where residents are getting a taste of climate change in their own backyards. Their forests are dying.

This is a woman named Diane Tipton.

DIANE TIPTON: I grew up with this landscape. This always was my home and my heart, and I always knew that no matter how crazy things got out in the big world there was this place, this special place in Montana that I could come back to. And it never occurred to me that it could be so transformed in such a short period of time.

SAM: We’re going to hear from more people in Helena in just a minute.

SARAH: OK, but first let’s take a second to sum up what scientists are telling us about climate change:

There’s wide agreement that the planet is warming. And scientists can say with near certainty that the culprit is us -- or rather, our burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil.

They’re also telling us that temperatures are higher and we’re warming faster than at any time since we’ve been keeping temperature records -- that’s almost 160 years. In fact, in my own lifetime, average temperatures in this country have gone up more than 2 degrees.

We’re also seeing more extreme weather events, like floods and droughts. And less snow is falling.

Dead and dying lodgepole pines in ColoradoPhoto courtesy vsmoothe via Flickr You’d never learn this from the NYT, but global warming has created a perfect climate for these beetles -- Milder winters since 1994 have reduced the winter death rate of beetle larvae in Wyoming from 80 percent per year to under 10 percent, and hotter, drier summers have made trees weaker, less able to fight off beetles.

“The pine beetle infestation is the first major climate change crisis in Canada” notes Doug McArthur, a professor at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. “We’re seeing changes in [mountain pine beetle] activity from Canada to Mexico,” said Forest Service researcher Jesse Logan in July 2004 (here), “and the common thing is warming temperatures.”

A 2005 study, led by the University of Arizona, with Los Alamos National Laboratory and the U.S. Geological Survey, “Regional vegetation die-off in response to global-change-type drought,” examined a huge three-million acre die-off of vegetation in 2002-2003 “in response to drought and associated bark beetle infestations” in the Four Corners area (Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah).  This drought was not quite as dry as the one in that region in the 1950s, but it was much warmer, hence it was a global-warming-type drought. The recent drought had “nearly complete tree mortality across many size and age classes” whereas “most of the patchy mortality in the 1950s was associated with trees [greater than] 100 years old.”

Most of this tree death was caused by bark beetle infestation, and “such outbreaks are tightly tied to drought-induced water stress.” Healthy trees defend themselves by drowning the tiny pine beetles in resin. Without water, weakened, parched trees are easy meals for bugs.

Marketplace makes this all crystal clear in one of the best stories ever produced on how global warming is harming this country right now.  It deserves to be read in its entirety:

SAM: But of all the impacts of global warming being felt right now, here in the U.S., the most extreme example by far has been the death of pine forests in the West. And it’s all because of a beetle, the mountain pine beetle to be exact. You may have heard of it. It’s no bigger than the tip of a kitchen match. But it’s killing millions of acres of trees all across the West.

And that’s why I went to Helena, Montana. It’s surrounded by pine forests. And it’s basically ground zero for the state’s beetle infestation. Here’s Helena’s mayor, Jim Smith.

JIM SMITH: There’s just a whole host of psychological worry that has descended upon our town ... all because of some teeny little beetle.

SARAH: But wait a minute. Explain for us how this little beetle has anything to do with climate change? Because, I mean, my understanding is that the pine beetle is a native species, right? It’s always been there. And a lot of westerners believe the only reason it’s gotten out of hand is because we haven’t been thinning out the forests enough, right?

SAM: That hasn’t helped. And you throw in fire suppression and the beetles basically have an all-you-can-eat buffet of lodge pole and Ponderosa pine. But the scientists I talked to -- like Jesse Logan, who’s been studying the beetles for decades -- say the main thing driving this outbreak is human-caused global warming.

JESSE LOGAN: It’s by the actions of people. It’s directly our actions that are taking these forests out.

SAM: Let me connect the dots here. Logan says pine beetles have always been held in check by deep winter freezes. But that 2-degree increase in average temperatures you mentioned earlier, Sarah, has meant fewer cold snaps -- especially in the high elevations of the Rockies. Basically, the pine beetle couldn’t have asked for better breeding conditions.

