Environment & Energy

Our planet faces unprecedented environmental challenges, threatening ecosystems, species, coastal communities, and all too often, human life itself. Heading the list of threats is climate change, with its promise of drastic environmental, economic, and cultural upheaval. But we also face persistent problems of air and water pollution, toxic wastes, cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay and other Great Waters, and protecting natural resources and wildlife.

Central to the environmental health of the nation and the planet is decreasing our dependence on energy derived from burning fossil fuels. Our continued reliance on these sources is literally endangering the planet's ability to sustain life as we know it. Yet many policymakers, with the financial and rhetorical support of energy companies bent on making a profit at the cost of the planet's health, continue to resist desperately needed reforms. Read about CPR’s work protecting the environment in reports, testimony, op-eds and more. Use the search box to narrow the list.

Water War in the Klamath Basin: Macho Law, Combat Biology, and Dirty Politics

In the drought summer of 2001, a simmering conflict between agricultural and environmental interests in southern Oregon's Upper Klamath Basin turned into a guerrilla war of protests, vandalism, and apocalyptic rhetoric when the federal Bureau of Reclamation shut down the headgates of the Klamath Project to conserve water needed by endangered species. This was the first time in U.S. history that the headgates of a federal irrigation project were closed—and irrigators denied the use of their state water rights—in favor of conservation. Farmers went so far as to mount a brief rebellion to keep the water flowing, but ultimately conceded defeat. In Water War in the Klamath Basin: Macho Law, Combat Biology and Dirty Politics, CPR Member Scholars Holly Doremus and A. Dan Tarlock examine the genesis of the crisis and the fallout from it.

Read Online
Author(s): Holly Doremus, A. Dan Tarlock
Letter to EPA re nominees to new advisory committee on IRIS

CPR letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson regarding candidates for scientific advisory committee of Integrated Risk Information System profiles, with particular attention to candidates' conflicts of interest

Type: Letters to Agencies (June 15, 2012)
Read PDF
Author(s): Rena Steinzor, Matt Shudtz
Joel Mintz's testimony before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on EPA's enforcement record

Joel Mintz's June 6, 2012 testimony before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power on EPA's enforcement record.

Type: Legislative Testimony (June 6, 2012)
Read PDF
Author(s): Joel Mintz

Advanced Search Filters

Reset Filters