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Nebraska’s Keystone XL decision won’t hinge on Thursday’s 210,000-gallon spill.

Nearly two months after Hurricane Maria, public health researchers in Puerto Rico are limited by the same lack of power, clean water, and infrastructure they are there to study.

Puerto Rico–born José Cordero is one such scientist. In the journal Nature, he describes leading a team through the devastated landscape to collect data on how drinking water contamination affects pregnant women. The scientists have to hurry to finish their work everyday, before night falls across the largely powerless island. Limited telephone access makes it difficult to get in touch with subjects.

Cordero’s project started six years ago to focus on water pollution and pre-term births, but this year’s hurricane has changed both the focus and the level of difficulty of the work. Other researchers have been hampered by hospitals that can’t administer routine tests and hurricane-damaged equipment, making it difficult to collect data on how air and water pollution are affecting health.

Still, Cordero’s team has managed to contact several hundred woman and collect samples of groundwater and tap water from homes near flooded Superfund sites. As he told Nature: “The kind of work we’re doing … has to be done now, because a few years from now, it’s too late.”

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Nebraska’s Keystone XL decision won’t hinge on Thursday’s 210,000-gallon spill.

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As Keystone XL’s fate is decided, activists descend on Nebraska.

Apparently, U.S. Department of Agriculture staff are now supposed to say “weather extremes” instead.

In emails obtained by the Guardian from the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), a unit of the USDA, a department director told employees to make the following phrasing replacements in their work: “reduce greenhouse gases” with “build soil organic matter, increase nutrient efficiency”; “sequester carbon” with “build soil organic matter”; and “climate change adaptation” with “resilience to weather extremes/intense weather events.”

Basically, any reference to climate change or CO2 is a no-no.

Employees were understandably confused, and some were against the change — including one employee who expressed a desire to maintain scientific integrity. But the USDA insisted that it’s not intending to obscure data and studies, and that similar procedures had been executed under other administrations.

Surprise, surprise — these new procedures began days after Trump’s inauguration. The first email obtained by the Guardian, sent by NRCS Deputy Chief for Programs Jimmy Bramblett on Jan. 24, advised of the new administration’s “shift in perspective” with regard to climate change.

That perspective appears to be: Don’t mention it.

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As Keystone XL’s fate is decided, activists descend on Nebraska.

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Oil companies are just not that into Keystone XL.

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Oil companies are just not that into Keystone XL.

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Clinton’s VP pick gets decent reviews from both enviros and fossil fuel industry

citizen kaine

Clinton’s VP pick gets decent reviews from both enviros and fossil fuel industry

By on Jul 23, 2016Share

Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton’s brand-new running mate, appears to have an uncanny ability to appeal to people across the spectrum.

Kaine is no Elizabeth Warren, but he’s no Jim Webb either, getting good reviews from surprising quarters. As Politico reported earlier this month, he opposed the Keystone XL pipeline, protected 400,000 acres of land from development as governor of Virginia, supports the Clean Power Plan, and has worked to prepare coastal communities for climate change and sea-level rise. The League of Conservation Voters has given him a lifetime voting score of 91 percent.

Kaine, however, has also supported offshore drilling in the Atlantic — contradicting Clinton’s position — and supported a bill to fast-track the construction of natural gas terminals. Even fossil fuel interests have taken a liking to him. “We’re encouraged by the reasonable approach he’s taken on oil and natural gas, that he hasn’t been swayed by politics and ideology,” Miles Morin, executive director of the Virginia Petroleum Council, told Politico.

Of course, being on good terms with the fossil fuel industry is a cause for concern among some greens. “If Kaine is the pick, Hillary will need to stake out much clearer positions on drilling, fracking, and new fossil fuel infrastructure,” said 350.org’s Jason Kowalski before Clinton’s choice was made. R.L. Miller, Climate Hawks Vote cofounder and a chair of California Democrats’ environmental caucus, responded to Kaine with a resounding “meh,” citing his mixed record on fossil fuels as something that won’t lure progressive Democrats to the polls.

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Clinton’s VP pick gets decent reviews from both enviros and fossil fuel industry

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Keystone leaks and reminds us why we’re glad there isn’t an even bigger pipeline out there

Keystone leaks and reminds us why we’re glad there isn’t an even bigger pipeline out there

By on 4 Apr 2016commentsShare

A major section of the original Keystone pipeline is out of commission after an oil spill near the pipeline was detected in South Dakota on April 2.

The spill, estimated at 187 gallons of crude oil, serves as a reminder of the risks that pipelines pose — and that with the Obama administration’s rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline proposal, we’ve likely avoided the potential for an even bigger, more disastrous spill.

Part of the original argument against Keystone XL was that eventually, the proposed pipeline was bound to spill. A 2013 Forbes article (which claimed that it was “crazy” to think Keystone XL wouldn’t leak) pointed out that as pipelines age, they are often not properly maintained, leading to a greater possibility of a leak occurring.

The recent oil spill was discovered, of course, by TransCanada’s state-of-the-art spill detection technology — oh, what’s that? My state-of-the-art Tweet detecting system’s “Bill McKibben” sensor just went off:

Apparently, a South Dakota landowner first noticed signs of a spill and informed TransCanada of the leak. As a result, TransCanada shut down the section of the pipeline from Alberta, Canada, to Cushing, Okla. (The section of Keystone that runs from Cushing to Texas is still in operation.)

TransCanada says that “no significant impact to the environment has been observed” from the April 2 spill. We hope it stays that way — and in the meantime, we’re glad that there’s one less huge pipeline out there to worry about. Spilled milk might not be worth crying over, but unspilled pipelines are definitely worth celebrating.

Correction: An earlier version of this article’s headline read “Keystone leaks and reminds us why we’re glad there isn’t an XL pipeline out there.” In fact, the southern leg of the XL pipeline from Oklahoma to Texas is in operation. Grist regrets the error.

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Keystone leaks and reminds us why we’re glad there isn’t an even bigger pipeline out there

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Keystone leaks and reminds us why we’re glad there isn’t an even bigger pipeline out there