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.'"
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Lewis Milford
Biography provided by participant
Lewis Milford is President and founder of Clean Energy Group and the Clean Energy States Alliance, two nonprofit organizations that work with state, federal and international organizations to promote clean energy technologies. He also works with many public agencies (including public pension funds) in the United States and Europe that invest in clean energy.
Mr. Milford is frequently asked to appear as an expert panelist at energy conferences throughout the United States and Europe. His articles promoting clean energy have appeared in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Electricity Journal and Solar Today.
Prior to founding CEG in 1998, Mr. Milford was a vice president of the Conservation Law Foundation, where he conducted litigation and advocacy relating to a variety of energy and environmental issues and testified before numerous legislative and regulatory agencies. Previously, Mr. Milford was a New York Assistant Attorney General representing the State of New York in the Love Canal hazardous waste case, and a law professor and director of the public interest law clinic at American University in Washington, D.C., where in federal court and before Congress he represented Vietnam War veterans harmed by Agent Orange.
Mr. Milford is the co-author of Wages of War, a social history of American war veterans, published by Simon and Schuster in 1989. He has a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Rutgers College.
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