Always a good read, the League of Conservation Voters released its 2007 National Environmental Scorecard today, grading each member of the House and Senate based on their votes on energy and environment-related legislation last year.

The general lesson here seems to be that you can't escape a bad grade from the LCVers by not showing up for a vote. That's a negative in their book, a point best illustrated by the score of O (Zero) for John McCain. The presumptive GOP nominee somehow failed to show up for every one of the 15 votes last year related to conservation issues, ranging from a bill on CAFE and energy efficiency standards to the Farm Bill.

The "I'm-running-for-president" excuse that we expect McCain to use in his defense only goes so far, given that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton each managed to be in attendance for all but four votes.

As for Obama, despite the fact that he was named the Most Liberal Senator of 2007 by the right-leaning National Review, Obama scored a mediocre 67 percent, a dramatic drop from his 96 percent score in 2006. Obama's offenses included voting against "Water Resources- Project Prioritization", and skipping votes on Virginia Off-Shore Drilling, a couple of Farm Bill subsidy reform votes, and an amendment to a bill that would give women in developing countries access to contraceptives (which the LCV deems a population issue).

Hillary fared best among the three remaining contenders with a score of 73 for skipping the same votes as Obama. That's down from a score of 89 last year for Clinton.

For their respective careers in the Senate, McCain, Obama and Clinton have overall LCV scores of 24, 86 and 87 percent

(And oh yeah, he is still a candidate -- Ron Paul scored 15 percent).

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said this morning that it plans to remove the Northern Rocky Mountain gray wolf from Endangered Species Act protection, a move that has been expected but which already has a bunch of environmental groups lining up at the courthouse.

The Interior Department is going to find this move far more controversial than when it removed another Western icon -- the bald eagle -- from the ESA list last year.

In making the announcement, Interior Deputy Secretary Lynn Scarlett noted that there there are currently more than 1,500 wolves and at least 100 breeding pairs in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming, which of course is not a bad turnaround for a predator that had nearly vanished from the U.S. last century. Officials added the wolf to the endangered list in 1974.

But conservation groups say the decision ignores the best available science and will put the tenuous populations at risk when states take control of wolf management later this year. Anticipating today's decision, the Natural Resources Defense Council filed a petition yesterday calling for FWS officials to prepare a comprehensive recovery plan for wolves throughout the United States.

A coalition of 10 other environmental groups have said they also plan to sue to stop the de-listing. Of greatest concern to the groups is that state management of the species will lead to legalized wolf hunting and trapping as soon as this year. The Interior Department has said that Idaho, Wyoming and Montana must maintain a combined population of 300 wolves and 30 breeding pairs. We're not sure that sounds like good news for the other 1,200 wolfs, especially given the contentious relationship with so Rocky Mountain ranchers.

Look, we like the fact that presumptive GOP nominee John McCain is an opponent of pork projects in the Senate, and as one of five senators not to include any earmarks in bills least year, he can actually walk the walk. But McCain really needs to cut back on the grizzly bear rhetoric.

In an effort to brandish his fiscal conservancy, McCain has taken to the airwaves to let Americans know that he is serious about cutting frivolous government spending. In a new campaign ad, he promises that when president, he won't allow your tax dollars to be spent on wasteful projects.

He lists several infamous federal misappropriations, such as the 'Bridge to Nowhere' in Alaska, Hillary Clinton's million dollar earmark for a Woodstock Museum, and, of course, a project to study the DNA of grizzly bears. McCain uses the example at many of his events, always with the same joke: "I don't know if it was a paternity issue or criminal, but it was a waste of money."

Lost in the chuckles is that McCain continues to overlook one very important fact. The grizzly bear is listed as a threatened species, and under the Endangered Species Act, measures are required to be taken to ensure its survival.

Congress has allocated a total of $4.8 million to be spent on grizzly research. Projects being performed include a US Geological Survey project to capture grizzlies' hair, so that the samples can be used to establish a DNA fingerprint of the animals, and scientists can better track the animals left in the wild. With only 3 percent of the animal's historic population left in the lower 48 states, these bears need all the help they can get. Not surprisingly, scientists who study the bears are irked with the rhetoric.

Ironically, McCain names Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt as his hero, who acquired his nickname when he couldn't shoot and kill a bear while on a hunting trip. Although he isn't attacking these bears with anything as lethal as a gun, McCain's refusal to see the importance of funding a threatened species is the antithesis of what Roosevelt accomplished. Such nearsightedness deserves its own nickname, similar to that of his hero. How about "Grizzly" John McCain?

