Obama pipeline decision courts youth vote

When President Obama announced Thursday that he was delaying a decision on the Keystone XL Pipeline for at least a year, it was partly the result of significant youth lobbying, says Courtney Hight, 32, co-director of the Energy Action Coalition.

The action also may have re-energized a 30s-and-under youth vote that was drifting away from his campaign.

“We are the generation that elected Barack Obama,” said Hight, formerly a staffer with the White House Council on Environmental Quality. “Most of the organizers on the [Obama] campaign were under 30, and believed in this vision that President Obama put out. We were a little frustrated by not seeing the leadership on climate change that we wanted. So the XL Pipeline issue was an opportunity.

“He had been risking young people’s votes, and he showed us that he cares about our vote,” she added. “A lot of us are reinvigorated by the fact that he delayed this pipeline, which essentially kills it.”

A protest action on Sunday, Nov. 6, may have been the game-changer on the Keystone Pipeline decision. That day, about 12,000 people formed concentric rings around the White House to express their outrage over the environmental effectsof the project. Those people, says Hight, were organized by youth organizers from the EAC, the climate change group 350.org and Tar Sands Action, which focuses resistance to the development of the Alberta Tar Sands in Canada, where oil for the pipeline originates. Rather than be described as a protest, the action was seen as giving support to Obama, to show him physically by surrounding his house that he had the political backing to say no to this project. Heavy lifting was also done by mainstream groups the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Chesapeake Climate Action Network, but the youthswere kept out front.

The EAC is a national coalition of about 50 youth environmental organizations, including the Sierra Student Coalition (the youth arm of the Sierra Club) and many other statewide student groups.

Over the summer, the EAC and many of these groups considered the pipeline a done deal -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had said as much -- but students realized that this was one decision the president could make without congressional approval because it was being handled at the State Department. Groups like the Indigenous Environmental Network in South Dakota had been fighting an existing version of the pipeline (it extends into the Dakotas already) for more than four years.

So, in August, students gathered at the White House to express their disapproval, and 1,253 of them were arrested. Hight’s friends inside the White House acknowledged to her that the issue hadn’t really been on the president’s radar until that point. So she and others dug in.

Students in Missouri raised money and bought tickets to Obama campaign fundraisers, at which they asked pointed questions about the pipeline and the tar sands. Soon, students were dogging the campaign, asking questions at Obama for America offices, campaign events, fundraisers and debates. Then, the big action on Sunday.

“I haven’t seen this level of youth involvement in the movement since the Obama campaign,” said Hight. “We’re not done, but we had a win.”

RELATED:
Keystone Pipeline delay draws cheers, dismay

NOAA greenhouse gas index climbs

Obama proposes CO2 regulations

-- Dean Kuipers

Photo: Youth demonstrators are prominent among the 12,000 demonstrators against the Keystone XL Pipeline project who surrounded the White House on Nov.6, 2011. Credit: Shadia Fayne Wood/tarsandsaction.org

Keystone pipeline delay draws cheers, dismay

President Obama's decision Thursday to put off the decision of whether to permit the controversial Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico drew cheers from his environmentalist supporters but heightened criticism from opponents eager for jobs and fuel for the ailing U.S. economy.

The 1,700-mile pipeline would carry oil extracted from Canada's tar sands to the Gulf of Mexico, crossing plains states and the enormous Ogallala aquifer. It has been the target of increased protest and opposition from environmentalists and residents of those states, who complain that the corrosive oil poses a spill threat. In addition, extracting tar sands oil requires a great deal of energy, making the fuel's carbon footprint high, environmentalists say.

To be built, the pipeline requires approval of the U.S. State Department, which on Thursday announced it would study alternative routes, effectively delaying the permit process until after the presidential election next November.

Leading environmental groups said the pipeline proposal was effectively dead, while labor, energy and Republican factions decried the loss of an opportunity to boost supplies of oil and create jobs.

“The lobbying groups pushing for delay are using a whole raft of phony arguments, like air quality. They are ignoring the obvious: Every barrel of oil from Canada means one less from OPEC –- improving national security and reducing the risk of oil spills from tankers," said S. Fred Singer, a senior fellow for environment policy at the Heartland Institute, a conservative group that casts doubt on climate change.

