« February 2007 | Main | April 2007 »

March 30, 2007

Brazil Cracks Down on Soy

Brazil's environmental agency is finally cracking down on the soy crop that has been devastating the Amazon. In response to Greenpeace activism, Brazil has closed a soy-processing facility and port both operated by the U.S.-based multinational Cargill. Greenpeace has been publicizing the fact that large swaths of rainforest are being cleared to make room for the soy crop. Last May, a Greenpeace ship blocked the port. Vegetarians can keep eating tofu in peace, because according to the Greenpeace report, "Eating up the Amazon," the Amazonian soy crop actually feeds chickens that wind up in fast-food restaurants and supermarkets.

March 29, 2007

Overfishing Large Sharks Impacts Entire Marine Ecosystem

Ransom’s Myers last paper before his death this week reports that fewer big sharks in the oceans also means bay scallops are harder to find at market. Ecologists and scientists have thought for a long time that the effects of removing the ocean’s top predators, big sharks, would cascade through the food web. This is the first study to demonstrate that cause and effect—a holy grail of conservation biology.

A team of Canadian and American ecologists, led by Myers and Julia Baum, found that overfishing the largest predatory sharks (such as bull, hammerhead, dusky, and great white sharks) along the Atlantic Coast led to an explosion of ray, skate, and small shark prey species, according to a Dalhousie University press release. Myers held the Killam Chair in Ocean Studies at Dalhousie. The paper appears in this week’s Science.

"With fewer sharks around, the species they prey upon – like cownose rays – have increased in numbers and in turn, hordes of cownose rays dining on bay scallops have wiped the scallops out," says Julia Baum, a co-author of the article. "Large sharks have been functionally eliminated from the east coast of the U.S., meaning that they can no longer perform their ecosystem role as top predators. The extent of the declines shouldn’t be a surprise, considering how heavily large sharks have been fished in recent decades to meet the growing worldwide demand for shark fins and meat.

"Our study provides evidence that the loss of great sharks triggers changes that cascade throughout coastal food webs," says Baum. "Solutions include enhancing protection of great sharks by substantially reducing fishing pressure on all of these species and enforcing bans on shark finning both in national waters and on the high seas."

Loss of a Great Scientist, Ransom Myers Dies of Brain Cancer

The science world lost a great this week. Ransom Myers of Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia warned at length, using solid science and brilliant analysis, of the dangers of overfishing. He didn’t mince words and he wasn’t afraid to report bad news. As the Guelph Mercury reports, the 54-year-old biologist, originally from Mississippi, was known for his groundbreaking research and blunt warnings about the extinction of marine life around the world, and for his irrepressible passion for conservation that not even cancer could quell.

Despite his illness, another groundbreaking scientific paper on shark population declines that Myers co-wrote was published this week in Science, a testament to his boundless energy and ability to carry on in the face of grave adversity. "He was just so extraordinarily driven to try to provide the science and to address the scientific questions so we can start seeing more effective shark conservation," Julia Baum, co-author on his last paper, told the Guelph Mercury.

That passion for marine conservation stemmed from his days in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada, where he worked for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans at a time when the industry was watching the collapse of the cod fishery. He became, says the Guelph Mercury, a lone, unpopular voice in the emotional discussion about the cause of the collapse, insisting overfishing was the main factor in the decimation of a fishery central to island life. The world was in "massive denial," he said, and spending its energy fighting over the few fish left instead of cutting catch limits before it was too late.

A Washington Post obituary reports that Myers analyzed vast amounts of data from government and industry reports around the globe, establishing that the size of large fish declined dramatically in recent decades. Tuna used to be twice as big, and marlins were once as large as killer whales. He warned governments, the fishing industry and consumers that unless commercial fishing is sharply curtailed many large marine species will become extinct, leading to economic disruptions, food shortages, and lasting damage to marine ecosystems. He said his conclusions were shocking because people had lost sight of the true magnitude of the declines because they did not look back far enough in history. In other words, we’ve forgotten how big fish used to be and how many of them once lived in the sea.

His seminal paper on fisheries declines was reported in Mother Jones' "The Fate of the Ocean."

The world will sorely miss his voice, commitment, intelligence, and common sense. Let's hope more scientists emulate his fearless lead.

