Did a pastor in your area endorse a candidate from the pulpit Sunday? It's a national story

In a move that could put their tax-exempt status at risk and result in fines, an estimated 1,500 pastors nationwide endorsed presidential candidates Sunday. The move was a challenge to the law prohibiting political endorsements by religious and other tax-exempt organizations, policed by the Internal Revenue Service. (Bloomberg News photo)

The goal of "Pulpit Freedom Sunday" was "to defy this rule and prompt the IRS to take action against a church that could become the basis for a court case to test whether the amendment infringes on constitutional rights to free religious and political speech," reported Jennifer Hawes of The Post and Courier in Charleston, S.C. The event was first organized four years ago by the Christian group Alliance Defending Freedom. All participants pledged to film their sermons and send them to the IRS.

Rev. Steven Baines, religious outreach director for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, told Hawes the political action "opens the door to politicizing our pulpits." The risk is that churches and pastors could become political fronts, he said. "They have freedom of speech. They can preach about their values, and we encourage pastors to preach about their values. But they cannot relate those to a particular candidate or party."

Participating pastors said they were taking part because their messages shouldn't be filtered through the IRS. But the average voter doesn't want pastors politicizing their sermons, according to a decade's worth of Pew Research Center polls, Hawes reported. In a July survey, 66 percent of people polled said churches and other places of worship should not endorse candidates. Even 90 percent of Protestant pastors polled in a May LifeWay survey said they shouldn't endorse from the pulpit. (Read more)

Judge rejects bid to preserve site of coalfield battle

West Virginia's Blair Mountain, the site of the largest armed conflict in U.S. labor history, will remain off the National Register of Historic Places, a federal judge has ruled. The site was added to the list in 2009, but the Interior Department removed it after it was found that a majority of property owners didn't support the listing, Paul Nyden of The Charleston Gazette reports.

Coal companies may mine the area, and a lawsuit was filed in 2010 by several groups, including the Sierra Club, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition and Friends of Blair Mountain, seeking to restore the area to the register. Judge Reggie Walton of the District of Columbia ruled that the groups had no legal standing because no coal companies had announced "immediate plans to begin mining on Blair Mountain," Nyden reports. (Read more)

Ken Ward Jr. of the Gazette's Coal Tattoo puts it this way: "The judge ruled that the citizen groups could not meet one of the requirements to show 'standing' to bring the case, that of 'redressability,' or that a favorable ruling from the court would redress their injury." As a result, the judge said in his decision "that the surface mining would be permitted on the Blair Mountain Battlefield as a result of permits that were acquired prior to the historic district's inclusion on the National Register."

In 1921, more than 10,000 union miners fought with armed company employees and contractors along the ridge along the Logan-Boone County border for a number of things, including better working conditions. The battle lasted eight days, and only ended after federal troops and air support intervened.

High court OKs rule limiting roads in national forests

The Supreme Court upheld on Monday the "roadless rule," which limits road building and timber harvesting on 45 million acres of undeveloped national forest land. The state of Wyoming and the Colorado Mining Association challenged the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, saying it "unfairly jeopardized multiple industries and hampered economic development," notes Amy O'Donoghue of the Deseret News in Salt Lake City.

The rule was upheld by the 9th and 10th circuit courts of appeals, and the Supreme Court refused to hear the case. Supporters of the rule said the court's move resolved "what has been a decade of uncertainly over management of inventoried roadless areas," O'Donoghue writes.

"Sound roadless conservation policies safeguard big-game habitat security, productive trout and salmon fisheries and our sporting traditions," said Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership Center for Western Lands director Joel Webster told the reporter. "The 2001 roadless rule remains a strong mechanism for conserving America’s outdoor heritage." (Read more)

Farm groups want Supreme Court to exclude forestry activities from Clean Water Act permitting

A group of farm organizations last week filed a friend-of-the court brief with the U.S. Supreme Court regarding the Clean Water Act's permitting requirements for stormwater runoff from forestry activities, Farm Progress reports. The American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Pork Producers Council and the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives are urging the court to exempt stormwater runoff from forestry activities from Clean Water Act permitting. (American Agriculturist photo)

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals last year ruled the Environmental Protection Agency's silviculture rule invalid. The groups explain in their brief that Congress decided in its 1987 Clean Water Act amendments that stormwater from agriculture and forestry "has always been intentionally excluded from federal permit requirements," Farm Progress reports. The groups say the logging shouldn't be considered an industrial activity, which means its stormwater discharges must be approved under the EPA's National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System.