"This will merely show voters that the Obama administration cares more about appeasing its environmental activist allies than doing what is right for our economy and our nation’s energy security," said James Taylor, another senior fellow at the policy group.

Courtney Hight, a former Obama White House staff member and co-director of the Energy Action Coalition, said the move encouraged the mostly young protesters who had pressed the administration to stand up to oil companies and meet its environmental promises made during the 2008 campaign.

"For the last three months, young voters have been calling on President Obama to stand up to Big Oil and deny the Keystone XL pipeline," the group said in a statement. "In this next round of review, young voters  will continue to hold the Obama administration accountable to their commitment to fully consider the climate and environmental justice concerns surrounding Keystone XL. This is a major step in President Obama fulfilling his campaign promises to end the tyranny of oil in the United States and usher in a clean energy economy." 

The Center for American Progress praised the State Department's new caution toward the pipeline.

"The State Department’s announcement that it will take the time to carefully examine alternative Keystone XL pipeline routes is essential to protect the Sand Hill region over the Ogallala Aquifer from pipeline leaks. The aquifer is life blood for farmers in eight states. Any analysis of alternative routes must ensure that the entire Ogallala is protected, as well as other vital water resources, particularly the Missouri and Mississippi river watersheds," the groups said in a statement.

"The Keystone XL tar sands pipeline that we’ve been fighting for months has been effectively killed," said Bill McKibben, head of 350.org, an international climate group. "The president didn’t outright reject the Keystone XL pipeline permit, but a few minutes ago he sent the pipeline back for a thorough re-review that will delay it til 2013. Most analysts agree: The pipeline will never get built." 

House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) blasted the decision as a job killer.

“By punting on this project,” Boehner said, “the president has made clear that campaign politics are driving U.S. policy decisions at the expense of American jobs.”

TransCanada, the pipeline developer, appeared to hold out hope that the State Department would agree to a revised route.

“This project is too important to the U.S. economy, the Canadian economy and the national interest of the United States for it not to proceed,” said TransCanada President Russ Girling.

ALSO:

Obama proposes CO2 regulations

NOAA greenhouse gas index climbs

Keystone XL pipeline decisions to be probed by State Department

-- Geoff Mohan

Photo: Protesters in front of the White House recently voiced opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. Credit: Evan Vucci/Associated Press

NOAA greenhouse gas index climbs

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released its Annual Greenhouse Gas Index (AGGI) number today, which measures the direct climate influence of a select set of greenhouse gases, and the news is not good. The numbers continue to climb, further evidence that the greenhouse effect is on the rise.

This comes on top of a staggering report released by the U.S. Department of Energy last week saying that global emissions of carbon dioxide –- a key, and long-lived, greenhouse gas –- had jumped by the biggest amount on record in the year 2010. The figures showed a 6% increase over the year before. That rise was steeper than worst-case scenarios that had been laid out by climate experts only four years before. That news was met with headlines worldwide calling it a “monster” increase and “the biggest ever seen.”

The Annual Greenhouse Gas Index number, by contrast, looks small, but has big impact. The index is a measure of the combined heating effect of the top greenhouse gases during their life spans as the gasses float around in the atmosphere. The number increased from 1.27 in 2009 to 1.29 in 2010, which is essentially a 2% increase. Since the index started in the Kyoto Protocol year of 1990, which the NOAA team chose as a baseline, the increase has been 29%.

“The way you have to look at these things is over time. So we’re up over 20% over where we were in 1990, in our effort to cut greenhouse gases. So we’re not doing very well,” says Jim Butler, director of the Global Monitoring Division of NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo., which produces the Annual Greenhouse Gas Index.

Numbers on the Annual Greenhouse Gas Index, Butler points out, do not correlate directly to degrees difference in temperature. But when it goes up, warming potential increases.

“The sum of all of those tells you how much we’re increasing the warming potential of the atmosphere,” says Butler. “The analogy I use is the electric blanket. The numbers on the electric blanket don’t correlate to specific temperatures. If you’re really comfortable with it set on 3, and then you gradually turn it up to 6 to get warmer, at first you don’t notice anything. But in a little while you will, and then you’re going to stop turning it up, but you’re going to continue to get hotter.”