Cancer Patients Warned Not to Self-Medicate with Chemotherapy

A bizarre black market is forming around a simple laboratory chemical that cancer patients have pinned their last hopes for survival on. In January, New Scientist reported a discovery that sounded "too good to be true."

A Canadian researcher at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, tested dichloroacetic acid on human cells cultured outside the body and found it killed lung, breast and brain cancer cells, but not healthy cells. "Tumours in rats deliberately infected with human cancer also shrank drastically when they were fed DCA-laced water for several weeks," wrote Andy Coghlan.

But because the chemical is not patentable, Coghlan wrote, no incentive existed for pharmaceuticals to run the clinical trials necessary to make DCA legal as a cancer treatment. Soon two Web sites sprung up: one with the research papers and chat rooms to discuss DCA, and another site selling DCA supposedly for use in pets with terminal cancer. Both sites are run by a California man who operates a pest-control company. But both sites are under criminal investigation by the FDA, because DCA hasn't gone through clinical trials or been approved for human use. Even marketing DCA for pets is illegal.

Still, Evangelos Michelakis and his Canadian team, who made the discovery, have fielded thousands of emails and calls from people asking how much DCA to take. Michelakis tells New Scientist, "We're now getting emails from people asking for dosage information for, say, a 150-pound golden retriever."

But even Michelakis is warning the desperate people not to take DCA. And so are other doctors, even though at least one doctor with cancer is taking it. Michelakis fears that if anyone dies while taking DCA unsupervised, funding for clinical trials will disappear. He tells New Scientist, "We are trying to do this the right way, by putting it into clinical trials, and these websites could destroy all of this."

Spate of Tornadoes

Time reports that "65 tornadoes were reported in Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Colorado and Nebraska on Wednesday." As part of my weird weather watch, I looked into these and learned that they're only sorta weird. It's tornado season, and although Colorado technically falls outside "Tornado Alley," it does see twisters pretty regularly. A National Weather Service representative told me the "number of tornadoes was large," calling the "outbreak" "significant but not of record proportions."

The Unsinkable John Lott Vs. "Freaky" Economics

The world of economics is predictably unpredictable; we know that markets will ebb and flow, but not when or often why. So too it goes with John Lott, the undefatigable conservative economist who is guaranteed to pop up in some new controversy of his own creation every so often. What keeps him going—and why places like AEI embrace him—remains a mystery. Lott is most infamous for his claims that crime rates are inversely proportional to rates of gun ownership; or as his book title put it, More Guns, Less Crime. Small problem: His research is far from bulletproof, and he's been repeatedly exposed and denounced for what could be charitably called sloppy research. In his defense, Lott has blamed "coding errors," claimed that some of his data have been destroyed, and in his finest moment, created a fictitious online identity to take on his critics. But none of this has slowed him down. For a good rundown of Lott's sins, see Chris Mooney's 2003 piece on our website, which shot some more holes into his work. More recently, Lott sued the Freakonomics guys for defamation after they wrote that he had "falsified his results." A judge threw part of his case out. Now Lott's firing back with a new book, Freedomnomics, a defense of the free market against "freaky theories," printed by renowned academic publisher Regnery. Fact checkers, statisticians, and economists, start your BS detectors...

March 28, 2007

Read Fortune Not Working Mother

With all the greenwash these days, how would you go about picking the ten greenest corporations? Fortune's team of reporters started by soliciting 100 "nominations from environmentalists and consultants who have worked in the trenches of corporate America," according to the magazine. Sounds like a given. But other magazines actually run lists of best companies based on self-reported data and advertising dollars.

Most notoriously, Working Mother has named Union Pacific five times one of the best places for women to work, even though it pays for employees' Viagra and Rogaine but not contraceptives. The UP flack's spin is, "We are thrilled that Working Mother has recognized our efforts to create a culture that helps employees balance work and families." Working Mother also includes firms facing class-action suits for sex harassment. And it has named Allstate, American Express, and General Mills among the 8 best firms for women of color. But at each, 30% of new hourly hires are women of color, but 0% of newly hired executives are.

Distinguishing hype from hope in green business was a focus of Mother Jones' November issue. We reported BP's blundered but well-publicized attempt to go "Beyond Petroleum" and the near-religious conversion of a carpet industry captain.

