By BRENDAN RILEY

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

CARSON CITY -- An internationally known climate scientist who will receive the Nevada Medal today

in Reno has challenged Gov. Jim Gibbons on his support for new coal-fired power plants in the state.

In a letter Monday to Gibbons, James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space

Studies, questioned plans for the plants proposed for eastern Nevada and urged the governor to "come

down firmly on the side of clean energy and energy efficiency."

Hansen, getting the state Desert Research Institute's Nevada Medal at an event co-chaired by first lady

Dawn Gibbons, said the governor should block permits for the coal-fired plants until there are "concrete

plans" for capturing pollutants that contribute to global warming.

The scientist also said he hoped that Gibbons, a Republican, would base his decision on what's good for

the state and the planet rather than on party-line considerations. Gibbons' stance on the power plants has

put him at odds with U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

Instead of coal-fired plants that produce carbon dioxide emissions, Hansen said, Nevada could become

a leader in solar energy production.

"There is enough solar energy in a small fraction of our desert Southwest to provide all of the electrical

needs of the United States," he said.

Hansen, a political independent, is no stranger to controversy. In late 2006, he accused the Bush

administration of trying to silence him after a speech on global warming.

Gibbons spokesman Ben Kieckhefer said the governor wants "to set Nevada on a path for energy

independence" that includes renewable power sources. But he added that Gibbons sees clean-coal

technology as part of that goal.

Kieckhefer said the coal-fired plant that Sierra Pacific Resources wants to build near Ely would help

meet the state's power needs and would help promote new methods of capturing pollutants.

A cross-state power transmission line that would be part of the Sierra project also would give renewable

energy companies in remote areas a way to get their power onto the grid, he added.

The governor, listed as a co-chairman of the DRI event, won't attend today because he is going to a

Republican Governors' Association meeting in Texas, Kieckhefer said.

Coal plants provide more than half of the nation's electricity. They are the largest domestic source of the

greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, emitting 2 billion tons annually, or about one-third of the country's total.

____________________________________________________________________________

IuT5rAlMA

 Bush floating new climate proposal

 By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer Mon Apr 14, 9:35 PM ET

WASHINGTON - The White House has told a group of House GOP conservatives

It  may be forced to support a limited cap on greenhouse gases and avoid a

"train wreck" of regulations involving climate change, sources familiar

 with the meeting said Monday.

A range of options presented at a meeting last week between senior White

House officials and a group of Republican lawmakers was aimed at gauging

the reaction to a possible shift of Bush administration policy on climate change.

"The meeting was set up to float a few trial balloons" and it did not go

well, with some participants viewing it as "political appeasement" on

global warming, said a GOP operative who was briefed on the meeting. He

 said, given the response, the White House may be retreating on the issue.

White House press secretary Dana Perino acknowledged Monday that the

administration was working on new climate change proposals, but said no

decision had been made. "We're having a very robust discussion," said

Perino at a White House briefing. "There's a basket of things that we're

dealing with."

At the meeting, White House officials outlined a range of options that were

 being considered, from simply proposing a set of "principles" to proposing

 to cap greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, according to two

 individuals familiar with the discussions.

Perino disputed that description, saying the White House officials, rather

than presenting the lawmakers with options, "went up to discuss with

members the range of complications and concerns" raised by the possibility

of having to regulate greenhouse gases under existing laws.

The Bush administration has been a staunch opponent of a mandatory

so-called "cap-and-trade" approach to reducing greenhouse gases,

preferring largely voluntary measures to broadly address global warming.

"We aren't necessarily against cap-and-trade proposals," Perino said

Monday, but she added quickly, "What we've seen so far from Congress is

not something that we can support."

The Senate is expected in June to begin debate on legislation,

co-sponsored by Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and John Warner, R-Va., that would cap

greenhouse gas emissions from most sources and allow polluters to purchase

emission permits instead of making actual reductions. It is designed to

cut emissions 70 percent by mid-century. The House also is planning to draft climate legislation soon.

Among the proposals floated by the administration at the meeting last week

was one that would limit the emissions cap to electric power plants, while also allowing a "safety valve" if the cost is found to be too high. The

Senate bill has no such escape valve and covers emissions almost across the economy.

The administration's views were presented by James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and Keith Hennessey, president's economic council. Among those at the meeting were Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri, the No. 2 House Republican; Rep. James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, the ranking Republican on the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming; and Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill. All are members of a group of House Republicans who have been critical of cap-and-trade climate legislation.