NOAA measures the gases in the atmosphere that most directly affect global warming, which it can do, Butler says, “with extreme accuracy.” The top five gases –- carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and two chlorofluorocarbons called CFC11 and CFC12 –- are responsible for more than 95% of the warming effect. About 15 other gases make up the last 5%.

Carbon dioxide is the biggest and baddest, as it is the longest-lived and most abundant. CO2 levels rose to an average of 389 parts per million in 2010, compared with 386 ppm in 2009. Back in the 1880s, before the Industrial Revolution, the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere was about 280 ppm. Other gases are showing similar increases.

One bit of good news in the report: Concentrations of CFCs 11 and 12 are dropping, albeit very slowly. Remember the ban on ozone-depleting aerosol spray propellants? It evidently works. The 1989 Montreal Protocol banned chlorofluorocarbons and they are gradually being reduced.

Perhaps this is an indication that another global protocol might have similar effects on greenhouse gases. Just an idea.

The Annual Greenhouse Gas Index is just a way to make unsexy science into a concept that people can easily grasp. The heat-trapping potential of a gas is called “radiative forcing” and is measured in watts per square meter. Who the heck knows what that means? Butler hopes the index makes it more clear.

“This looked like a good way of presenting much of what we do within our organization, so people can understand the real effects,” he says.

RELATED:

Hewlett-Packard tops Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics

Obama proposes CO2 regulations

EPA's secret list shows pollution unchecked

-- Dean Kuipers

Photo: Giant wind turbines at sunset near Albacete, central Spain, part of Spain’s effort to reach Kyoto Protocol targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Credit: Paul Hanna / Reuters

Hewlett-Packard tops Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics

Hewlett-Packard Co. has claimed the No. 1 spot on the Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics released Wednesday. The Palo Alto-based manufacturer of printers, computers and other consumer electronics scored 5.9 out of a possible 10 points on the 17th iteration of the guide from the international environmental organization.

Hewlett-Packard took the No. 1 position due largely to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from its own operations as well as its suppliers, and a procurement policy that excludes paper from companies linked with illegal logging and deforestation. Computer maker Dell Inc., based in Round Rock, Texas, took second place, and also scored well for its greenhouse gas emission reductions and paper policies. 

Nokia Corp., the world's largest manufacturer of cellphones, based in Finland, fell to third place from the No. 1 ranking it held for more than three years. According to the guide, Nokia reduced its carbon emissions only 18% in 2010 -- far short of its 50% goal.

Apple Inc. of Cupertino, Calif., was ranked fourth, winning maximum points for e-waste and sourcing  minerals from countries that do not trade with insurgent rebel groups. In 2010, 70% of Apple's personal electronics products were recycled. It also scored well for creating products that are free of polyvinyl chloride and brominated fire retardants.

Research In Motion, the maker of BlackBerry smartphones, scored last out of the 15 companies included in the guide. According to Greenpeace, the company does not have a clean electricity plan or a target to increase use of renewable energy. Its products are also energy inefficient, the guide said.

All of the consumer electronics companies Greenpeace researched were ranked in three general categories -- energy, green products and sustainable operations -- each of which was broken down according to more detailed criteria such as clean-energy advocacy, product energy efficiency, avoidance of hazardous substances and use of recycled materials. The information reported in the guide is publicly available and provided by the companies.

"When people say they want green electronics, these are the things they care about," said Casey Harrell, a Greenpeace information technology analyst and co-author of the guide. "They want the products to be as energy efficient as possible. They want them to be recycled and not go overseas. They don't want to be contributing to conflict."

The current guide is the first in which Greenpeace has incorporated companies' paper policies and use of so-called conflict minerals that often come from countries in conflict.

RELATED:

Put e-waste in its right place

Ecollective makes recycling electronics easier

-- Susan Carpenter

Photo: Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics rating. Credit: Greenpeace

Obama proposes CO2 regulations

The Obama Administration announced Tuesday its intention to regulate CO2 emissions from power plants for the first time. The new rule, nimbly titled “Greenhouse Gas New Source Performance Standard for Electric Utility Steam Generating Units,” would allow the Environmental Protection Agency to create emissions standards for new power plants.