Now for the names. Drum roll please. Fortune's "Ten Green Giants" are Honda, Continental Airlines, Tesco, PG&E, S.C. Johnson, Goldman Sachs, Swiss Re, Hewlett-Packard, Alcan, and Suncor. Any objections?

"Viagra for Women" on the British Market

A testosterone patch to increase the female sex drive went on the market this week in the UK. Intrinsa can be prescribed only to women who have had menopause or hysterectomies. Unlike Viagra, Intrinsa takes up to a few weeks to take effect. Intrinsa targets Female Sexual Dysfunction, which was only seven years ago officially recognized as a disorder.The UK's Daily Mail predicts that Intrinsa will become a "lifestyle drug." Salon worries Intrinsa will set up unreasonable expectations for the female libido. And I think that since the roots of Female Sexual Dysfunction are often social, not physiological, a designer drug may not be the best fix.

—Rose Miller

Paper or Potato?

Mother Jones' hometown, San Francisco, yesterday became the first U.S. city to ban non-recyclable plastic bags from use in retail stores. Not only do conventional plastic bags take up space in landfills—1,400 tons in San Francisco alone—they also require petroleum for their manufacture. City supervisor Ross Mirkarimi said, "We can't sleepwalk into the future. The end of the era of cheap oil is here."

Bags made from biodegradable materials such as potato starch are actually stronger than plastic bags, but cost more to produce.

Environmental Fact of the Day

A gallon of gasoline puts 19 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. In California, passenger vehicles account for 40 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions.

Mass transit: A (relatively) easy way to limit your contribution to global warming.

Weird Weather Watch: WTF?

Tuesday "dawned clear and breezy" in Southern California, but by the end of the day the area had experienced downpours, hail, snow, and 40-mph winds (that's powerful by most standards but outrageous for Los Angelenos). 185,000 homes lost power. The creepiest thing of all is that an Orange County Fire Authority building had its roof torn off, although erratic weather like this are increasing the area's vulnerability to fire.

March 27, 2007

Common Fungicide Causes Changes in Mating Behavior Generations After Exposure

Female rats avoid males whose great-grandfathers were exposed to a common fruit crop fungicide. Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin examined rats whose great-grandparents were exposed to the fungicide vinclozolin, which causes early onset of cancer and kidney disease in males.

Female rats can tell the difference between male descendants of rats that have or have not been exposed to vinclozolin, and strongly prefer males descended from unexposed rats. Proving for the first time that environmental contamination affects evolution through changes in mating behavior.

Vinclozolin causes changes in the male rats’ germline cells, like sperm. It doesn’t directly alter DNA, instead causing changes in elements that regulate DNA. This is known as an epigenetic change.

Early onset of disease caused by initial exposure to vinclozolin is passed down generation to generation through the germline of the males. The female rats can sense something is wrong, even though they can’t see it. Since males move beyond their birth territory when they mature, they carry their unlovable and fatal defects with them.

Hmm. Is the biosphere cannily healing itself, one little rat at a time? Or are rats truly destined to inherit the Earth? --Julia Whitty

Disappearing Climate Zones Mean Disappearing Species

A new study forecasts the complete disappearance of existing climates in tropical highlands and regions near the poles. Meanwhile large swaths of the tropics and subtropics will likely develop new climates unlike any seen today, according to the National Science Foundation. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Wyoming predict that existing climate zones will shift toward higher latitudes and higher elevations, squeezing out the climates at the extremes. In fact a lot of this is already underway, as species are already moving to higher latitudes and higher elevations to escape the heat.

The most severely affected parts of the world span heavily populated regions, including the southeastern U.S., southeastern Asia, parts of Africa. Known hotspots of biodiversity, including the Amazonian rainforest and African and South American mountain ranges will also experience radical change. Disappearing climates will affect biodiversity, increasing extinctions too.

The study's authors foresee the appearance of never-before-seen climate zones on up to 39 percent of the world's land surface area by 2100, and the global disappearance of up to 48 percent of current land climates, if current rates of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions continue. —Julia Whitty

California: More Highways if You Want Them or Not

Humans have a really hard time planning for outcomes that feel abstract. Here we are 90 percent sure that we're destroying the planet and ourselves with it, and we're conducting business as usual.

