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Like a losing army that loots and then sets fire to a village before retreating, the Bush Administration continues to employ a "loot and run" strategy, gutting as many environmental regulations as they can before leaving office. As I reported in October, the Bush Administration has been rushing to codify new mining waste rules that would clear away a critical protection against the devastating practice of mountaintop removal coal mining that is decimating mountains, watersheds and communities across the region. Yesterday, they won approval of the new "Stream Buffer Rule" - I put that in quotes since it's not much of a buffer for streams anymore - which will make it even easier for mining companies to dump "mining waste" - aka the tops of whole mountains! - on top of running streams.

The Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the nation's most powerful environmental groups, has managed to persuade Bank of America, one of the nation's leading financial institutions, to take a measured stand against certain surface mining practices. At the N.R.D.C.'s Switchboard blog, Rob Perks, director of the organization's Center for Advocacy Campaigns in Washington, said the group managed to persuade Bank of America executives to visit several mountaintop mine sites in Appalachia - including Kayford Mountain, which has been laid low by mountaintop mining methods.

The Bush administration is trying to make it tougher for Congress to block mining and oil and gas drilling on public lands. The Bureau of Land Management, which manages 258 million acres of federal property, stripped from its regulations Thursday a provision that gives two Congressional committees the power to compel the Interior Secretary to temporarily place public land off limits to mining and oil and gas development.

This may be the beginning of a bright new future for uranium mining in New Mexico. Uranium Resources, Inc., announced that the Mining and Minerals Division of the New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department granted the company a permit to conduct exploratory drilling in the Ambrosia Lake area, where the company has approximately 2.4 million pounds of mineralized uranium material combined on several sections. The permit allows URI to drill 10 uranium exploratory holes about six miles west of the village of San Mateo.

China on Monday began the construction of eight coal mining, power and chemical projects worth about 40 billion yuan (5.8 billion U.S. dollars) in the northwest in an effort to drive domestic demand and promote economic growth. The projects in the Ningdong area in Lingwu City and Wuzhong City, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, included three coal mines with a total annual capacity of 22 million tonnes and three power plants with a combined capacity of 4.4 million kw.

A geologist with the New Brunswick Mines Branch in Bathurst has taken exception to media articles concerning unsafe levels of radon and uranium in the Harvey area ("Radon dangers aren't that dire," Telegraph-Journal, May 26). He dismisses any suggestion that well water potentially contaminated with radon or uranium poses a health threat, yet provides no evidence to support his assertion. He also suggests that mortality rates in the Harvey area aren't any different that any other place in the province, but doesn't provide any data to support this claim.

George Bush is behaving like a furious defaulter whose home is about to be repossessed. Smashing the porcelain, ripping the doors off their hinges, he is determined that there will be nothing worth owning by the time the bastards kick him out. His midnight regulations, opening the United States's wilderness to logging and mining, trashing pollution controls, tearing up conservation laws, will do almost as much damage in the last 60 days of his presidency as he achieved in the foregoing 3 000.

Given the converging financial, ecological, and energy situations, I often wonder what we should be telling our children about subjects that are a)over their heads and b)potentially 'R' rated or worse. Verbal navigation between hope and reality is difficult enough for our adult network, let alone the generation of young people growing up under our influence. Below the fold is a letter I wrote to the 7 yr old son of a friend of mine who asked his mom 'When will the oil run out?'.

President Bush will establish three national monuments in the Pacific Ocean today in a move that will protect a vast marine ecosystem from mining, oil exploration, and commercial fishing. With the stroke of a pen this afternoon, Bush will have set aside more square miles of ocean for protection than any other political leader in history. The three new monuments, surrounding far-flung islands, reefs and atolls scattered across the Pacific, will add 195,000 square miles of protected waters to the nearly 140,000 square miles around the Northwest Hawaiian Islands that Bush protected in 2006 [Los Angeles Times]. The United States has authority over these waters because the tiny atolls and islands are U.S. territories. The three areas are thronged with fish, sharks, coral reefs, and other forms of sea life, all of which will benefit from the new protections. Blue-water fish such as yellowfin, bigeye tuna, and marlin-all in decline-will be big winners because they breed in these waters. So will sharks, birds, turtles, and dolphins accidentally caught by the tuna long-line fleets [ScienceNOW Daily News]. One of the new national monuments also encompasses the deepest location of the earth's crust. The Marianas Trench, which reaches depths of more than 36,000 feet in some locations, contains undersea volcanoes and hydrothermal vents around which cluster tough organisms that can withstand high temperatures and harsh chemicals. These "extremophiles" are of interest to scientists who think they signal forms that extraterrestrial life could take.

The White House is working to enact a wide array of federal regulations, many of which would weaken government rules aimed at protecting consumers and the environment, before President Bush leaves office in January. The new rules would be among the most controversial deregulatory steps of the Bush era and could be difficult for his successor to undo. Some would ease or lift constraints on private industry, including power plants, mines and farms.

It's known for being the world's cheapest fuel, but Chinese coal is actually more expensive than ever: a new report estimates that the environmental and social costs of China's coal usage hit RMB1.7 trillion ($248 billion) last year, or about 7.1% of the country's GDP. The other key numbers, according to the report, by Greenpeace, the Energy Foundation and WWF: coal is the source of 70% of the country's energy, 85% of China's sulphur dioxide emissions, 67% of its nitrogen dioxide emissions, 80% of its carbon dioxide emissions, and creates 25% of China's waste water. China's coal mines are the world's deadliest, killing an average of 13 miners a day. For some cough-worthy visual evidence, take a look at the city of Linfen.