It is another end-run around a Congress that has balked at passing cap-and-trade legislation or other remedies to curb greenhouse gases.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that the EPA had the right and responsibility to determine whether greenhouse gases endangered public health, making them subject to regulation under the Clean Air Act. The agency released its "endangerment" finding, a prelude to such regulation, just before the 2009 Copenhagen summit on climate change.

Since then, however, the White House and the EPA have delayed proposing new regulations, under intense pressure from Republican lawmakers, who have tagged the agency as a source of "job-killing regulation."

The White House has said that if Congress failed to act on carbon emissions, it would eventually step in.

The move could appeal to the president’s base at a time when he is taking many other unilateral steps to move his agenda, and as his reelection bid kicks into high gear.

David Doniger, policy director of the Climate and Clean Air Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement, “Setting carbon pollution standards for new power plants is an important first step. President Obama campaigned on moving America to a clean energy future. Cutting dangerous carbon pollution from the nation’s dirty power plants is an essential part of fulfilling that pledge.”

It is likely that the appearance of the rule in the White House agenda will only intensify the political slugfest over the regulation of greenhouse gases. When the EPA first announced that curtailing these gases would fall under its purview, the business community erupted in a fury that continues today.

"We don’t believe that unelected bureaucrats should be doing what Congress was elected to do," said Nicolas Loris, policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, which has battled the EPA regulation of carbon from the outset. “The economic costs of regulation by the EPA or by a cap-and-trade system far outweighs any environmental benefit we would get from these measures."

Asked how the Heritage Foundation would like to see this problem addressed, he added: "First we need to step back and look at what the real problem is: CO2 isn’t black smoke that is emitted from factories; it’s a colorless, odorless gas. Does it contribute to global warming and climate change? Sure. But it’s the role of Congress to figure out the best way to address those effects in a way that protects our economy."

Charlotte Baker, press secretary for the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, stated, “The committee plans to review the rules recently submitted to OMB and remains focused on finding ways to promote common-sense regulations that will protect our environment without destroying jobs or driving up electricity prices for families and job creators."

The committee is chaired by Congressman Fred Upton, who spearheaded a House effort to block the EPA from regulating CO2 and other greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.

RELATED:

EPA's secret list shows pollution unchecked

Judge restricts release of emails among climate scientists

Are birds getting bigger because of global climate change?

-- Dean Kuipers

Photo: The Encina Power Power Station in Carlsbad, Calif. Proposed EPA rules would regulate CO2 emissions from new power plants. Credit: Sandy Huffaker/Bloomberg News.

Are birds getting bigger because of global climate change?

Birds in central California are significantly larger than they were 25 to 40 years ago, and researchers believe it may be because they are bulking up in body weight to ride out severe storms related to global climate change.

Over the last 25 years, a robin, for example, has increased about an eighth of an inch in wing length and about 0.2 ounces in mass, according to a paper published online in Global Change Biology.

The findings fly in the face of assumptions based on an ecological benchmark known as Bergmann’s rule: Birds and mammals tend to be larger at higher latitudes, perhaps to conserve body heat. Under this reasoning, birds and mammals would get smaller as they adapted to rising global temperatures.

But they also suggest that explanations for the bigger birds are more complex, according to researcher Jill Demers, executive director of the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory.

“The degree of physical change over a relatively short scale of time is remarkable and surprising,” Demers said. “Similar studies in Pennsylvania and Europe, for example, show that birds there have decreased in size over the past several decades.”

Overall, birds in central California have grown an average of 2% to 5%  in body weight and wingspan, said Rae Goodman, who discovered the trend while working as a graduate student at San Francisco State University, analyzing data from thousands of birds caught and released each year near San Francisco Bay and the Point Reyes National Seashore.

More study is needed to determine whether these changes are good for central California birds and how they affect food chains, Goodman said.