Now, let me go back to my interview with Logan.

SAM: So it’s like this beetle’s sitting here waiting for the thermostat to go up and suddenly ...

LOGAN: That’s a great analogy. It was sitting there waiting, and we reached the tipping point in these high-elevation systems, a true threshold event.

SARAH: . So what’s this done to the city? I mean, I’ve been to Helena. It’s a beautiful town. What does it look like now?

SAM: Well, let me play you some tape from the mayor. He’s describing what the area looks like from a bird’s eye view.

SMITH: Well, you’d see dappled orange hillsides right on the crest of the continental divide. And if we kept flying south to Butte, Montana, we’d see entire hillsides that have turned red, orange, gold, within the last two or three years.

SARAH: You know, it’s funny. If you didn’t know better, you’d think he was just describing pretty fall colors or something.

SAM: You know, it does. But really what he’s talking about is the color the pine needles turn after the trees die. The locals call them “red dead.” And Smith says it’s spreading so fast that if you flew over that same area a year from now it would be twice as bad.

SARAH: So, Sam, how are the people of Helena reacting to this?

SAM: Well, as a matter of fact, many people are afraid. I spent a lot of time visiting people who live right in the middle of these dried-out dead forests. And I have to say, when you’re looking up at the sky through trees with these bright orange pine needles there’s almost a surreal beauty to it.

But then it dawns on you -- you’re basically standing in the middle of a million dried out Christmas trees. And all it would take is one match to turn the entire place into an inferno.

Now there’s one guy in charge of keeping that from happening. His name is Patrick McKelvey.

We drove up into the hills above Helena so we get a better look at just how serious the fire danger is. Let me just play that tape for a few minutes.

PATRICK MCKELVEY: That’s actually a city chunk of ground right below us. And you can see. Look at that. It’s 100 percent -- 100 percent mortality.

[Sound of getting out of car]

SAM: We stopped at a place where we could look out over the dead trees, all the way down to the state capitol building.

MCKELVEY: So we’re up, oh, probably right at 5,000, 5,500 feet, somewhere in there, elevation probably. Just south of town.

SAM: So what’s, I mean, when you look at this picture, does it worry you?

MCKELVEY: Well, yeah, certainly. When you are here and look at this venue, and you’re seeing all of those trees … I mean, look at that -- there’s a forest within the city limits. So as this fire progresses through the topography and through that weather that we know hits us every year -- hot, dry, windy -- the risk terminates right there in the population center of Helena.

SARAH: Wow. That’s a really chilling sound bite.

SAM: Yeah, and actually the day after I left Helena they had a really close call. A fire started a little further up the mountain from where we were standing. And luckily fire crews were able to control it before it got out of hand.

SAM: … Once the beetles kill a tree, it costs more to cut it down and take it to the mill than the lumber’s worth. Some people want to use the dead trees as fuel to generate electricity. But that requires these high-tech biomass power plants. And those cost a lot of money.

So nobody really knows what to do with these trees once they cut them. Many are just rotting in piles in the middle of clearcuts.

SARAH: OK, here you have this incredibly scenic mountain town, the capital city of Montana, right, and it’s basically surrounded by dead forests that are essentially victims of warmer temperatures, right? So given that, are there still residents there who don’t believe in global warming?

SAM: Well, this is a really important point, Sarah. I spent some time with a local writer. His name’s Jim Robbins. And walking around his property, which is now essentially a clearcut, you really get a sense of how much this beetle is changing people’s lives.

[Sound of walking.]

JIM ROBBINS: This was all forest here. And now it’s a lot of smashed pieces of wood here and pine needles and occasional patches of weed that we’ll have to spray next year.

ROBBINS: There’s a saying that there are no atheists in foxholes. I think there’s something along that line happening here. I mean, there are still some people who refuse to believe it. But I think there’s been an erosion of that disbelief and it’s changed pretty dramatically.

SAM: And a lot of people don’t want to call it global warming simply because it’s such a politically charged term. They basically equate it with Democrats like Al Gore. People they’d never vote for.