American Farm Bureau General Counsel Ellen Steen said Congress has never allowed EPA to mandate particular forestry practices because Congress "has always recognized that stormwater runoff from these activities . . . is best left to state and local authorities." (Read more)

'Pink slime' maker suing ABC News for defamation

The beef company most affected by the "pink slime" controversy earlier this year is taking legal action against ABC and its news division for defamation of character. Beef Products Inc. claims the news organization cost the company $400 million. Anchor Diane Sawyer and reporters Jim Avila and David Kerley are also named as defendants.

“ABC ran for about 30 days a vicious disinformation campaign that consists of almost 200 false and misleading defamatory statements,” BPI attorney Dan Webb told Tim Carman of The Washington Post. The South Dakota-based company is asking for $1.2 billion because the state's Agricultural Food Products Disparagement Act allows plaintiffs to triple the amount of damages. ABC News senior vice president Jeffrey Schneider said the lawsuit "is without merit," and that the organization will "contest it vigorously."

Several media outlets reported on lean, finely textured beef, that was once widely used in fast-food burgers, school lunch programs and sold in grocery stores. But reporters discovered a reference to LFTB as "pink slime" in 2002 by former U.S. Department of Agriculture microbiologist Gerald Zirnstein, and it was revealed that ammonia was combined with meat during the process of making LFTB.

Beef Products is singling out ABC because it says that since March 7 the network reported about LFTB in 11 broadcasts, 14 online reports and in social-media statements that allegedly contained 200 false statements about the product. But media libel defense lawyer Laura Handman told Schneider that Beef Products could have a difficult time winning the suit because it will be hard to determine whether ABC knew what it reported was false. (Read more)

Sentencing of former Upper Big Branch Mine boss delayed again as he aids probe of blast that killed 29

A judge has again postponed sentencing of a former superintendent at the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia because prosecutors said the delay would help their ongoing criminal investigation of the April 5, 2010, explosion that killed 29 coal miners.

L.A. Times photo

Former superintendent Gay May, left, is "cooperating in an ongoing investigation and the parties need additional time to fully develop the extent of his cooperation," Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Ruby said this week, reports Ken Ward Jr. of The Charleston Gazette. Ruby said the additional time would allow "significant further development of the investigation." District Judge Irene Berger rescheduled the sentencing hearing for January.

In a plea deal, May admitted that he plotted with others to conceal hazards at Upper Big Branch on numerous occasions that compromised workers' safety. He also admitted that he participated in a "scheme to provide advance warning of government inspectors and then hide or correct violations before federal agents could make it into working sections of the mine," Ward reports.

Postal discount to direct mailer OKd; newspapers going to court, say watchdog role threatened

UPDATE, Sept. 2: For a PDF of frequently asked questions about the deal, with answers from NNA, click here.

The Postal Regulatory Commission has voted 4 to 1 to support to a U.S. Postal Service plan to give a discount to a prominent direct mailer, a move that struggling newspapers say will probably reduce an important income stream for them. For background, click here.

Under the service's three-year deal with Valassis, the company will get a discount on additional pieces sent. Ruth Goldway, the commission’s chairwoman, acknowledged that newspapers were upset with the proposed deal, but said that the discount given to Valassis would not give the company an unfair advantage. “The Commission understands that both newspapers and the Postal Service are experiencing declining revenues as new technologies based on the Internet grow in popularity," she said. "Today’s decision affirms that fair competition between these two important institutions is consistent with the law.”

The Newspaper Association of America, representing most dailies, said it was “stunned” by the decision and would take it to court. (Read more)  National Newspaper Association President Reed Anfinson, publisher of the Swift County Monitor-News in Benson, Minn., said the association of weeklies and small dailies was "deeply disappointed" in the commission’s analysis.

"The commission begins with the presumption that having a federal enterprise competing head-on with the newspaper industry is a good thing, but it does not explain how any business can be on a level playing field when competing with its own government," Anfinson said. "The mailing contract with Valassis is an unfair deal in which the principal result is to drive down the advertiser’s prices and not necessarily to bring any new mail volume to the Postal Service. What the commission does not explain is why this goal is in the best interest of either newspapers or the Postal Service. Nor does it take seriously the arguments raised by many that this deal will force more newspapers out of the mail and create a net loss for the Postal Service after the deal kicks in."

Anfinson took issue with the commission's view, as he described it, that there is no "problem with the Postal Service’s draining revenues from news-gathering organizations. Somehow it seems to believe the centuries-old mailing category for periodicals created by Congress is able to equal out the harm from contracts like this one. . . . We know that in thousands of communities around this nation that newspapers remain the most vigorous watchdog of government as well as the primary source of community news."