One tough, but supremely logical, change we ought to be making is redirecting all money spent on road construction to mass transit systems and smart growth projects. (Even the greatest road warrior wouldn't complain about not being able to drive his SUV if there were a cheap, easy way to get where he was going.) The State of California, which touts itself as an environmental leader, is doing exactly the reverse. The state, whose efforts to build and expand highways have long been stymied by environmental lawsuits, has begun suing developers for money they say will mediate (i.e., accommodate on roads) the increased traffic their projects will generate. The state is using the lawsuits as a funding source—which might be fair if the suits weren't targeting smart growth projects designed to be accessible by mass transit.

Good news is, developers are irate and are lobbying Governor Schwarzenegger to stop his renegade agency. Looks like we'll get to see just how powerful developers are after all.

Cute Knut to Live, Knut-Mania Commences

Cutie polar bear cub Knut made his public debut last week, to the sounds of thousands of cooing fans and 300 shutter-clicking media members. The fuzzy animal, now the size of a Labrador Retriever puppy, delighted visitors as he frolicked through a stream, kissed his keeper, and rolled in the dirt.

Berlin Zoo officials say the cub is not in danger of being killed, as a few animal activists have suggested. Instead, hand-raised Knut is the zoo's star attraction, especially after his neighbor, 22-year-old panda Yan Yan died Monday, of constipation.

The Berlin Zoo has seen attendance jump by 300% since Knut appeared to the public, and the Zoo gift store had to order 10,000 more stuffed Knut dolls after their original 2,400 sold out. The cub now has his own television show, podcast, and a blog written from his imagined perspective. Graffiti artists are even spraypainting his name on concrete pillars under the bear-shaped logo for the Berlin Film Festival.

But for all the Knut-mania, is Knut really doing anything to preserve his kind? Well, kind of. The German Environmental Minister took a media-attended walk with Knut inside his pen, and has said Knut's the property of all Berliners. "Knut is in safe hands here," said the minister, "but worldwide polar bears are in danger and if Knut can help the cause, then that is a good thing." He then tickled the cub under its furry chin.

Knut's media attention may lead to increased awareness of the polar bear plight (though their plight is hardly obscure at this point). German public television is making a documentary about the bear, whose mother abandoned him and whose brother died of neglect. Schools across Germany are organizing "Knut trips" to go see the now-tiny (but soon to be huge) bear and learn about nature. And then there's the mysterious conservation campaign for which Knut will be the star, photographs courtesy Annie Leibovitz. Seems young Knut will be kept quite busy, both as a goodwill ambassador and as Berlin's (and the world's) latest object of affection.

—Jen Phillips

Forget DEET: Mutant Mosquitoes Offer "New Hope" to Malarial Regions

A team of US researchers has announced that it's developed a genetically modified malaria-resistant mosquito.

I know, everybody's mad at GMOs, but malaria kills up to 2.7 million people per year, most of them kids. And why spend a couple of bucks donating insecticide-treated mosquito nets to broke African babies when you can build a transnational army of super-bugs (which, as a creepy bonus, were also injected with a protein that causes their eyes to glow fluorescent green) to eradicate a disease?

The new creations are so effective because they are heartier than regular mosquitoes, which means they could take over the mosquito world, which means malaria could be wiped out. Despite the fact that nothing good ever happens when alien species are introduced into an ecosystem, researchers are hopeful that the extra-egg-laying, harder-to-kill mutants will be ready to be released into the wild in a decade or two.

—Nicole McClelland

The Secret Plan to Gut the Endangered Species Act

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility has posted a draft of a proposal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to eviscerate the Endangered Species Act. The proposed changes would accomplish administratively much of what the Bush Administration may have hoped to push through Congress before the Republicans were ousted in November. The 117-page document is likely the brainchild of Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, who, Salon writes, "has been an outspoken critic of the act.

The proposed draft is littered with language lifted directly from both Kempthorne's 1998 legislation as well as from a contentious bill by former Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif. (which was also shot down by Congress). It's "a wish list of regulations that the administration and its industry allies have been talking about for years," says [Kieran] Suckling [of the Center for Biological Diversity]. . . .