Helena’s Mayor Jim Smith definitely falls into that category. But Sarah, he told me something I’d never heard before. He said when your community is threatened, the political debate over climate change no longer matters.

SMITH: Whether this climate change is man caused or just the natural order of things, I don’t know and I don’t have a lot of time to ponder that important question. We just got to deal with the situation on the ground here regardless of what the cause is. So we’re doing that.

Yeah, well, Mayor Smith, it matters to Montanans that this is in fact being driven in large part by human emissions -- because it means that Montanans, like all of us, are partly culpable and that things are going to get much, much worse if you and your Senator don’t support strong action.

SAM: Now, one of the things I realized during this trip was that this beetle epidemic really caught people off guard. And the scary part is all of this devastation was caused by a really small change in average temperatures. Scientists like to call these events early warnings of what’s to come. Basically the more we tweak the global thermostat, the more nasty surprises we’re likely to have down the road.

How bad could it get?

Back in 2004, researchers at the U.S. Forest Services Pacific Wildland Fire Lab looked at past fires in the West to create a statistical model of how future climate change may affect wildfires.  Their paper, “Climatic Change, Wildfire, and Conservation,” published in Conservation Biology, found that by century’s end, states like Montana, New Mexico, Washington, Utah, and Wyoming could see burn areas increase five times.

For completeness sake -- and because I remain optimistic that more in the media will routinely make the connection between increased forest fires and global warming -- let me note that back in 2006 Science magazine published a major article analyzing whether the recent soaring wildfire trend was due to a change in forest management practices or to climate change. The study, led by the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, concluded:

Robust statistical associations between wildfire and hydroclimate in western forests indicate that increased wildfire activity over recent decades reflects sub-regional responses to changes in climate. Historical wildfire observations exhibit an abrupt transition in the mid-1980s from a regime of infrequent large wildfires of short (average of 1 week) duration to one with much more frequent and longer burning (5 weeks) fires. This transition was marked by a shift toward unusually warm springs, longer summer dry seasons, drier vegetation (which provoked more and longer burning large wildfires), and longer fire seasons. Reduced winter precipitation and an early spring snowmelt played a role in this shift.

That 2006 study noted global warming (from human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide) will further accelerate all of these trends during this century. Worse still, the increased wildfires will themselves release huge amounts of carbon dioxide, which will serve as a vicious circle, accelerating the very global warming that is helping to cause more wildfires.

Let me end by reprinting Sen. Baucus’s (hurried) opening remarks yesterday that made so much news:

I’m keeping Director Orszag and Mr. Summers waiting in my office for 12 minutes, and I deeply apologize. I’ll be very, very brief. And I really thank the indulgence of my colleagues. Again, I’ll be very brief.

First, I want to thank the senator from Massachusetts. Senator Kerry has worked so hard on climate change. And clearly, his statement today shows how hard he’s worked. He’s done a great job.

Madam Chairman, I want to thank you and thank Ranking Member Inhofe and our witnesses for being here today to discuss climate change.

The legislation before us today is about protecting our outdoor heritage. We, I think all of us in the county, certainly those of us in Congress, when we leave this place, have a moral obligation to leave it in as good a shape or better shape than we found it. If uncontrolled, the impacts of climate change put this future at risk.

The legislation before us today is about our economy. Montana, with our resource-based, agriculture and tourism economies, cannot afford the unmitigated impacts of climate change. But we also cannot afford the unmitigated effects of climate change legislation.

That is why I support passing common-sense climate legislation that reduces greenhouse gas emissions while protecting our economy. And the key word in that sentence is “passing.”

I have some concerns about the overall direction of the bill before us today, and whether it will lead us closer to or further away from passing climate change legislation. For example, I have serious reservations with the depth of the mid-term reduction target in the bill and the lack of preemption of the Clean Air Act’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

We cannot afford a first step that takes us further away from an achievable consensus on common-sense climate change. We could build that consensus here in that committee. If we don’t, we risk wasting another month, another year, another Congress, without taking a step forward into our future.