TVA liable in big coal-ash spill, judge rules

"A federal judge ruled today that the Tennessee Valley Authority is liable for the December 2008 coal ash spill that buried a large swath of Roane County, Tenn., under 5 million cubic yards of sludge," Manuel Quinones reports for Environment & Energy News. "U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Varlan for the Eastern District of Tennessee said that while events beyond TVA's control caused the ash pond failure, the utility's actions contributed to the spill. He also ruled certain liability protections do not apply in this case." For the ruling, click here.

"Varlan said the failure was caused by multiple TVA actions, including the placement and design of the failed dike and its decision to continue building up the wet coal ash stack at the site. The ruling also found that TVA’s failure to inform and train its personnel and the negligent performance of those personnel were substantial contributing causes," the Knoxville News-Sentinel reports. "Varlan indicated the next phase of the trial will look at questions related to individual property owners, such as whether coal ash was present on each plaintiff’s property; whether it damaged each specific property; and the amount of damage, if any, to each property and to each plaintiff." (Read more)

Federal appeals court strikes down EPA's cross-state air pollution rule

A federal appeals court has struck down the Environmental Protection Agency's air pollution rule for emissions that cross state lines, ruling that the EPA exceeded its statutory authority with the Cross State Air Pollution Rule, aimed at 28 Eastern states. More than a dozen states and several power companies challenged the rule last year, claiming it put undue burdens on them to implement.

"To put it colloquially, the good-neighbor provision requires upwind states to bear responsibility for their fair share of the mess in downwind states," the opinion of the three-judge panel says, but goez too far "by requiring steep pollution cuts from states beyond what they actually contribute to other states' air quality problems," Politico's Erica Martinson reports. The ruling also says the agency should not have set "implementation plans" for states telling them how and where to make pollution cuts to meet air emission limits.

Judge Judith Rogers disagreed with the majority, saying in her dissent that the ruling will result in "a redesign of Congress's vision of cooperative federalism between the states and the federal government in implementing the Clean Air Act based on the court's own notions of absurdity and logic that are unsupported by a factual record." The Natural Resources Defense Council's Clean Air Program senior attorney and Director John Walke said the majority "got the precedent badly wrong," and that the NRDC will urge the Obama administration to appeal the court's ruling. (Read more)

Judge strikes down 'guidance' that EPA used to block many mountaintop coal mining permits

The Environmental Protection Agency exceeded its authority by setting a standard for water quality downstream from surface coal mines in Appalachia, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton ruled today in a lawsuit filed by coal interests and states.

Walton said EPA has "only a limited role" in setting specific standards for states that have the authority to enforce federal water-pollution and strip-mining laws. EPA had used electrical conductivity, which increases with the amount of salty minerals in water, to block permits for dozens of mines in Kentucky and West Virginia. It did not go through the usual process of writing a regulation, instead issuing a "guidance" to state agencies and the Army Corps of Engineers, which also enforces the Clean Water Act.

The ruling was "another blow to the Obama administration's crackdown on mountaintop removal" coal mining, writes Ken Ward Jr. in The Charleston Gazette. "In January, Walton threw out EPA's plans to work with other agencies to more closely scrutinize certain mining-related water pollution permits for valley fill waste piles. And in March, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, also in the District of Columbia, overturned EPA's veto of the largest mountaintop removal permit in West Virginia history. EPA is appealing Jackson's ruling." It is likely to appeal Walton's too, reports Manuel Quinones of Environment & Energy News.

Ward says Walton "noted the obvious: that it was unlikely his decision would end the growing debate over mountaintop removal's impact on the environment and public health, or on the future of coal in the region. Walton said it was not for him to decide "how to best strike a balance between, on the one hand, the need to preserve the verdant landscapes and natural resources of Appalachia and, on the other hand, the economic role that coal mining plays in the region." (Read more)

State and tribal courts report success in joint effort to help Native Americans get sober

A collaboration of state and trial courts in northern Minnesota to combat drug and alcohol addiction among Native Americans is reporting success, according to The Crime Report. Judges Korey Wahwassuck of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Tribal Court and John Smith of Cass County Court addressed the National Criminal Justice Association National Forum about the partnership, known as Wellness Court, last week.

