by Greg Walcher, E&E Legal Senior Policy Fellow The Daily Sentinel A couple of years ago I mentioned a report called, “Beyond Carbon-Free: A Framework for Purpose-Led Renewable Energy Procurement and Development.” It was published by an energy company in Seattle, together with the Nature Conservancy and the National Audubon Society. It suggested that the [...]
by Greg Walcher, E&E Legal Senior Policy Fellow As appearing in the Daily Sentinel There is a line in “The Music Man,” just after Harold Hill steps off the train, when he asks a local man on the street, “What do you folks do around here for excitement?” The stranger responds curtly, “Mind our business.” [...]
by Greg Walcher, E&E Legal Senior Policy Fellow As appearing in the Daily Sentinel Last week we mentioned the Biden administration’s “Investing in America Agenda,” and how the Interior Department is spending $44 million of its windfall share of the recent massive spending bills. It is ironic, to say the most, to call government spending [...]
by Greg Walcher, E&E Legal Senior Policy Fellow As appearing in the Daily Sentinel In the 1980s Gunnison philanthropist Butch Clark offered a novel way to end the age-old West Slope-East Slope water battles. He suggested that Denver could use the Colorado River’s remaining unallocated water by building a pipeline from the Utah line to [...]
by Greg Walcher, E&E Legal Senior Policy Fellow As appearing in the Daily Sentinel A couple of weeks ago a letter to the editor appeared in this paper and six others around the state, asserting that “Removing trees from Colorado forests will not prevent wildfires from burning.” Really? As if removing all the wood from [...]
by Greg Walcher, E&E Legal Senior Policy Fellow As appearing in the Daily Sentinel A quantum physicist named Erwin Schrodinger, in a 1935 discussion with Albert Einstein, suggested a concept known as Schrodinger’s Cat, whereby an animal is both alive and dead, depending on unknowable hypothetical circumstances. There is a modern variation, in which someone [...]
by Greg Walcher, E&E Legal Senior Policy Fellow As appearing in the Daily Sentinel The headline read, “Supreme Court Reins in EPA on Clean Power Plan.” On the last day of its recent session, the court released its long-anticipated ruling in West Virginia vs. EPA, four consolidated cases representing 19 states, numerous labor unions, utilities, [...]
by Greg Walcher, E&E Legal Senior Policy Fellow As appearing in the Daily Sentinel The New York Times recently opined that the endangered species law could be used to stop oil and gas production nationwide, because no matter where the drilling is, it contributes to climate change everywhere. Thus, sea turtles in Florida or monk [...]
by Greg Walcher, E&E Legal Senior Policy Fellow As appearing in the Daily Sentinel At the age of 97, former President Jimmy Carter has stepped into a dispute about a short gravel road to an isolated village in Alaska. The road would connect King Cove, population 750, to the small air strip at Cold Bay, [...]
by Greg Walcher, E&E Legal Senior Policy Fellow As appearing in the Daily Sentinel The “butterfly metaphor” describes the need for people and organizations to change their ways, thinking differently about the way things have always been. It is fitting in the halls of government, where the status quo is paramount, and pundits joke about [...]