I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in this committee prior to the mark-up, to address these issues and other key issues. I think it’s very important that we do so.

Thank you, Madam Chairman.

Who can doubt that -- notwithstanding the status quo media’s spin -- Baucus will vote for the final climate bill?

But the real story here is that Montana is being ravaged by climate change and won’t be recognizable in a several decades if we don’t make the deepest and most rapid emissions reductions possible.  That’s what Baucus and the media should be talking about.

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This post was co-written by Kathleen Ridihalgh, Senior Representative for the Sierra Club’s Northwest Region

The first three days of this week are seeing a slew of activities taking on coal. We have events in 25 states to counter the coal industry and cheer on clean energy investments. It’s all part of our National Day of Action, and there are events happening across the nation, including rallies, public hearings, coal deliveries to polluters, press conferences, brown bag lunches, coal tours, and town hall meetings. Our Campuses Beyond Coal campaign is holding photo petition events on a dozen campuses nationwide, calling on campus administrators to shut down old, dirty coal plants polluting those universities and the neighboring towns.

These events are all sending one message from coast to coast -- coal is dirty business, and we need clean energy. You should check the website to learn more about these creative events and see if there are any taking place near you.

As we watch activists in these states work together for clean energy, we want to highlight a few states taking steps in the right direction that we hope other states will emulate. The Governors of Washington (Chris Gregoire), Oregon (Ted Kulongoski) and Montana (Brian Schweitzer) have all committed their states to meeting climate goals and investing in a clean energy future.

Now these three governors can continue to lead the way and take another tangible action within the region that will make significant progress towards meeting those goals: Directing the Northwest Power and Planning Conservation Council’s (NWPCC -- the region's official power planning agency) latest power plan to phase out coal by 2020, assign a responsible cost to carbon pollution, and maintain high energy efficiency goals.

This may be the one action they can take that is solely under their power to deliver. And they can do it today. This would get the region on a path to reducing the emissions from our electricity by 77 percent and ensure a safer, cleaner, more reliable energy portfolio overall. NWPCC has even stated that "serious efforts to reduce or even stabilize CO2 production beyond 2005 will likely require replacing existing coal-fired power plants with low CO2-emitting resources."

Washington's Gregoire and Oregon's Kulongoski have made real progress and paved the way for meeting the climate challenge. The 6th Power Plan is an excellent opportunity for Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer to demonstrate a true commitment to meeting the scientific goals for climate change.

This step with the NWPCC would mesh well with the states’ actions thus far:

But this action with the NWPCC is something they can do in the Northwest to show the rest of the world that there is a better way. We urge the governors to stay true to their vision now with the NWPCC Power Plan -- they should improve the current plan by maintaining maximum energy efficiency goals, putting a price on carbon emissions, and stating, as a goal, the plan to move the region off coal power by 2020.

This would be the single most important step they can take to have any real chance of meeting their states goals and making real their personal commitment to this important issue.

If you’re in the Seattle area, you can help promote this idea of moving the region off coal at a rally on Wednesday night. Otherwise, be sure to find any National Day of Action events near you.

The NWPCC is also having hearings throughout the Northwest where you can make your voice heard for a Coal-Free Northwest:

Though it has spent millions on "clean" coal advertising, the truth is that the coal industry has for years actively fought against cleaning up the existing fleet of over 500 coal-fired power plants, some of them dating back to the Eisenhower Administration. The industry must stop trying to block common sense regulations and policies that will protect communities and the environment. Rather than seeing these efforts as a threat to jobs and the economy, such regulations are the path forward to protect people’s livelihoods. Strong regulations put us on a path to cleaner technology that boosts economic growth, creates jobs and protects the planet. 

We didn't use to have a choice about how to power America. Today we can do better.  It's time to clean up pollution from coal and build the clean energy economy.

