Ted Turner has always been -- for better and for worse -- a head turner. He revolutionized media with the first cable news station, CNN. He gave a cool billion to the United Nations. He won the America's Cup. He married Jane Fonda. He bought the Atlanta Braves. He earned the moniker "Mouth of the South" for calling Ash Wednesday observers "Jesus freaks," pro-lifers "bozos," and Christianity "a religion for losers."

Turner has been equally brazen when it comes to the environment. He bought up some 2 million acres of land in Western and Plains states, making him the nation's biggest individual landowner, and put much of it under a conservation easement. He launched a personal crusade to restore America's bison and prairie-dog populations. He funded a controversial project to wipe out non-native fish in a stream on his Montana ranch and re-introduce endangered native westslope cutthroat trout.

Turner, now 70, no longer owns CNN and has lost a fair bit of his fortune in recent years, but that hasn't curbed his ambitions. In October, he announced a U.N.-backed project to establish a global gold standard for environmentally sustainable and culturally sensitive tourism. In November, he published his memoir, Call Me Ted: The Life and Times of Ted Turner, chronicling his superlative feats as a businessman and philanthropist. Just after the election, in the pages of The Washington Post, he called on President-elect Barack Obama to make climate-change solutions his top priority and "remake the vast systems that power the nation and the world."

I phoned up Turner recently at his Atlanta office to ask about his push for sustainable tourism, his advice for Obama, and his soft spot for prairie dogs.

Hi, Mr. Turner.

Call Me Ted, by Ted Turner and Bill Burke.

You can call me Ted.

Is that a book plug, or are you just being friendly?

Yes, it's a book plug. That's the way I do things.

Tell me about the Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria that you announced in Barcelona recently. Why is this an important benchmark?

The United Nations is very concerned about the global environment, and protecting World Heritage Sites is particularly important. There's a lot of pressure on places like the Galapagos Islands, and it was really necessary to have some tourism standards so that these sensitive areas don't get trashed.

How will the standards affect tourists and tourism?

From what I've heard and what I've read, they're not difficult to be in compliance with. These are good, common-sense standards that the people in the tourist industry have pretty much endorsed close to 100 percent. They want to protect these sites too because it's their livelihood and they care about it. It's a win-win situation for everybody.

You've said that "sustainability is just like the old business adage, 'You don't encroach on the principal, you live off the interest.'" Can you explain that adage a bit further, and how it relates to sustainability?

Those words you just said are pretty self-explanatory.

A top EPA official once told me she believes that Adam Smith's invisible hand has a green thumb -- that environmental protection and free-market forces are inherently compatible. As an avid capitalist and devout environmentalist, do you agree?

I'd like to think so, but it really depends. I don't think that's universally true, but it's more true now than it was even a year ago because more and more corporations are turning green. Even News Corp. -- Rupert Murdoch came out a few months ago saying that he was going to take News Corp. green. Of course Wal-Mart has gone very green and so has General Electric. It's certainly an encouraging trend. If we destroy the environment, we're going to destroy ourselves.

You're a big fan of clean energy. What do you think are the most promising low-carbon technologies on the horizon?

I think it's going to take a number of different technologies. The two that I think have the greatest potential at this point with the technology where it is today are solar and wind. But I also want to see more research done into geothermal because there's a virtually unlimited supply of heat beneath the surface of the Earth that can be tapped. We just need to figure out how to get down to it economically enough to make it feasible. There are others like tidal energy that are very promising too.

Are there clean-energy companies you're placing bets on?

I have a multi-million-dollar investment in First Solar.

In a Washington Post piece, you proposed that President-elect Obama establish a National Energy Council in the White House. What would it do?

We're heavily subsidizing the fossil-fuel industry, which needs to be phased out. The people who use fossil fuel should pay the full cost of it. What tax breaks and incentives there are should go for the new renewable, locally produced energy that creates jobs here in the United States. That keeps the money in our own economy, because we're just bankrupting ourselves, as Boone Pickens says, by spending three-quarters of a trillion dollars a year importing foreign oil.