The Leech Lake court is working with courts in Cass and Itasca counties on the program, a variation on drug courts that exist in many counties across the U.S. in which participants are helped through a series of programs to curb their addiction. (Minnesota Indian Affairs Council map: Leech Lake Reservation and emblem)

The judges presented two success stories. One involved a mother of four who said she is now "an inspiration to her kids," and a father who had previously been through a dozen treatment programs, none of which worked except Wellness Court, which has kept him sober for 18 months. Wahwassuck said there's been a major "climate change" in his tribe. Members now talk about sobriety and recovery more than about heavy drinking. (Read more)

Mayor's courts of Ohio are a relic unlikely to change, since they fatten small-town coffers

They've been called "Boss Hogg backwood justice," and the more specific "rap sheet" against local mayor’s courts in rural Ohio says some judges spend public funds on holiday parties and flower arrangements, fail to properly account for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and use speed-trap traffic fines to prop up village budgets, Justin Conley and Rebecca McKinsey report for the Columbus Dispatch. Despite longstanding criticism, they write, "No one seems willing or able to make changes" to fix what's wrong with the courts, which dispense justice to tens of thousands of Ohioans and demand fines totaling millions of dollars every year.

The state doesn’t require the mayors or magistrates in the courts to have law degrees, and is hardly paying attention to them, write Conley and McKinsey, fellows in Ohio University’s Statehouse News Bureau. The state Supreme Court doesn't go after the officials when they violate the law by failing to provide information to the high court, and "The state auditor’s office, which has found repeated instances of misspending and other problems, says it doesn’t have enforcement power to take corrective action." Former state Sen. Kevin Coughlin, a Cuyahoga Falls Republican, said he thinks mayor's courts "have no place in a modern society where you have to have complete integrity in your judicial system.”

The senior justice of the Supreme Court, Paul E. Pfeifer, is the most vocal critic of mayor's courts. “People . . . come out of there feeling like they just participated in a bad spaghetti western,” he said, “where the cabinet maker or coffin maker takes off his apron, sits on a bench with a gavel and metes out justice.” Like many critics, Pfeifer said mayor’s courts are often more about fattening a community’s bottom line than protecting its residents. Some collect far more from mayor’s courts than from all local taxes combined.

There were 318 mayor’s courts in Ohio in 2011, and 76 percent of them were in villages with fewer than 5,000 residents. Supporters, many with ties to small communities, say mayor’s courts are convenient, easy to navigate and inexpensive. “For every one that may not be up to snuff, there are a hundred that do an excellent job,” Magistrate Charles "Kip" Kelsey told the Dispatch. “The fact that Louisiana and Ohio are the only two states that have these mayor’s courts — are we then backward? Or maybe we’re forward. I like to think that maybe we’re progressive." New York and West Virginia have similar courts. (Read more)

EPA yanks rule that would have made CAFOs report number of animals, size of manure-spreading areas

The Environmental Protection Agency has withdrawn a proposed regulation "that would have required owners of concentrated animal feeding operations to report certain data about their facilities," Amanda Peterka of Environment & Energy News reports.

EPA said it pulled the rule "over concerns that it would duplicate other efforts to collect such information from CAFOs," Peterka writes. "EPA says it will work with state and other programs to collect the information using existing sources of information. . . . Livestock trade groups had harshly criticized the rule, arguing in public comments that it would violate ranchers' privacy and threaten the nation's food security."

The rule stemmed from the settlement of a lawsuit from the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Waterkeeper Alliance "that was a result of a lawsuit brought and won by the pork producers over EPA's 2008 CAFO rule," Peterka notes. "A federal court ruled that the Clean Water Act requires permitting only for CAFOs that actually discharge pollution rather than those with a potential for discharges. Under the withdrawn rule, CAFO owners would have had to report the number and types of animals they keep and the size of the area where manure would be applied. That did not satisfy the environmental groups, which argued that the settlement required EPA to gather data from CAFOs on the quantity of manure and other waste. (Read more; subscription may be required)

School board, ACLU compromise on Commandments display by using history book page

In what could become a model for other rural school districts, a compromise has been made in Virginia concerning display of the Ten Commandments. Richard Simon of the Los Angeles Times reports a page from a history textbook which shows the commandment tablets and credits the religious text as playing a role in the "roots of democracy" will replace a framed copy of the commandments in a high school in Giles County (Wikipedia map).

The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia sued the school board, alleging violation of the separation of church and state, but applauded the compromise. The textbook page is titled "Roots of Democracy," shows the tablets and states: "The values found in the Bible, including the Ten Commandments and the teachings of Jesus, inspired American ideas about government and morality." It also lists other influences on America, including Greek democracy and the Magna Carta.