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A public-health emergency has never been declared in Libby, Mont., where asbestos exposure from vermiculite mining has killed 200 people and sickened more than 1,000 more. But documents and emails obtained recently by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) show that in 2002, the U.S. EPA was primed to declare such an emergency -- before being talked out of it by top-level officials at the Office of Management and Budget. A public-health emergency declaration would have authorized extensive cleanup and increased health services in Libby, which the feds feared might -- gasp! -- encourage other asbestos-ridden places to demand the same. Libby has been declared a Superfund site, and vermiculite miner W.R. Grace will pay Superfund cleanup costs, but the effects of asbestos contamination still linger. Baucus is "not going to rest" until a public-health emergency is called: "It's a huge disrespect for the law and it's a bigger disrespect for the people of Libby," he says. "It's hard to even fathom."

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Participants in the Western Climate Initiative on Tuesday announced specific plans for cutting greenhouse-gas emissions 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. The seven states and four provinces will initiate a cap-and-trade program, establishing a carbon market that applies to industries and utilities by 2012 and transportation, heating, and other fuels by 2015. The proposed program is broader than that of the Northeast's Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which launches Thursday and only applies to power plants. But some aspects of WCI's plan disappoint environmentalists: 90 percent of pollution permits can be given freely instead of auctioned, and companies can offset up to 49 percent of their emissions instead of actually eliminating them. WCI participants -- Arizona, California, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec -- represent 20 percent of the U.S. economy and a whopping 73 percent of Canada's, and are home to a total 84.6 million people.

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The Western Climate Initiative has unveiled a draft proposal for a regional cap-and-trade program that would kick off in 2012. The 11 states and provinces involved -- Arizona, British Columbia, California, Manitoba, Montana, New Mexico, Ontario, Oregon, Quebec, Utah, and Washington -- would impose an as-yet-determined greenhouse-gas emissions limit on industries and utilities, then allow laggards to purchase carbon credits from those that cleaned up their acts. States and provinces would decide individually whether to freely hand out credits or to auction them. Reactions to the draft proposal were mixed; industries craved more detail, while environmentalists expressed concern that companies would be allowed to offset up to 10 percent of their emissions and that transportation and heating fuels would not be regulated until 2015. After a period of public comment, the final proposal is due in September; state and provincial governments will have to OK the plans before they become official.

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A federal judge has ruled that wolves should be returned to the endangered-species list for now, derailing plans for wolf hunts in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. The 2,000 or so gray wolves that inhabit the three states were removed from the endangered list in March; environmentalists sued to get them back on, saying populations were not yet stable. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund, over 100 gray wolves have been killed by hunters in the days since they were delisted, a rate of almost a wolf a day. The federal judge will eventually decide if the relisting should be permanent. Meanwhile, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service may appeal.

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Plum Creek Timber, which just negotiated a giant conservation deal with green groups, has also made a closed-door deal with the U.S. Forest Service that could ease the way for development on thousands of acres of Montana forestland. For decades, the USFS has enforced restrictions on logging roads that allow them to only be used for timber management. But under the deal expected to be formalized next month, logging roads on Plum Creek-owned land could be paved -- easing residential access to deep-woods summer homes. Plum Creek, a former logging company which now focuses on real-estate investment, says that in the next five years, it's likely to sell no more than 3,000 of its 1.2 million Montana acres to developers. But environmentalists are skeptical. "Now that Plum Creek is getting out of the timber business, we're kind of missing the loggers," says Ray Rasker of nonprofit Headwaters Economics. "A clear-cut will grow back, but a subdivision of trophy homes -- that's going to be that way forever."

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The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from asbestos company W.R. Grace, clearing the way for a long-awaited criminal trial to begin. The company and six of its executives were indicted in 2005 on charges of violating the Clean Air Act by allegedly releasing asbestos-contaminated vermiculite from a mine in Libby, Mont., between 1963 and 1990, when the mine closed; the executives have also been charged with knowingly endangering the lives of mine workers and town residents. Some 300 of Libby's 2,600 residents have died from asbestos-related diseases and many hundreds more have been sickened. If convicted at the criminal trial, the W.R. Grace executives face up to 15 years in prison. This spring, the company agreed to pay $3 billion to settle some 100,000 lawsuits against it filed on behalf of people injured or killed by asbestos in the company's products.