We've got to have a new digital [electrical] grid that goes from coast to coast and border to border to move this new energy around. The best place to build solar panels is in the Southwest -- Arizona, New Mexico, Southern California, and southern Nevada -- but we've got to move it all the way across the country to New York and Boston. And then the best place for wind power, and where it's the least disruptive, is out on the Great Plains, and we've got to be able to move that electricity generated from wind power to the major population centers as well. And we need a new grid anyway; the grid we have now is over 100 years old, and it's decrepit.

Do you want to see mandatory greenhouse-gas restrictions in this country?

I would like to see them. I think the situation with global climate change is a life-or-death issue for us that we have to get on right away. Even if global warming [science] is wrong for some reason, at least we get clean air out of it. And [a clean-energy economy] will employ millions. All the people employed who are going to be let go when the auto industry goes bankrupt will be able to find good, high-paying jobs building windmills. We'll be moving from subsidizing a dying smokestack industry to going to clean, renewable electrical power, locally produced. It will be terrific for our economy.

But I think it's going to be very difficult to do. I am concerned that we won't do the right thing here, especially being distracted by this unfortunate downturn in the economy. I just don't want us to take our eye off this ball, because it's really a matter of human survival.

What do you think is the single biggest environmental problem after climate change?

Cutting down the rainforest. We're drawing on our environmental capital, and we do so at our peril because if the environment goes, we go.

You're the largest individual landowner in America. Tell me why you love the land and how you manage it.

I bought most of that land to increase the size of my bison herd. One of the things I want to do is bring back the bison. Prairie dogs too. I've got 45,000 bison, and I needed a lot of land for them to live on. The same with the prairie dogs -- I've got 250,000 prairie dogs now, approximately. Just a few years back, I only had a remnant population of them because genocide is being brought against the prairie dogs by the ranchers. They should be on the endangered species list, but they're still being classified as vermin and being slaughtered by poisoning, and shooting, and being mowed down.

Why did you decide to focus on bison and prairie dogs?

Because they're quintessential icons of America on the Great Plains. Along with them also are antelope, meadowlarks, rattlesnakes, and burrowing owls. There's a whole prairie ecosystem out here that has been largely destroyed by our cattle-ranching. By getting the bison back and giving all these little critters a place to live, we're bringing it back and maintaining it.

Your first word as a baby was "pretty," and it popped out when you saw a butterfly. What drew you to nature as a kid?

I was just born with a fascination for nature. As soon as I was able to look at and read books about nature, I did. I was fascinated by snakes and lizards and bugs and spiders and butterflies, and also the flowers and the plants and the trees.

What about now? What are your favorite natural places?

My favorite place: I have just one.

What's that?

Planet Earth. The whole place. I've been from the Arctic to the rainforest to the equator to the desert. I've been in over 70 countries. I love this world. I love the United Nations. I want to see humanity succeed, and learn to live in peace and harmony with the environment and each other.

Do you think we will?

Either we will or we're going to end up extinct. We've got to get rid of nuclear weapons. We've got to stop global warming. We've got to preserve the environment. We've got to eliminate poverty. We've got to stabilize the population with voluntary family planning. Half of the women in the world don't have equal rights to men and those are the most screwed-up parts of the world. Millions of women every year are still being mutilated by clitorectomies -- talk about brutality! There are a lot of things to be discouraged about. On the other hand, there's a lot to be encouraged about, too.

So what we've got to do is stop doing dumb things and start doing smart things. If we do that, we'll be fine. And if we go extinct, we deserved it.

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Seattle is the most sustainable big city in the nation, according to a list compiled by Smarter Cities, an NRDC project that looks at the progress American cities are making toward going green. Not surprisingly, San Francisco and Portland are the runners-up.

Using data from the EPA and the U.S. Census Bureau, as well as some voluntary survey responses from city governments, the project identified the top 15 large, medium, and small cities according to 10 different environmental criteria, from air quality to recycling to transportation.

Here's a look the top 15 large cities (population of 250,000 or more):

It's hard not to be environmentally minded in a city with views like this.Photo: Simonds1. Seattle
The Emerald City gets props for its brand-new light rail system, reliance on hydroelectricity (and the resulting good air quality), Mayor Greg Nickels' U.S. Conference of Mayors Climate Agreement, and two global warming initiatives: Seattle Climate Action Now and Seattle Climate Partnership. Seattleites are described as "highly educated and environmentally minded." Think it's just a coincidence that Grist is headquartered here?