Though the Liberty Counsel, which represented the school board, was also happy with the compromise, it must be approved by a federal judge. (Read more)

Walking horse group sues USDA over new rules requiring penalties, set to start next week

A USDA inspector looks at the feet
of a Tennessee walking horse
(Dipti Vaidya, The Tennessean)

A leading Tennessee Walking Horse industry group sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture last week to block the federal effort to impose minimum penalties for soring and otherwise abusing horses, reports Duane Gang of The Tennessean.

Earlier this month, USDA announced it would require organizations that inspect horses on its behalf to assess minimum penalties to violators of the Horse Protection Act, the 1970 law that makes it illegal to show or transport a sored horse. SHOW Inc. filed the lawsuit in Texas, claiming that the new rules violate the constitutional right to due process. The lawsuit seeks to prevent USDA from putting the rule into effect next Monday, July 9. In a statement, SHOW said the new rules punish organizations that are working to change the industry.

Gang explains: "Soring is the practice of using chemicals and other methods, including putting foreign objects in the horses’ hooves, to produce a higher gait. Dripping harsh chemicals on the horses’ front feet forces them, because of pain, to lift their legs higher. The walk is prized in walking horse competitions." In announcing the new rules this month, the government said it will now require horses found in violation of the act to be dismissed from the show. If a horse is sored, those responsible are to be suspended from participating in shows, exhibitions, sales or auctions.

A recent analysis by The Tennessean showed a significant difference between the number of violations issued by the industry when USDA officials are present and when they leave the inspections up to industry groups, notes Gang: "When the USDA was present, horse industry inspectors found seven times as many violations of the Horse Protection Act."

Local officials in Pa., outmaneuvered in legislature, sue for right to zone out oil and gas wells

When the Pennsylvania legislature passed a law this year that stripped local authority over where natural-gas wells could be drilled, cities and townships decided to take matters into their own hands. Seven municipalities have filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the law, which charges an "impact fee" for gas wells and sends the money to localities but also overrides local governments’ zoning authority. The case was argued June 6, reports Alice Su for the Center for Public Integrity. (Associated Press photo)

At first glance, writes Su, "The impact fee of up to $50,000 per well seems to put wealth from drilling on the Marcellus Shale into citizens’ hands. But gas companies can drill wherever they like, even if local councils vote to keep the wells out of their jurisdictions. “It gives industry the right to tell us how we’re going to plan our townships rather than the other way around,” said David M. Ball, a petitioner in the lawsuit and councilman of Peters Township, Washington County. “What happens when the next industry comes down the line, like the homebuilders’ industry?” Ball asked. “Pretty soon, what does zoning even mean?” Coppola said he receives “hundreds and hundreds of letters” every day from townships and boroughs in support of the suit.

Su notes that last month, the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors, which says it represents 95 percent of Pennsylvania’s land area, passed two resolutions stating opposition to “any legislation that would remove, reduce or inhibit local government authority” or “pre-empt the existing authority of townships to regulate land use.” Ball said, “I’ve personally not heard of one municipality that has said they support the zoning provisions of Act 13.” Whether the Commonwealth Court affirms Act 13 or not, White, Coppola, Milburn and Ball agree that the law will most likely be appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. “Act 13 eventually is going to be undone,” Coppola said. “It strips away too many rights of individuals. People are just going to go crazy.” (Read more)

Mostly Republican governors want to opt out of health care law's Medicaid expansion

When the U.S. Supreme Court declared yesterday that the Affordable Care Act is constitutional, it limited the federal government's power to make states expand their Medicaid programs, which will likely impact the implementation of the law in several states, especially those controlled by Republicans.

Medicaid expansion was challenged by 26 states as being "coercive" because it would have allowed the feds to take back all of a state's Medicaid funding if it refused to comply. But the court ruled that the U.S. Government can only take back funding designated specifically for expansion, and not any of a state's existing Medicaid funding. "What Congress can not do is to penalize states that choose not to participate in that new program by taking away their existing Medicaid funding," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority.

States stand to gain a lot by expanding the program, Christine Vestal of Stateline reports, because the federal government pays 100 percent of costs for the first two years, then reduces its funding to 90 percent in 2020. The Congressional Budget Office estimates this would add up to a $20 billion transfer to states over the first 10 years of expansion. But, some states say covering 10 percent of the cost of new beneficiaries would put more strain on their budgets. (Read more)

Most Republican-led states have done little to set up online exchanges which allow residents to compare private health insurance for the best price and serve as a portal for joining Medicaid expansions, The Associated Press reports. State have to tell the federal government in November whether or not they will build exchanges. The federal government will build a common exchange for states that don't build their own.