The meeting was first reported Monday by The Washington Times. The White House search for a new climate initiative comes amid growing indication that mandatory action to address global warming is highly likely, if not now, in the next year or so. All three presidential candidates — Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, and the presumptive GOP nominee, John McCain — have said greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, must be reduced.

At the same time, the administration is facing growing pressure to regulate carbon dioxide under the existing federal clean air law. "We are dealing with what we call a regulatory train wreck," said Perino on Monday, using language similar to that used by the White House officials during their meeting with the GOP lawmakers last week.

The Environmental Protection Agency has been told by the Supreme Court that carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas, is a pollutant and must be regulated if the EPA determines it is a danger to health and welfare.

At the same time, the Interior Department is under pressure to give polar bears special protection under the Endangered Species Act because of disappearing Arctic sea ice. A lawsuit also has been filed under the same law for more protection for arctic seals.

Together these cases would pull the enforcement of the Clean Air Act and the Endangered Species Act into the debate over climate change. This is a "regulatory trajectory ... we think is fraught with peril and that will ultimately end up in a train wreck," said Perino.

The White House officials made a similar case in their meeting with the GOP lawmakers, according to two individuals familiar with the discussion. They were told, however, that the cap-and-trade proposal being considered would  be rejected by congressional Democrats, while alienating GOP conservatives.

EXh4p.RefYeMUA

Hunters worry about global warming

By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer Thu Apr 10, 3:16 AM ET

WASHINGTON - Global warming could force elk and mule deer from much of the

American West. Wild trout could disappear in lower Appalachian streams.

 Two-thirds of the country's ducks may disappear.

 A new assessment of the threat to fish and wildlife habitat has hunters

 and anglers calling for action. Groups representing nine major hunting and fishing organizations planned to meet Thursday with the House committee chairman who hopes to write legislation to curtail greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

"These are the branches of the conservation movement from which I come," said Rep. John Dingell said in an interview with The Associated Press. Dingell, D-Mich., said the groups' concerns are very important in helping with a measure to address the problem.

Dingell is an avid sportsman whose office is adorned with hunting and fishing trophies. As the leader of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, he has promised action on climate change. He also has issued a series of reports examining legislation that would cap carbon dioxide — a product of burning fossil fuels — and other greenhouse gases. The Senate is considering similar legislation.

The alarm sounded by hunting and fishing organizations is significant. They "are a critical swing constituency in so many states," said Paul Bledsoe, a spokesman for the National Commission on Energy Policy. The bipartisan group argues for mandatory steps to reduce climate change pollution. Alan Wentz of Ducks Unlimited Inc., one of the groups meeting with Dingell, noted that scientists are predicting that climate change "will significantly affect almost every aspect of our environment, including North America's wetlands and waterfowl."

The others are Trout Unlimited, Pheasants Forever, BAAS/ESPN Outdoors,

Izaak Walton League of America, Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, the Coastal Conservation Association, the American Sportsfishing Association, Pheasants Forever and the Wildlife Management Institute, a Washington-based advocacy group for hunters and sportsmen. "Sportsmen are seeing the effects of climate change and know full well that foresight and proactive management will be necessary to help fish and wildlife adapt," said George Cooper, president of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.

 A report compiled by the Wildlife Management Institute and based on work done by the groups provided a glimpse of their concerns. It says: Prairie pothole regions essential for waterfowl could lose 90 percent of their wetlands, causing a 69 percent decline in North America's breeding ducks. About 42 percent of the trout and salmon habitat could be lost by the end of the century, with bull trout virtually disappearing in the high mountain West and wild trout from lower Appalachian streams.

The number of Pronghorn antelope, elk and mule deer will dwindle as rising temperatures allow trees and shrubs to overwhelm the sagebrush ecosystem in the West. Populations of bobwhite quail will shrink in the Deep South as summertime drought and higher temperatures disrupt their breeding cycles. And drier conditions in fall and early spring will threaten quail in the Southwest. While an increase in water temperature and other change could benefit some salt water marine species, sea-level rise would destroy thousands of acres of coastal salt marshes and seagrass that are home to larval and juvenile game fish.

"We know now that climate change has the very real potential to affect fish and wildlife resources and activities that hunters and angers hold dear...and on a landscape level scale that is incomparable in modern times," warned Matt Hogan, executive director of the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies.

On the Net: Wildlife Management Institute: http://www.wildlifemanagementinstitute.org/