Energy & Environment: Markey Wants Answers on Rare Earths
• Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., "is pressing the Obama administration for information about alleged Chinese restrictions on the export of rare earth minerals used in defense and energy technologies, warning of threats to U.S. interests," The Hill reports.
• "Three months after BP capped its runaway well in the Gulf of Mexico, the state of Louisiana is still building a chain of sand berms off its coast to block and capture oil even as federal officials and many scientists argue that the effort will prove pointless," the New York Times reports.
• An Idaho couple has "sued the state to stop the shipments by Imperial Oil and ConocoPhillips" to an oil sands site in Canada, "arguing that the" truck loads delivered there "would threaten the integrity of Idaho's historic portion of U.S. 12, as well as the safety of communities that depend on it as the main road in and out of the area," the Times also reports. "National environmental groups and climate change activists are supporting their efforts, seeing a broader opportunity to stall development of Canada's oil sands, which they denounce as a dirty source of energy. "
• "Combating climate change has long taken a back seat to coal production in West Virginia, but in the hard-fought House race in this state's 1st district, global warming hasn't even made it onto the bus," The Hill reports. "In interviews on Thursday, both the Democratic and Republican nominees for Congress voiced skepticism of the science behind global warming, and the Republican, David McKinley, flatly called concerns about climate change 'an attack on coal.'"
Contributor
Henry D. Sokolski
Biography provided by participant
Henry Sokolski is the Executive Director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center (NPEC), a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization founded in 1994 to promote a better understanding of strategic weapons proliferation issues among policy-makers, scholars and the media. He currently serves as an adjunct professor at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C., and as a member of the Congressional Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism.
Sokolski previously served as Deputy for Nonproliferation Policy in the Department of Defense, for which he received a medal for outstanding public service from Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney. He also worked in the Office of the Secretary of Defense's Office of Net Assessment, as a consultant to the National Intelligence Council, and as a member of the Central Intelligence Agency's Senior Advisory Group. In the U.S. Senate, Sokolski served as a special assistant on nuclear energy matters to Senator Gordon Humphrey (R-NH), and as a legislative military aide to Dan Qualye (R-IN).
Sokolski has authored and edited a number of works on proliferation, including Best of Intentions: America's Campaign Against Strategic Weapons Proliferation (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2001); Nuclear Heuristics: Selected Writings of Albert and Roberta Wohlstetter (Strategic Studies Institute, 2009); Falling Behind: International Scrutiny of the Peaceful Atom (Strategic Studies Institute, 2008); Pakistan's Nuclear Future: Worries Beyond War (Strategic Studies Institute, 2008); Gauging U.S.-Indian Strategic Cooperation (Strategic Studies Institute, 2007); Getting Ready for a Nuclear-Ready Iran (Strategic Studies Institute, 2005); and Getting MAD: Nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction, Its Origins and Practice (Strategic Studies Institute, 2004).
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