San Francisco is one of the most densely populated cities in the country.Photo: ATIS5472. San Francisco
San Francisco's dense population, walkability, plastic-bag ban, city-created carbon offset fund, solar power program, and booming local food movement propelled it to the No. 2 spot. (Read more about Mayor Gavin Newsom's green efforts.)

Portland has always been a leader in big-city sustainability.Photo: Ben Amstutz3. Portland
Seattle's neighbor to the south got its light rail up and running more than 20 years ago, and the city has always been ahead of the curve on controlling urban sprawl and suppressing greenhouse-gas emissions. Portland's residents also recycle more than half their waste.

Oakland is making a green comeback.Photo: satanslaundromat4. Oakland, Calif.
This once-struggling city has a Green Jobs Corps, a New Urbanist 10K Downtown Housing Initiative, a Zero Waste Plan, and a growing local food movement (as urban farmer Novella Carpenter explains). It also gets 17 percent of its electricity from renewable sources. Sounds like there is a there there.

How green was my Silicon Valley?Photo: the_tahoe_guy5. San Jose, Calif.
Always on the cutting edge of the high-tech world, this capital of Silicon Valley is fast on its way to leading the green-jobs revolution. Its Green Vision includes plans for bringing 25,000 new clean-tech jobs to the area.

Austin's new smart grid will light up the night -- sustainably, of course.Photo: Visualist Images6. Austin, Texas
A liberal outpost in red Texas, this city owns its electric utility (meaning voters elect the utility's board) and plans to adopt a smart grid in the near future.

Sacramento aims to be green while it grows.Photo: kla40677. Sacramento, Calif.
The Golden State's capital, while suffering from the side effects of rapid population growth, has a progressive, publicly owned utility that, in addition to offering a 100 percent renewable power option, provides free trees to residents hoping to cool their homes with natural shade.

Boston stands out among less-green East Coast cities.Photo: werkunz18. Boston, Mass.
Boston's push toward wind and solar energy, its efforts to become more bike-friendly, and its LED traffic lights make it a leader on the environmentally lagging East Coast.

Denver conserves water like nobody's business.Photo: kla40679. Denver, Colo.
The Mile High City is already way ahead of its goals for reducing water consumption. Its new bike-sharing and composting programs and extensive system of city parks also helped it make the top 15.

Chicago's city hall has its own green roof.Photo: Smarter Cities10. Chicago
Always famous for its architecture, today Chicago has more LEED-certified buildings than any other U.S. city and boasts 300 green roofs. (Read more about Mayor Richard Daley's green efforts.)

San Diego is growing smart.Photo: Smarter Cities11. San Diego
Parks and open spaces make up almost a quarter of this city's land area, and its smart growth program has led to impressive developments.

The Big (Green) Apple.Photo: mikeleeorg12. New York City
What it lacks in air quality and renewable energy it makes up for in density, walkability, and Mayor Bloomberg's commitment to reducing the city's carbon footprint. (Read more about Bloomberg's green efforts.)

L.A. works to clear a path through the smog.Photo: Storm Crypt13. Los Angeles
Infamous for its smog and clogged freeways, L.A. is making admirable efforts to switch to renewable energy and conserve its water supply.

Big D: Greener than you'd think.Photo: dherrera_9614. Dallas
Dallas gets 40 percent of its electricity from wind, has seen a huge spike in public transit usage in recent years, and cracks down on lengthy truck idling during the "ozone season" from April to October.

Columbus hopes for an urban resurgence.Photo: jpmueller9915. Columbus, Ohio
A perhaps unexpected entry on the list, flat Columbus lends itself to bike-friendliness. The city has also been working hard to revitalize its downtown core and combat sprawl.

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Sierra magazine has just released its third annual list of what it calls "the most eco-enlightened U.S. colleges." It ranks schools based on the results of a questionnaire sent to sustainability experts at hundreds of institutions across the country. Scores were assigned in eight categories: efficiency, energy, food, academics, purchasing, transportation, waste management, and administration. The rankings come at a time when two-thirds of college applicants say a school's green record would influence their enrollment decision, according to a Princeton Review survey [PDF].

