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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Forest Service Pushes for Coal Mining on Protected Lands in CO

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Thursday, December 24, 2015   

DENVER - Time is running out for Coloradans to weigh in on the U.S. Forest Service's plans to open up publicly owned forest land to coal mining in the state. The proposal would allow development on nearly 20,000 acres of protected, roadless wildlife habitat in the state's North Fork Valley.

Ted Zukoski, an attorney with Earthjustice, says mining for coal also will release large amounts of methane, which is more than 80 times more powerful than CO2 as a heat-trapping gas.

"This is a double whammy for the climate," says Zukoski. "When you're mining a bunch of coal which then gets burned and adds to climate change, but then you're also just wasting millions of cubic feet a day of methane into the atmosphere, which is another hit on climate change."

Arch Coal, whose West Elk Mine stands to benefit from the move, told High Country News the Forest Service's proposal would help keep good-paying jobs in the region. But Zukoski points to Forest Service projections showing dumping more coal on the market would undercut clean-energy jobs.

In June, a federal judge blocked the Forest Service plan and sent the agency back to calculate the risks to climate change. Zukoski says the Service's own analysis found mining could cost the global economy through loss of agriculture, impacts on public health, property and other damages as much as $12 billion.

Zukoski adds, the Forest Service is trying to reopen a loophole in a Colorado rule that allows practices banned on National Forest land in every other state.

"This kind of bulldozing road construction through roadless forest, which is some of the most important forest for clean water and wildlife habitat is prohibited," he says. "Federal law prohibits that."

The Forest Service is accepting public comments on its proposal through Jan. 15.




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