One change would significantly limit the number of species eligible for endangered status. Currently, if a species is likely to become extinct in "the foreseeable future" -- a species-specific timeframe that can stretch up to 300 years -- it's a candidate for act protections. However, the new rules scale back that timeline to mean either 20 years or 10 generations (the agency can choose which timeline). For certain species with long life spans, such as killer whales, grizzly bears or wolves, two decades isn't even one generation. So even if they might be in danger of extinction, they would not make the endangered species list because they'd be unlikely to die out in two decades. . .

Perhaps the most significant proposed change gives state governors the opportunity and funding to take over virtually every aspect of the act from the federal government. This includes not only the right to create species-recovery plans and the power to veto the reintroduction of endangered species within state boundaries, but even the authority to determine what plants and animals get protection. For plants and animals in Western states, that's bad news: State politicians throughout the region howled in opposition to the reintroduction of the Mexican gray wolf into Arizona and the Northern Rockies wolf into Yellowstone National Park.

By last week, as MoJo blogger Jen Phillips wrote about here, Interior had already launched a salvo against the ESA, announcing a proposal to stop protecting species based on their historical range and use their current range instead. That would mean that if a species of salmon is extinct in nine of 10 streams, but doing fine in the 10th stream, then the Fish and Wildlife Service would see no problem.

When I met with the folks at Earthjustice last week, we discussed what attacking the ESA might do to Bush's already-weak political capital. It's an interesting question. The move would probably hurt Bush with the nation at large, but endear him to his base, or at least certain parts of his base, like ranchers and developers. But it could also exacerbate a split in other parts of his base, such as between conservative evangelicals and those who are now embracing "creation care." Looks like that's gamble Bush is willing to make.

March 26, 2007

The Scoop on the Future of America's Wetlands

A staffer with the environmental public interest law firm, Earthjustice, has seen a draft of the Supreme Court's latest guidance on wetlands development and tells me "it will be confusing as hell." That's probably bad news for some 20 million acres of the nation's wetlands--20 percent of the total--which in 2003 were opened to development by the Bush Administration. The court's guidance might lead to more protections, but it could very likely open the floodgates even wider to developers. This is what we know:

One group of four judges led by Justice Antonin Scalia wants to protect--and I'm quoting Earthjustice's paraphrase here--"continuously flowing waterways and waters with a continuously flowing connection to navigable waters." That could rule out some 60 percent of America’s wetlands, Earthjustice estimates. The other judges, led by Justice Anthony Kennedy, are proposing a "significant nexus test," which would be broader, and would require that protected wetlands be connected to navigable waters in some way that might be chemical, physical or biological. But he hasn’t specified how the nexus would be measured, which might leave the Bush EPA with a lot of leeway.

What all of this means, in short, is that saving America's wetlands will probably fall to Congress, where next month Democrats plan to introduce a bill called the Clean Water Authority Restoration Act, which languished last year under the Republicans. It would restore wetland protections to the way they were before a 2001 Supreme Court gave Bush’s Army Corps of Engineers an excuse to dramatically scale back protections. The question, of course, is whether Bush will veto it.

Back in 2003, you might recall, Bush planned to gut wetland protections in the Clean Water Act, but pulled back after meeting with the NRA, Ducks Unlimited and Pheasants Forever. Since then, the alliance between hunters and greens has only strengthened as sportsmen have seen their stomping grounds ravaged by oil drilling in the mountain west. So in my view a Bush veto is somewhat unlikely. Look at it this way: it pays to have people with guns on your side.

Grab Your Rifle: It's Open Season on Grizzlies in Yellowstone

As I noted last week, the Department of the Interior just issued an opinion on how the Endangered Species Act should be interpreted. And already we're seeing the results: Yellowstone's grizzly bear population just got kicked off the endangered species list.

The grizzly will still continue to be classified as "endangered" in four other geographical areas. The Department of Interior declares that the delisting of Yellowstone's 500 grizzlies is a success. Hunters would agree: In February, Montana approved a bill that would allow grizzlies to be hunted (along with wolves) once they were delisted. Hunting permits are available by lottery and cost $19 for wolves, $50 for grizzlies.

Are 500 animals enough to ensure the genetic diversity and continued growth of an entire species? (Remember there were 100,000 of the creatures roaming the land when Lewis and Clark came through.) Nature thinks no, but apparently our government thinks yes. Happy hunting.

