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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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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 Myorkas.

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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.

Report: Presidents Could Prevent 450 Billion Tons of Climate Pollution

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Monday, September 14, 2015   

DENVER – A new report from the Center for Biological Diversity highlights how President Barack Obama – or any other sitting president – has legal authority to prevent 450 billion tons of climate pollution.

Michael Saul, a senior attorney with the center, says that's how much carbon the president could keep from being extracted on publicly owned lands – without waiting for Congress.

"This is a hugely powerful and immediately available tool to mitigate the potentially catastrophic effects of climate change," he states.

The report makes the case that any president could stop issuing new leases – and prohibit energy development on public lands – under powers already established in a series of federal land management acts.

Saul admits the notion of telling the energy sector to stop drilling may seem far-fetched in today's political climate. Several coal-producing states – including Colorado – have joined a lawsuit against the EPA's Clean Power Plan, claiming regulations would hurt the economy and lead to job loss.

Saul says the Clean Power Plan alone won't keep global temperatures from rising to potentially irreversible levels.

The center's study found the amount of carbon yet to be extracted from federally controlled public lands, if burned, would result in 13 times more climate pollution than was released across the entire planet in 2013.

"What's conservative here is actually taking real steps not simply to increase the efficiency of this system but to say, 'These fuels need to stay in the ground,'" he stresses.

The study points to scientific research showing that, in order to preserve a habitable climate, a vast majority of fossil fuel reserves should not be burned.

Saul says since good legal arguments already are in place, all that's needed now is a president willing to step up.



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