There will be no shortage of news from the vacuum of space tomorrow, and depending on where you live, you may even catch a show.

By far the most visible event will be tomorrow's lunar eclipse, the second such occurrence in less than six months, but the last one for more than two years. The eclipse will last nearly an hour and be visible across most of North America, beginning at 10 p.m. on the East Coast.

Also Wednesday, the space shuttle Atlantis is scheduled for an afternoon landing in Florida, ending a successful 13-day mission. The astronauts delivered a $2 billion laboratory to the International Space Station and swapped out one member of the station's three-person crew.

Why tomorrow afternoon? Probably because NASA would prefer the shuttle be out of orbit when the Navy shoots a missile at the Defense Department's super-secret spy satellite that turned out to be a very toxic lemon. The unprecedented missile launch is scheduled for 10:30 p.m. EST, right in the middle of the eclipse.

The satellite is called USA 193, and that's about all we know about it, other than that its central computer failed shortly after launch last year in what was undoubtedly a multi-billion dollar glitch.

Tonight is probably your last chance to get a look at the defunct satellite, which has been losing altitude and is currently about 160 miles above the earth. If you live in the right place, it is currently visible to the naked eye at night.

The Pentagon has an eight-day window to shoot down the 5,000-pound satellite before it is expected to fall out of orbit and crash to earth. That could have some bad environmental implications, given that there's about 1,000 pounds of unburned hydrazine fuel still on board. The chemical is capable of causing a bunch of nasty health problems, though much depends on the exposure level.

Many experts say DOD is overestimating the dangers posed by the satellite. One scientist says the chance that the satellite's debris would fall in an area with a population density of one or more persons per 1/4 hectare — about the size of the hydrazine contamination zone — to be no more than one-half of one percent.

Ranchers, traditionally, have not been among the most predator-friendly special-interest groups. Apex predators on the ranch tend to equal dead livestock, and the ones that don’t die are skittish and traumatized, lowering their reproductive rate.

Among the most frustrating predators of livestock are the mobile, stealthy, and deadly mountain lion, a perennial scourge that can do heavy damage to a herd. However, the big cats are also an integral part of mountain ecosystems and help maintain wild herbivore numbers.

Conflicts between humans and mountain lions are the driving force behind the ongoing state and federal effort to reduce their numbers through culling in the state of Oregon. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services, under contract with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife plan, have begun a lion management plan that specifies the population should be reduced to about 3,000, from its 2003 high of 5,100.

However, the environmental impact associated with this undertaking is unknown; Wildlife Services did not make its plan public or submit it for scientific or public review. So several concerned parties filed a lawsuit against the state and federal agencies last month, seeking to force officials to submit an Environmental Impact Statement to account for the effects of its culling the cougar population by roughly 40 percent. The EIS would force the agency give the public and other government agencies the opportunity to weigh in on the particulars of the plan.

Among the plaintiffs, oddly enough, is a ranchers’ group, the Goat Ranchers of Oregon, who seek to maintain a healthy mountain lion population. Who ever said that lions wouldn’t lie down with lambs?

Speaking of suppressed research and political manipulation of science, there is a distressing story emerging today about a report on health hazards stemming from pollution in the Great Lakes. The report is so alarming that the federal government apparently thought it best that the public not be able to read it. So even though a division of the Centers for Disease Control finished the report last summer, it was never released.

Luckily, we can thank the Center for Public Integrity for discovering the suppressed study and reporting on the back story that kept the findings from public view for more than six months. The center has also published excerpts from the still un-released report.

Just how bad is it? The CPI sums it up nicely:

"[The report] warns that more than nine million people who live in the more than two dozen “areas of concern”—including such major metropolitan areas as Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and Milwaukee—may face elevated health risks from being exposed to dioxin, PCBs, pesticides, lead, mercury, or six other hazardous pollutants. In many of the geographic areas studied, researchers found low birth weights, elevated rates of infant mortality and premature births, and elevated death rates from breast cancer, colon cancer, and lung cancer."

The lead author of the 400-page study -- Chris De Rosa of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry -- has criticized the agency for withholding the findings. He's also been demoted by the ATSDR.

Michael Gilbertson, a Canadian biologist who peer-reviewed the report, told the Washington Post that he agrees with De Rosa: "This information, which really should have been distributed more than a year ago, is inconvenient to the administration."

Federal officials say the report has has been delayed because of "significant questions and concerns" about the quality of the study. The Center for Public Integrity has tried to speak with De Rosa, but ATSDR’s public affairs office has declined to make him available for comment.