Wisconsin's Republican Governor Scott Walker denounced the law on Thursday, saying he would not implement any parts of it in Wisconsin before the presidential election. "While the court said it was legal, that doesn't make it right," Walker said. "For us to put time and effort and resources into that doesn't make a lot of sense."

GOP leaders in Mississippi say they don't have the money to expand Medicaid. Emily Wagster of AP reports Mississippi receive a large chunk of federal money for Medicaid because it has a high percentage of low-income residents. Republican Governor Phil Bryant said deep cuts in education and transportation would have to be made to cover the cost of Medicaid for more than 400,000 additional people. He said the state is looking at "some leeway in the decision to not penalize states for not complying with Medicaid requirements."

The question of Medicaid expansion is still up in the air in several other Republican-controlled states, including Nebraska, Ohio, South Carolina and Indiana, where governors say they would be hard-pressed to implement it. But Washington Republican Attorney General Rob McKenna, who joined the lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act last year, split with most of the GOP and said Congress shouldn't repeal the law, or any of its provisions, including the individual mandate. McKenna, who's currently running for governor, said he's ready to implement health-insurance exchanges and Medicaid expansion if elected, Jim Brunner of The Seattle Times reports.

High court to decide whether EPA should regulate water runoff from logging like factories

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a federal appeals court ruling on regulation of water runoff from logging roads. The ruling states that logging-road runoff should be regulated the same as water discharges from factories, which changes the practice of treating it like runoff from farm fields. The ruling in Oregon could apply to roads on state, private and national forest land in the jurisdiction of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers most of the West.

Scientists have found that sediment in salmon streams, which has been clogging areas where the fish lay eggs, is coming from industrial logging roads, and is a leading cause of habitat loss, reports Jeff Barnard of The Associated Press. The Northwest Environmental Defense Center in Portland, Ore., brought the case against the state Department of Forestry. The appeals court ruled in 2010 that muddy water from logging roads requires a Clean Water Act permit from the Environmental Protection Agency. The Supreme Court was asked to take up the case from Oregon and 25 other states.

The EPA proposed revised storm-water regulations that would not require logging roads to get the same permits as factories, and regulate them under a less strict system known as "Best Management Practices," in which guidelines for design and maintenance of roads would be set up by the states. The agency has started review of these practices, and plans to issue new rules for logging roads in September. (Read more)

Ala. agencies can circumvent open meeting law via serial meetings with less than quorum, court rules

The Alabama Supreme Court ruled narrowly this month that public agencies could circumvent the state open-meetings law by holding a series of meetings with less than a quorum of members -- a familiar ploy that can be hard to prevent and discover, even when state law forbids it, as the Kentucky New Era of Hopkinsville wrote today.

In a lawsuit against the Montgomery Public Schools, the Alabama high court voted 5-4 to uphold a lower court ruling. "The court ruled that although the Board of Education formed three special committees covered by the Open Meetings Act, no meeting of the committee occurred because what they discussed was going to be voted upon later by the entire Board and not the committee," reports the June issue of AlaPressa, the newsletter of the Alabama Press Association. For a PDF of the court's decision, click here.

Coal miner fired for whistleblowing about safety violations is reinstated to work by federal judge

A federal judge has ordered that coal miner Charles Scott Howard, 52, right, is entitled to return to work at Cumberland River Coal Co. after 13 months of alleging discrimination in federal court for his reporting on the company's violations. Administrative Law Judge Margaret Miller also ordered the company to pay Howard a $30,000 fine for discriminating against a whistleblower.

Howard was fired last year after he suffered a head injury while working. Several doctors deemed him fit to return to work, but he was fired anyway, he alleged, because the company didn't like that he brought safety violations in the mine where he worked to the attention of federal safety officials. Miller wrote in her decision that managers at Cumberland River and its parent company Arch Coal "waited until every doctor, including two neurosurgeons, two eye doctors, a psychiatrist and others found no impairment and agreed Howard could return to work" before a doctor working for the companies said Howard could no longer be a miner, The Associated Press's Brett Barrouquere reported. "I find that the mine sought out and received the opinion they were seeking and immediately upon receipt of that single opinion, terminated Howard's employment," Miller wrote.

Howard has been whistleblowing about unsafe mining conditions for years, and has been getting disciplined or fired after each occasion. This is the third time he's been reinstated by a judge. (Read more)