Conservation Insider Bulletin from Dan Besse, Nov. 16

Conservation Insider Bulletin

Published weekly for the Conservation Council of North Carolina

Conservation News to Peruse & Use

Editor: Dan Besse, earthvote@ccnccpac.org


November 16, 2007


Environmental issues received attention this week from the presidential campaign trail to the annual gathering of the nation's cities. Details follow in this week's CIB:

--Local Government Watch: Padgett to Head National Transportation Panel; Sea Level Rise Declared "Disastrous" Potential Threat

--Campaign Watch: Presidential Forum Will Focus on Energy & Climate; LCV Invites Nominations for "Dirty Dozen"

--Washington Watch: Duke Fights Global Warming Legislation

--Education & Resources: More Muddy Waters


Local Government Watch: Padgett to Head National Transportation Panel; Sea Level Rise Declared "Disastrous" Potential Threat


(Editor's Note: CIB is arriving a day late this week because the editor was in New Orleans participating in the meeting from which the notes below were taken. Mostly work, but we did spend a couple of hours monitoring environmental conditions in the French Quarter...)


The National League of Cities met for its annual conference this week in a city still recovering from one of this century's greatest U.S. environmental disasters. More than 3,000 local elected officials from around the nation met to consider new policy matters and review lessons from the uneven progress of ongoing recovery efforts in New Orleans. Environmental issues were prominent on the week's agendas.


Padgett to Head National Transportation Panel: Wilmington, NC, City Council Member Laura Padgett will take over as chair of the National League of Cities' Transportation Infrastructure and Services (TIS) Steering Committee. Padgett is regarded as an environmental quality advocate in Wilmington, and transportation policy has emerged as a leading environmental quality issue both in North Carolina and nationwide. (The two areas are inextricably linked in air quality, energy usage, green space, urban sprawl, and climate change issues.) The TIS Steering Committee, advised by the TIS Policy and Advocacy Committee, formulates transportation policy recommendations for the National League of Cities (NLC). The NLC, in turn, speaks on behalf of its more than 1,600 member cities in national policy work. Padgett's new role will provide enhanced opportunities for national attention to transportation/environmental issues relevant to North Carolina.

At this week's NLC meeting, a transit-policy workshop also featured Charlotte as its case example of the connection between transportation decisions and land use development patterns.


Sea Level Rise Declared "Disastrous" Potential Threat: The NLC's other major environment-related policy body is its Energy, Environment, and Natural Resources Policy and Advocacy Committee (EENR). Among the issues taken up by the EENR this week were sustainability, energy, and water quality. Fittingly, in view of its meeting location, the body adopted a resolution warning of the potential "disastrous" effects of sea level rise related to global warming on American coastal cities. In the course of adopting that resolution, the committee also agreed to take up the issue of long-term drought as a key matter for additional study and work. (As was discussed before the committee, reduced precipitation and more severe droughts are among the projected impacts from climate change for some U.S. regions. The current severe drought in the southeastern U.S. may be a mere precursor of things to come if climate change is not brought under control.)


Campaign Watch: Presidential Forum Will Focus on Energy & Climate; LCV Invites Nominations for "Dirty Dozen"


Presidential Forum Will Focus on Energy & Climate: The national League of Conservation Voters Education Fund (LCVEF) has helped put together an inaugural "Presidential Forum on Global Warming and America's Energy Future" on Saturday, November 17. The event is being webcast live, and will no doubt be available to review on a recorded basis after the event. See www.lcv.org for more information.


LCV Invites Nominations for "Dirty Dozen": Every two years, the national League of Conservation Voters (LCV) constructs a list of the 12 (or so) worst members of Congress on environmental issues, who are up for re-election and vulnerable to a change. In 2006, LCV education campaigns helped to defeat nine of the 13 designated "dirty" members of Congress, including N.C.'s own unlamented former Representative Charles Taylor. Now, LCV is inviting environmental advocates nationwide to nominate candidates for inclusion in the 2008 Dirty Dozen. To make your suggestion, go to http://action.lcv.org/ct/R1qNks11dXlb/. More info on the LCV Dirty Dozen campaign is available at www.lcv.org.


Washington Watch: Duke Fights Global Warming Legislation


Duke Energy is fighting against the leading Congressional proposal for action on the issue of climate change. The Lieberman-Warner bill creating a cap-and-trade system for carbon dioxide emissions has bipartisan support and recently received a favorable report from a key Congressional subcommittee. Duke opposes the bill, says its spokesman, because the bill doesn't give coal-dependent utilities like itself enough of a break in the establishment of caps and credits. The utility's opposition to the Lieberman-Warner legislation is at odds with its loudly trumpeted support for effective national controls on carbon emissions.


According to the Charlotte Observer (11/16/07), Duke is among the nation's largest emitters of carbon dioxide and its third-largest user of coal. Duke generates 52 percent of its Carolinas power from coal, and 98 percent of its Midwestern territories power from coal.


Education & Resources: More Muddy Waters


The Neuse River Foundation (NRF) reports that its "Muddy Water Watch" meeting on training citizens how to take part in monitoring pollution from construction sites was a success. About 40 people participated in the November 13 session in Raleigh. NRF says it will hold a second "orientation session" on the program on December 18, and the official training sessions will begin January 22. More information is available at www.muddywaterwatch.org.


That's our report for this week.