A three judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit vacated April 17 the Bush-era program for leasing of land for oil and gas drilling on the US Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) along the Alaskan coast. The court held that the Department of Interior had not carried out an environmental sensitivity study in accordance with the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) when it ranked the sensitivity of various program areas in the Beaufort, Bering, and Chukchi seas only in terms of the physical characteristics of the shoreline of those areas.

Last year it was the oil shock. This year it's the econo-cataclysm. Either way, there's a lesson here. But how many people are going to get it? From AP, April 6:

WASHINGTON — U.S. highway deaths in 2008 fell to their lowest level in nearly 50 years, the latest government figures show, as the recession and $4 per gallon gas meant people drove less to save more.

As the 20th anniversary of the massive Exxon Valdez oil spill dawned March 24, the federal and Alaska state governments have yet to collect all that the oil company agreed to pay. A final $92 million claim for harm to wildlife, habitat and subsistence users filed in 2006 has languished ever since.

Environmental and energy groups across New York state are calling on Gov. David Paterson to back away from promises he made to power producers to rewrite the state's role in nation's first plan to cut global warming pollution, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). According to a March 6 story in the New York Times, the governor made a deal with the Independent Power Producers of New York (IPPNY) last fall to re-open the regulations after the group failed to pressure the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to weaken the RGGI rules.

Five people were arrested March 5 as they blocked an access road to protest blasting near a dam on the Edwight "mountaintop removal" coal mining site operated by Massey Energy in West Virginia. It was the latest in a wave of protest actions against mining operations that blast off the tops of Appalachian mountains and dump the rock waste into valley streams below.

The battle for the Arctic's vast reserves of oil and gas can only be decided by international law, Russia and Denmark said after talks last week in Moscow. Five countries with an Arctic coastline—Russia, the US, Canada, Norway and Denmark through its control of Greenland—have competing claims to the region. Arguing that an underwater ridge links Siberia with the Arctic, Russia plans to claim a vast section of the seabed—with a estimated 13% of the world's undiscovered oil and 30% of undiscovered gas.

James McCarthy, head of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), speaking on the eve of the group's annual meeting in Chicago, warned that Barack Obama has just four years to save the planet. "We have a moment right now of extraordinary opportunity, with a new president, positioned with scientific leadership that has known no equal in recent times," he told BBC News. "If in his first term, in the next four years, we don't make significant progress in these areas, then I think the planet is in huge trouble. Without US leadership, which has been sorely lacking, we will not get to where we need to be." (BBC News, Feb. 12)

The US North Pacific Fishery Management Council, spurred by concerns that commercial fishing fleets looking for untapped sources are about to enter waters off northern Alaska opened up by the break-up of the Arctic ice pack, voted Feb. 5 to close those waters to fishing pending studies on the health and sustainability of fish living under the now-retreating ice pack.