NBC Ignores Huge Setback To Obama’s Clean Power Plan
“Clean Power Plan” rule, is a centerpiece of Obama’s climate agenda. The Supreme Court’s stay prevents the EPA from enforcing the rule until lawsuits brought by more than 20 states, and a number of companies and organizations are over. “It’s a stunning development,” Jody Freeman, a Harvard law professor and former environmental legal counsel to the Obama administration, said in an email to The New York Times. She also told the Times “the order certainly indicates a high degree of initial judicial skepticism from five justices on the court.” During the recent Paris climate negotiations, Obama had used the power plant rule as evidence the U.S. would take action. In spite of the significance of the decision, NBC failed to mentioned it at all during its Feb. 9, evening broadcast, or on Today the following morning. ABC and CBS paid little attention devoting less than one minute of coverage (56 seconds) combined on Evening News, This Morning and Good Morning America to the “setback for President Obama” regarding the “sweeping” regulations. –
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Attorneys general say states should ignore Obama’s EPA climate plan
State attorneys general called on all states Wednesday to cease all activity on meeting the goals of President Obama’s far-reaching climate rules for power plants, given Tuesday night’s decision by the Supreme Court to stay the regulations.
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who is leading 29 states in a fight against the regulations, said on a call with reporters that the decision by the Supreme Court’s five conservative justices was “historic,” freezing Obama’s “illegal Clean Power Plan” and lifting all obligations to meet their deadlines until a federal appeals court makes a decision on the merits later this year.
“Don’t let them [the administration] spin out of this, this is a very significant win,” he said.…
Police: Environmentalists appear to have ‘staged’ SUV hitting ‘climate protester’
Via: http://www.eenews.net/
Enviros appear to have ‘staged’ SUV hitting protester — police
Scott Streater, E&E reporter
Published: Wednesday, February 10, 2016
Two environmental groups are asking the Bureau of Land Management to investigate an incident in which they say an agency-contracted auctioneer struck a climate protester with his SUV shortly after presiding over an oil and gas lease sale in Colorado.
The Center for Biological Diversity and Rainforest Action Network yesterday submitted a letter to BLM Colorado State Director Ruth Welch urging the agency “to fully and immediately investigate its contractor’s responsibility for the incident and the apparent use of violence and intimidation to retaliate against members of the public for the exercise of their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and assembly.”
But a local police department that investigated the November incident outside BLM Colorado’s headquarters in Lakewood, Colo., said it found no criminal wrongdoing and has long since closed the matter.
What’s more, the Lakewood Police Department said, the Nov. 12 incident appeared to have been “staged” by the groups, and the protester pretended to have been struck by the SUV, a police spokesman said.
At issue is a protest by supporters of a movement lobbying to stop all oil and gas and coal extraction on federal lands — dubbed the “Keep It in the Ground” movement — which has resulted in BLM postponing some recent oil and gas lease sales.
Members of the Center for Biological Diversity, the Rainforest Action Network and others gathered at a rally to protest the lease sale outside BLM’s Colorado headquarters in November and were apparently blocking one of the exits of the agency’s parking lot.
The groups released a YouTube video that shows protesters in a circle in the parking lot chanting, “Keep it in the ground, keep it in the ground.” A white SUV pulls close to the group and honks. The video shows a protester suddenly falling to the ground, although the SUV does not appear to have moved much, if at all.
The SUV backs up and honks again. Within seconds, Lakewood police officers approach the vehicle and the protesters before the video ends.
The two-page letter to Welch, signed by Michael Saul, a CBD senior attorney, and Ruth Breech, senior climate and energy campaigner with the Rainforest Action Network, says the protester was taken to the hospital for observation.
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Bad news for jetsetters: Global warming to cause costlier flights to US, scientist warns
Writing in the journal Environmental Research Letters, Dr Williams said the jet stream will become 15 per cent faster in winter, increasing from an average of 48mph to 55 mph, with similar increases in the other seasons.
This will result in transatlantic planes spending an extra 2,000 hours in the air every year, adding about £15million a year to airline fuel costs and increasing the risk of delays.
Dr Williams said: “The aviation industry is facing pressure to reduce its environmental impacts, but this study shows a new way in which aviation is itself susceptible to the effects of climate change.
“The bad news for passengers is that westbound flights will be battling against stronger headwinds. The good news is that eastbound flights will be boosted by stronger tailwinds, but not enough to compensate for the longer westbound journeys.
“The net result is that roundtrip journeys will significantly lengthen.
“This effect will increase the fuel costs to airlines, potentially raising ticket prices, and it will worsen the environmental impacts of aviation.”
He predicts that the jet stream will speed up if carbon dioxide levels double in the next few decades due to a failure to cut emissions quickly.
This means that the current record for a New York to London flight of 5h 16m – set in a strong jet stream last year by a British Airways 777 – will be broken regularly.…