It didn't start that way: His land was once a low hill in a rugged hardwood forest - cherry, oak, hickory - skipping from ridge to ridge across one of the poorest, most rural areas of the Lower 48. Then came the mining companies with their dynamite and their trucks. They clear-cut the forest, blew the tops off the ridges and scraped the rocks into the hollows, pushing hundreds of feet of mountains into the valleys below.

Craters so huge they can be seen from space. Thousands of miles of rivers and streams polluted by acidic runoff. Miners can pay the government no more than $5 an acre for the chance to make a fortune or go bust -- and stick taxpayers with millions of dollars in cleanup costs. It is the legacy of an 1872 federal law that still allows miners to take precious metals from public land for next to nothing.

While UCG may lose out to CSM in Queensland's coal fields, the unhealthy Chinese interest in coal to liquids (and plastics) continues unabated, with their latest move being an interest in taking Linc Energy's UCG technology to the Chinese coal fields - Linc inks UCG deal in China. Linc Energy Ltd has signed a deal with Xinwen Mining Group to develop underground coal gasification (UCG) and gas to liquids (GTL) projects in China. The Queensland-based group has signed a letter of intent with Xinwen, the same company which agreed to acquire a package of Linc's Australian coal exploration permits for $1.5 billion.

Coal River Vally, WV, has become home to a civil disobedience campaign against Massy Energy company in an attempt to halt their destructive mountaintop renewal coal mining practices. Kay Sexton, with her regular run down of environmental protests, has been examining the "imperatives and complexities" of protests that are unique to the environmentalist movement. Here's another data point to add into the discussion. I've mentioned before that I don't always think that the environmental movement benefits from protests. Channeling the Greenpeace mentality of chaining people to trees often seems to generate bad press more then it advances a cause. But, there are times when even my cynical take on the efficacy of protest has to be subverted by out-and-out necessity.

I was going to write about Tom Paine. The upcoming 200th anniversary of his death on June 9 certainly needs to be acknowledged, but if the people of Cumberland County can pull together to prevent the despoiling of their God-given land, they will do more to honor Tom's memory than my feeble words, so I'll defer for now. When coal burns, most of it turns into gas (carbon dioxide), but heavier minerals are left behind in the ash. Therefore, coal ash contains concentrated amounts of toxic metals such as mercury, lead, arsenic and heavy radioactive elements. As I said in an earlier column, Wake Forest University found Emory River arsenic measurements hundreds of time higher than allowable levels after the TVA ash spill. Radioactivity in the ash is over 50 percent above allowable levels in uranium mining waste.

For years, residents of the tiny lakeside community near Kingston, Tennessee, watched as the local power plant mixed tons of leftover coal ash with water and pumped the heavy mud into a massive pond just up the road. "We never gave it a second thought," says resident Diane Anderson. To read more of Kelly Hearn's reporting on the TVA spill, check out "Toxic Coal in Tennessee," "Tennessee's Dirty Data" and "The Dredge Report." Share this article * * * * Add to Mixx! * * * Related * Also By * Radioactive Revival in New Mexico Environment Shelley Smithson: Navajos say "No!" as the return of uranium mining threatens to despoil their lands and health. * The Most Important Number on Earth Environment OntheEarthProduction : Bill McKibben, Noam Chomsky and Terry Tempest Williams discuss the urgent need reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide to 350 parts per million. » More * Tennessee Spill: Regulation Hazards Environment Kelly Hearn: The recent coal ash spill in Tennessee reveals the toxic fallacy that states should regulate industrial waste. * Letters Subscribe Our Readers & Kelly Hearn * Tennessee Spill: The Dredge Report Environment Kelly Hearn: The TVA's efforts to clean up after its massive coal ash spill may create even more health hazards. But on December 22 the pond collapsed, triggering a billion-gallon mudslide that knocked houses off foundations and roiled into the Emory River. State officials and the Tennessee Valley Authority, the federally funded utility responsible for the spill, scrambled to allay fears, saying that the ash wasn't toxic and that the drinking water was safe. But residents also heard about the litany of harmful substances in the ash, like arsenic and lead, and about studies linking it to cancer.

Even before George W. Bush can settle into his new house in Dallas, his legacy on the environment is being dismantled by his replacement in the White House. In less than two months, President Obama has put on hold Bush's plans for power-plant pollution, offshore oil drilling, nuclear waste storage and endangered species. THE PRESIDENT'S AGENDA: What's been done, what lies ahead The Obama team has rolled out policies Bush officials delayed, such as requiring higher energy efficiency from appliances. Such moves have significant impacts and not just on the environment. They could affect electric bills, gas prices and the time it takes to build highways, dams and bridges.

A high-level fight has erupted within the Interior Department between the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service over plans to sell leases for oil and gas drilling near Arches, Canyonlands and Dinosaur National Monument. The Park Service wants to delay the Dec. 19 lease sales. The BLM has refused to do so. "We're not anti-oil and gas but we're very much pro-park," said Denver-based Park Service regional director Mike Snyder. "I'm not saying not to put those up for a lease sale. I'm just asking they wait until the next quarter."

Hazardous-waste spills and discoveries reported to Colorado authorities nearly doubled over the past decade, from an average of 561 a year from 1998 to 2000 to an average of 1,035 from 2005 to 2007. Population growth, carelessness, and the boom in oil and gas drilling are largely to blame.