—Jen Phillips

France Opens UFO Files but Remains Skeptical of "the Lady Who Reported Seeing an Object that Looked like a Flying Roll of Toilet Paper"

This month has been big for UFO enthusiasts. France last week unveiled its own X Files, and so many people logged on that the server crashed. The site is back up now but so slow that it feels like traveling back in time to 1996.

You can comb through 1,600 UFO sightings over the past thirty years. Not every vision made the cut. "Cases such as the lady who reported seeing an object that looked like a flying roll of toilet paper" were not worth investigating, Jacques Patenet, head of the office for the study of "non-identified aerospatial phenomena," told New Scientist.

On the other hand, burn marks and radar trackings of flight patterns that defy the laws of physics are taken very seriously. For example, a man working in a field heard a strange whistling sound and saw a saucer-like object about eight feet in diameter land nearby. "It stayed for a few seconds then took off into the blue yonder without making a sound," says Patenet.

UFO buffs are pleased and UFO scoffs may be amused. But Patenet wants scientists to get involved: "We also want to send a message to more scientists, inviting them to help us analyse these phenomena, when otherwise they might feel uneasy about these issues."

How would science explain the sight of a flying roll of toilet paper?

—Rose Miller

Melting Ice Reveals Riches: Canada and Denmark Duke it Out

Canada and Denmark aren't known for being particularly rapacious, war-hungry nations. But neither country is backing down when it comes to the oil, fish, and shipping paths now available thanks to melting icecaps.

The Arctic contains an estimated 25 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and gas supply. Which is why both Canada and Denmark have planted their flags (literally) on the barren, 1/2 sq mile rock called Hans Island. Besides being near potential oceanic drill sites, Hans Island is conveniently located at the mouth to the Northwest Passage, an increasingly iceless Arctic channel that would make freight shipping from Europe to Alaska 60 percent faster than through the Panama Canal.

Americans are also getting in on the land rush: OmniTrax, a US shipping company, bought the northern Manitoba Port of Churchill, for $10 Canadian. It's already pushed 500,000 tons of grain through the tiny harbor.

This is all good and fine for capitalism, but environmentalists are not so happy. The more oil tankers use Arctic shipping lanes like the Northwest Passage, the greater the chance of oil spills. And as Arctic traffic increases, there are more chances of non-native species jumping ship and colonizing the newly warm waters and lands.

Plus there's the fact that, well, people already live there. These peoples, with their long-standing traditions and customs, might just have something to say about other nations rushing to drill their land for oil, or plunging cargo ships through their waters.

One is reminded of British and Dutch colonists ignoring native people's rights, territories, and resources in their rush to reap the booty of a "new" and "uncivilized" land. Will Americans, Danes, and Canadians do the same thing?

—Jen Phillips

Moving Mountains Just Got Harder

Moving mountains may not sound so bad until, that is, you realize you have to put them somewhere. So say detractors of mountaintop removal, a commonly practiced technique for mining coal in the Appalachian Mountains.

Between 1985 and 2001, a federal study estimated that more than 1,200 miles of streams in the Appalachians were buried or severely impacted as a result of mountain top removal, and environmentalists have long decried the Army Corps of Engineers for okaying ditches that have been constructed to replace the waterways—an ecological tradeoff on par with ordering free-range Cornish game hen and getting chicken McNuggets.

On Friday, a District Court Judge in West Virginia agreed, rescinding permits at four state mines, and by ruling that the Army Corps of Engineers’ environmental impact assessments fail to meet the requirements of Clean Water Act. The judge called [PDF] portions of the Corps' assessments “no more than lip service,” pointing out that despite the Corps’ claim that ditches could be connected and made to perform the same function as destroyed streams, the Corps’ own witnesses did “not know of any successful stream creation projects in the Appalachian region.”

Environmental attorney Steve Roady, with Earthjustice, sees the court’s decision as a major victory.

”The federal government has been illegally issuing such permits...The Corps has had every opportunity to prove its claim that mountaintop removal mining can be done without destroying entire watersheds and landscapes.”

And until it does, the court's ruling could impact as many as 60 new coal mines pending permits in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee.

—Koshlan Mayer-Blackwell