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Saying that their concerns about trigger-happy hunters have been validated, 12 conservation and animal-rights groups have sued to get the gray wolf re-listed as an endangered species. The 1,500 wolves that roam through Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho were delisted on Mar. 28 and can now be shot at will; a total of 37 have been killed in the last month. Conservation groups filed suit Monday, saying that the wolf population should be 2,000 at a minimum to protect genetic diversity. But federal biologists have a goal of maintaining a minimum population of only 300 wolves, and predict that even with willy-nilly killing, the population will stabilize well above that goal in the next few years.

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W.R. Grace & Co. has agreed to pay some $3 billion in cash and equity to settle lawsuits filed on behalf of people injured or killed by asbestos in the company's products. Grace operated a vermiculite mine near Libby, Mont., from 1963 to 1990, infamously coating the town with asbestos fibers. The company went bankrupt in 2001 after more than 100,000 asbestos-related claims were filed against it. The legal battle over responsibility and cleanup for what the U.S. EPA once called "the nation's worst environmental disaster" has been long and arduous and still goes on: seven current and former Grace executives have been indicted on charges of knowingly endangering their workers and the public.

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When we picture candy billionaire Forrest Mars, we imagine him diving into pools of M&Ms à la the coin-swimming revelry of Scrooge McDuck. That said, Mars' attempts to keep oil and gas drills off of his Montana land were foiled yesterday, when a state judge ruled that Pinnacle Gas Resources has the right to access gas reserves underneath Mars' ranch. Drilling is likely to commence by the end of the week.

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Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

Ranchers and conservationists fighting to keep drills out of coal and gas deposits along Montana's Tongue River are finding an ally in landowner and reclusive billionaire Forrest E. Mars Jr., former CEO of the Mars candy company. Sweet.

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EU pushes China further after pledge to slow carbon intensity

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

Montana's Berkeley Pit, containing 40 billion gallons of poisonous copper-mine runoff including arsenic, aluminum, cadmium, and zinc, has two claims to fame. One, it once killed a flock of hundreds of geese the moment they touched down on its surface. Two, the 40-billion-gallon pit houses 142 organisms -- some of which have shown success in killing breast and ovarian cancer cells. Remind us of this the next time we get all Debbie Downer on toxic waste.

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EU pushes China further after pledge to slow carbon intensity

BPA Babies and Cash Registers

Science historian Weart on global warming

The long-running legal battle over whether chemical company W.R. Grace knowingly exposed thousands of residents of Libby, Mont., to asbestos has taken an upswing: an appeals court has reinstated environmental and conspiracy charges against the company, which were thrown out by a federal judge last year. Next stop, trial; if convicted, Grace could be fined up to $280 million, and former executives could face prison time.

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EU pushes China further after pledge to slow carbon intensity

BPA Babies and Cash Registers

Ask Umbra on ditching dirty things

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Prologue to Copenhagen

Vinod Khosla Nonesense

Ask Umbra on ditching dirty things

As feds prepare to delist gray wolf in Idaho and Montana, hunters polish their rifles

In Idaho and Montana, the impending removal of Endangered Species Act protections for the gray wolf has sportsfolk salivating. The wolf, reintroduced to the region a decade ago, is blamed for killing elk and other critters that hunters want around so they can kill 'em themselves. At a rally in Idaho last week, Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter pledged to allow the hunt of all but 100 of the state's roughly 650 wolves, saying he'd be first in line for a permit. The riled-up crowd of 300 hunters included one carrying a sign that read, "Wolves are illegal immigrants too." In more promising endangered-species news, the somewhat less bloodthirsty crowd at London's Zoological Society has launched the Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered project. With the help of students, EDGE will aim to protect 100 of the world's most unusual at-risk species, including the bumblebee bat, the pygmy hippopotamus, the golden-rumped elephant shrew, and the Butch otter. Oh wait, sorry -- got our notes mixed up again.

Related Links:

EU pushes China further after pledge to slow carbon intensity

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen