Andy Kerr

Conservationist, Writer, Analyst, Operative, Agitator, Strategist, Tactitian, Schmoozer, Raconteur

Ryan Zinke

Offshore Oregon Could Be Despoiled by Wind Power Turbines

Offshore Oregon Could Be Despoiled by Wind Power Turbines

We don’t have to despoil the environment and view off the shore of Oregon to produce carbon-free electricity.

Read More

New US Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Exploitation: Costly and Short Lived (Part 2)

New US Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Exploitation: Costly and Short Lived (Part 2)

For economic, environmental, and societal reasons equally applicable to today’s and future generations, the United States should eschew any new offshore oil and gas exploitation and continue its progress toward a fossil fuel–free sustainable energy economy a decade or two earlier than it otherwise would.

Read More

New US Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Exploitation: Costly and Short Lived (Part 1)

New US Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Exploitation: Costly and Short Lived (Part 1)

The Trump administration is proposing to open up vast areas of the United States Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) to leasing for oil and gas, far larger than the area made available under the Obama administration.

Read More

Zinke’s Move to Defile the Izembek

Zinke’s Move to Defile the Izembek

The Trump administration is trying to allow a 12-mile road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge and wilderness area in Alaska.

Read More

US Pacific Northwest Offshore Oil and Gas: A Waste of Time, Ocean and Coast

US Pacific Northwest Offshore Oil and Gas: A Waste of Time, Ocean and Coast

There is an even chance that 0.4 billion barrels of oil and 2.28 trillion cubic feet of natural gas that are technically exploitable might be discovered under the Outer Continental Shelf offshore Oregon and Washington. At 2017 rates of consumption, this amount of oil and gas would fuel the United States for twenty and thirty-one days respectively.

Read More

Energy Exploitation on Federal Public Lands? Not!

Energy Exploitation on Federal Public Lands? Not!

Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke and I don’t agree on most public lands issues, including greater sage-grouse, national monuments, fossil fuel energy exploitation, and endangered species to name a few. But we do agree on at least one matter: Solar panels don’t belong on public lands.... While photovoltaic panels can happily and profitably live on roofs in town, bighorn sheep, desert tortoises, and sage-grouse cannot.

Read More

Precedent for Secretary Zinke’s Gut-Job on the National Monuments

Precedent for Secretary Zinke’s Gut-Job on the National Monuments

The Trump administration is moving ahead with its intention to review and rescind national monument designations for some public lands. Now a leaked memorandum from Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke shows that he will be pointing to unproclamations of portions of national monuments by previous presidents as precedent.... None of the unproclamations were ever litigated, so there has never been a judicial determination of whether those reputable legal scholars are indeed correct. Now, however, if President Trump acts on Secretary Zinke’s recommendations, the time will come for such a test.

Read More

What’s in a Name? Preserving National Monuments Versus Antiquities Only

What’s in a Name? Preserving National Monuments Versus Antiquities Only

Back in the day, an Act of Congress, signed into law by President Theodore Roosevelt on June 8, 1906, soon after became commonly known as the “National Monument Act.” The more recently used name of the “Antiquities Act of 1906” must now be changed back to “National Monument Act of 1906.”

Read More