The data was gathered from “banding stations” where dozens of species of birds each year are captured, banded around the leg with an identification tag, weighed and measured before being released, allowing researchers to analyze physical traits over several decades.

Researchers, including a team from PRBO Conservation Science, analyzed data from 14,735 individual birds collected from 1971 to 2010 near the southern end of Point Reyes National Seashore, and 18,052 birds collected between 1983 and 2009 from the southern end of San Francisco Bay.

“I recently presented my research to my students,” said Goodman, who now teaches biology at San Francisco’s Jewish Community High School of the Bay. “It was something a little more glamorous than the lessons they’re used to.”

ALSO:

 

Burning oil from BP spill produced carbon plumes

Climate skeptic admits he was wrong to doubt temperature data

Forest biofuel projects could increase West Coast carbon emissions

 

-- Louis Sahagun

 

Photo: Common yellowthroat. Credit: Courtesy of San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory.

Keystone XL pipeline decisions to be probed by State Department

The State Department's inspector general's office will launch an inquiry into the department's decisions regarding the Keystone XL pipeline, which would ferry oil from Canada's tar sands formation across the Plains states to the Gulf of Mexico.

The inquiry, in response to a congressional request, will center on whether the department followed laws and regulations in preparing its environmental assessment and statement of national interest for the  1,700-mile-long pipeline.

The investigation was announced in a letter dated Friday but released Monday.

Among the complaints from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) are allegations that the pipeline company, TransCanada, was allowed to review applicants to prepare the environmental impact statement. A company that had done work for TransCanada was chosen. The request also asks the office to look into potential improper communication between the State Department and TransCanada.

Opponents of the project, including environmentalists and citizens in the states affected by the route, say the oil poses a spill threat to the massive Ogalalla aquifer, and that the extraction method creates large amounts of greenhouse gases. Proponents say the oil will help meet U.S. needs and produce jobs at a time of economic recession.

ALSO:

Keystone pipeline decision could be delayed

Former Keystone lobbyist hired by Obama campaign

Nebraska Legislature plans special session on Keystone XL project

-- Geoff Mohan

Photo: Opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline protest at the White House on Sunday. Credit: Evan Vucci / Associated Press

Judge restricts release of emails among climate scientists

A county Circuit judge in Virginia has sided with the University of Virginia's effort to restrict the release of personal emails from one of its former faculty members.

The decision late Wednesday would allow the university to alter an agreement it had reached with the American Tradition Institute, which was seeking communications between Michael Mann, a physicist and climate scientist, and other scientists from 1999 to 2005, when Mann was employed by the university.

The American Tradition Institute, headquartered in Washington, D.C., and Colorado, is a nonprofit policy research and education group that has close ties to energy interests that have opposed climate legislation, including the Koch Brothers.

Mann, now a professor at Penn State University, is best known for his contributions to the so-called hockey stick graph that has been at the center of warnings that Earth's temperature rise has been precipitous and historically unprecedented. It has been used as one of thousands of data analyses that have led the vast majority of climate scientists to conclude that man's emission of greenhouse gases is trapping heat in the atmosphere.

Mann was caught up in a controversy in 2009 related to stolen emails that global-warming skeptics alleged showed an attempt to squelch dissenting views and manipulate data to exaggerate the hockey-stick graph. Mann and others have subsequently been cleared by several high-level scientific panels in England and the U.S.

Those investigations have not satisfied conservative groups that cast doubt about the scientific consensus on climate change. They were seeking, through a public-records request, emails among Mann and other scientists. The emails requested by the group are identical to those identified in a subpoena from Virginia Atty. Gen. Ken Cuccinelli that was rejected by a different judge last year.

Academics have viewed the subpoena and records request as having a potentially chilling effect on academic freedoms at public institutions such as the University of Virginia. But those seeking the information counter that the public has a right to know what goes on inside the universities its taxes fund.

Prince William County Circuit Court Judge Gaylord Finch also granted Mann standing in the records case.

The judge ordered the university and ATI to choose an independent third party by Dec. 20 to evaluate which correspondence should be disclosed and which should be protected.

ALSO:

Another 'climategate' inquiry clears professors

After three strikes, is the 'climategate' scandal out?

