Displaying items by tag: sierra club

“Freedom of Speech.” Norman Rockwell/Library of Congress

Stand up for wildlands, wildlife and water — all threatened by proposed Congressional bills

Dan Ritzman is director of the Sierra Club Conservation Campaign.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Our public lands are facing unprecedented threats, and time is running out to protect them. Scientists tell us we need to double the amount of protected lands and waters in America by 2030 to fight the climate and extinction crisis. Congress is pushing through several dangerous bills that could dismantle essential safeguards and open up our natural treasures to devastating exploitation.

Here’s the urgent situation and what we’re fighting against:

• Fix Our Forests Act (HR 8790): This bill could weaken environmental protections, promote excessive logging and bypass crucial reviews, risking the health of our forests and worsening climate change.
• Save Our Sequoias Act (HR 2989): While claiming to protect Giant Sequoias, this legislation could actually harm these iconic trees by speeding up logging projects and removing key environmental protections.
• Forest Information Reform Act (FIR Act) (HR 200) & Senate Bill S 1540: These bills would exempt the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management from critical environmental consultations and reviews, ignoring new information and putting endangered species at risk.
• Cottonwood S1540: This bill aims to undermine important environmental checks established by previous court decisions, threatening sensitive habitats and wildlife.
• Wyoming Public Lands Initiative (S1348): This proposal could compromise protections for Wyoming’s public lands, increasing resource extraction and reducing conservation efforts.

Protecting wild places will keep drilling and logging from dumping pollution into the air, sequester emissions, provide protection from extreme weather, homes for wildlife and opportunities for people to enjoy the outdoors together.

Your support today will help ensure that our public lands remain protected for future generations.

Citizens are objecting to plans to replace the coal boilers at Kingston Fossil Plant with natural gas.  Ben Pounds/Hellbender Press

Solar? Gas? Future of Kingston plant up in the air

KINGSTON — Tennessee Valley Authority is considering whether to go with gas or solar power after it closes the infamous Kingston Fossil Plant in Tennessee.

The plant has stood since 1955 in Roane County. The federal utility plans to close Kingston Fossil plant and is looking at ways to replace the power it generated. It’s asking the public for comments. The utility’s proposals center around replacing the power generated by the plant with either solar generation or natural gas. One option includes replacing the coal-powered plant at the site with a fossil gas plant.

TVA recently proposed to retire three units between 2026 and 2031 and the other six units between 2027 and 2033. Ash spilled from a dike at this plant in 2008. A lawsuit was recently resolved surrounding the health damage to people working on cleaning up the spill. TVA has identified trouble with starting up and shutting down the plant for power generation and technical issues with lower boilers as the reasons for closing the plant, not the spill.

Old Growth  U.S. National Park Service

On July 14, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Department of the Interior opened a public comment period following President Biden’s Executive Order to conserve mature and old-growth forests.

The deadline for comments is Tuesday, Aug. 30. Now is the time to protect our federally managed forests to safeguard our communities from the future impacts of climate change. Make your voice heard and submit a comment to the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management.

The mature and old-growth trees in our federally managed forests are one of this country’s greatest resources. These forests provide critical habitats for wildlife, prevent erosion and flooding, protect our drinking water, and are an essential climate solution.

United States forests cover about 290 million hectares of land and make up the fourth largest forest area of any country in the world. In 2019, the carbon sequestered in these forests offset approximately 12 percent of United States greenhouse gas emissions.

— Sierra Club

A hopper car on a train filled with coal to be delivered to a TVA coal-fired plant. John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout

Climate bill designates TVA as a potential recipient of clean energy investments and loans

This story was originally published by Tennessee Lookout.

KNOXVILLE — Clean-energy advocates are urging the Tennessee Valley Authority to use funds provided through the Inflation Reduction Act to deliver environmentally friendly energy to Tennessee customers. 

The massive bill Congress passed Friday includes $370 billion for clean energy investments and listed TVA as an entity that is eligible to take advantage of clean energy credits and loans to significantly reduce the cost of energy-efficient infrastructure. 

On Aug. 12, the Clean Up TVA Coalition, including the Sierra Club, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and Appalachian Voices, urged TVA to take advantage of the legislation and make funds available to its affiliated local power companies, which can then offer energy-efficient options for customers.

Alex Pulsipher holds a sign demanding that TVA transition to 100 percent renewable energy at a rally Wednesday in Market Square in Knoxville. Courtesy Amy Rawe/Southern Alliance for Clean Energy

Varied environmental groups offer unified plea for clean energy, coal ash management and accountability from TVA

It was people power generating energy at Market Square in downtown Knoxville on Wednesday.

A coalition of civic and environmental groups and their representatives met at the bottom of the two Tennessee Valley Authority towers urging the public utility to reopen meetings to public comment; swear off all fossil fuels by 2030; and carefully tend to the needs of those affected by coal ash and devise a plan to contain it for the safety of current and future generations.