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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Rachael Jonassen
Biography provided by participant
Rachael G. Jonassen, PhD, is an authority on climate change science. Before joining LMI, a not-for-profit government consultancy headquartered in McLean, VA, she served as program director at the National Science Foundation, where she led the organization's carbon cycle research efforts for the U.S. Global Change Research Program. As a member of the interagency working group for the carbon cycle, she helped manage the first State of the Carbon Cycle Report, organized the first all-investigators meeting on the carbon cycle, and promoted international cooperation on bilateral climate change agreements. Dr. Jonassen was a lead author of Climate Change: What You Can Do Now (2011), A Federal Leader's Guide to Climate Change: Policy, Adaptation, and Mitigation (2009) and the Strategic Plan for the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (2003). She has a PhD in geology from The Pennsylvania State University.
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