British climate researcher had high scientific standards, review finds

-- Geoff Mohan

Photo: Michael E. Mann, a Penn State University professor at the center of a dispute over the release of emails sent while he taught at the University of Virginia. Credit: Penn State University

 

'Snowtober' fits U.N. climate change predictions

While the Northeast is still reeling from a surprise October snowstorm that has left more than a million people without power for days, the United Nations is about to release its latest document on adaptation to climate change.

The report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is expected conclude that there is a high probability that man-made greenhouse gases already are causing extreme weather that has cost governments, insurers, businesses and individuals billions of dollars. And it is certain to predict that costs due to extreme weather will rise and some areas of the world will become more perilous places to live.

Federal climate scientists have labeled 2011 as one of the worst in American history for extreme weather, with punishing blizzards, epic flooding, devastating drought and a heat wave that has broiled a huge swath of the country. Weather related losses amounted to more than $35 billion even before the Nor'easter shellacked the East Coast.

Among the more costly events in the U.S. this year was the flooding of the Mississippi River and tributaries due to rapid melting of the Rocky Mountain snowpack and early spring rains. That event, which prompted the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to open a Mississippi River spillway and flood more than 4,000 acres in Louisiana, caused billion of dollars in direct damage.

April also spawned 875 tornado reports nationwide, well above the 30-year average for the month of 135. The "super outbreak," as climatologists dubbed it, killed 327 people.

Drought in Texas has caused more than $5.4 billion in damage to the cattle industry alone, driving up beef prices, while wildfires consumed 2 million acres. A heat wave throughout much of the country caused 29 states to issue heat advisories in July. Nationwide, the hot spell was blamed for scores of deaths.

The "Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation" will be released Nov. 18. It builds on the climate change panel's previous assessments of the Earth's climate, and is intended to help governments and policymakers boost preparedness for extreme weather events.

ALSO:

Burning oil from BP spill produced carbon plumes

Climate skeptic admits he was wrong to doubt temperature data

Forest biofuel projects could increase West Coast carbon emissions

-- Geoff Mohan

Photo: Children in New Smithville, Pa., make the best of a freak fall snowstorm that cut power to more than 3 million people from Virginia to Maine. Credit: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

Grand Canyon mining ban moves forward

The Obama administration moved closer to adopting a 20-year ban on new mining claims on 1 million acres of land around the Grand Canyon by issuing the final environmental impact statement analyzing potential consequences of the prohibition.

The ban would extend a two-year moratorium established in 2009 that is set to expire in December. Uranium mining claims have jumped 2,000% in recent years in land bordering Grand Canyon National Park and supporters of the ban argue it is necessary to protect Colorado River supplies vital to the Southwest and Southern California.

“For more than a century, this national treasure has endured because a series of American presidents have had the foresight and willingness to safeguard it from mining and other development interests,” said Jane Danowitz, U.S. public lands director for the Pew Environment Group.

The environmental documents, issued Wednesday, will be used to support the Interior Department's final decision, expected after a 30-day review period.

Extending the mining ban would not affect existing claims. According to the impact statement, “as many as 11 uranium mines could be operational over the next 20 years,” including four mines already approved.

The new ban is opposed by the mining industry and Republicans from the region in both houses of Congress, who introduced a bill in October to block it. The legislation was sponsored by Sens. Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee of Utah and John McCain of Arizona, and by Reps. Trent Franks, Jeff Flake, Paul Gosar, David Schweikert and Ben Quayle of Arizona and Rob Bishop of Utah.

“If this study had relied more on science and less on a political agenda, it would confirm that uranium mining in northern Arizona can create jobs and stimulate the local economy without jeopardizing the beauty of Grand Canyon National Park,” Flake said.

ALSO:

California asbestos deposits mapped

Keystone pipeline backers use anti-Saudi message for oil sands 

Fracking used more diesel fuel than estimated, lawmakers say 

-- Neela Banerjee

Photo: Sunset at Mohave Point in Grand Canyon National Park. The Department of Interior is considering a 20-year ban on new mining claims on 1 million acres around the park. Credit: Mark Boster / Los Angeles