Below we've got the dish on Sierra's top 20 picks. (Schools that also made the Princeton Review's "Green Honor Roll" are asterisked.)

Don't see your college or alma mater on the list?  Check out Sierra's full list of rankings for 135 colleges. And the College Sustainability Report Card evaluates the green cred of hundreds of U.S. and Canadian schools.

Photo: jiannone1. University of Colorado, Boulder

Known for its outdoorsy student body and scenic location at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, CU created the first student-directed recycling center in 1970, and in the decades since it's made many other impressive green strides. The school provides plenty of alternative transportation for students to get around town or up to the ski slopes, all its new buildings must meet LEED Gold standards, and first-year students are provided with reusable shopping bags.

Photo: Wonderlane2. University of Washington, Seattle*

The UW holds new campus buildings to a LEED Silver standard, strives for a local, organic focus in its food services, and is currently the pilot site to test the first compostable paper soft drink cups.

Photo: bgblogging3. Middlebury College, Vermont*

Middlebury's biomass gasification plant reduces the school's carbon dioxide emissions by 40 percent and keeps it on track to becoming carbon neutral by 2016.

Photo: toddmundt4. University of Vermont, Burlington

With its Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, biodiesel buses, green buildings, and the eco-awareness of the student body and populace of Burlington, UVM consistently makes lists of green schools.

5. College of the Atlantic, Bar Harbor, Maine*

Over 90 percent of this campus's lighting comes in the form of compact fluorescents, and a new wood-pellet furnace heats 20 percent of the school. Students design their own majors and all graduate with a B.A. in Human Ecology. The school has been carbon neutral since 2007.

Photo: lil_azorean6. Evergreen State College, Olympia, Wash.*

The college purchased a fleet of electric vehicles and runs a sustainably managed farm where it teaches courses in organic agriculture. With the help of students' self-imposed clean-energy fee, Evergreen is on its way to meeting its goals of being waste-free and carbon neutral by 2020.

7. University of California, Santa Cruz

One of eight UC schools that are part of the California Climate Action Registry, which tracks greenhouse-gas emissions, UCSC has a student-created fund for buying renewable energy credits, and is home to the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems.

Photo: Thomas Hawk8. University of California, Berkeley*

Cal has pledged to return its greenhouse-gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2014, six years earlier than the rest of the state, and its primary food service provider was first in the country to be organically certified.

Photo: _Gene_9. University of California, Los Angeles

UCLA wins for waste management, recycling the hell out of just about anything on campus that can be recycled (construction materials, cafeteria food waste, leftover lab water, etc.). Many of its dorms have solar-heated water.

Photo: baslow10. Oberlin College, Ohio

Oberlin has been greening its commencement year by year, offering hybrid vehicles to rent and serving local and organic food. It has a Bike Co-op, a solar parking pavilion, and hosts the Ecolympics, a four-week series of environmentally themed contests between dorms.

Photo: mathoov11. Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.*

Harvard leads the way in resource conservation, with its collection of CFLs, solar panels, and 17 LEED-certified buildings, not to mention moisture-sensitive sprinklers on the famous Yard.

12. University of New Hampshire, Durham*

This school, which held a sustainable commencement in 2009, gets most of its energy from landfill gas, and with an organic dairy research farm and a new double major in EcoGastronomy, it leads the way in focusing on sustainable agriculture and food practices.

Photo: midiman13. Arizona State University, Tempe*

ASU's biggest claim to green fame is its School of Sustainability, established in 2007, which offers interdisciplinary eco-related degree programs. The university has more solar panels than any other college campus in the U.S., and its president Michael Crow co-chairs the American College and University Presidents' Climate Commitment. ASU has also teamed up with Grist to send local and national sustainability news to its whole student body--and we all know that working with Grist earns you the greatest green kudos!

Photo: interrupt14. Yale University, New Haven, Conn.*

Almost half of the food in Yale's dining halls is local, seasonal, or organic, thanks in part to the school's one-acre market garden. The school is a leader in environmental and climate research.

Photo: StevenM_6115. University of Florida, Gainesville

A new addition to the Gator football complex is certified LEED Platinum--the first athletic building in the U.S. to take that distinction--and it plans to host the first carbon-neutral home football season this year. The school aims to be waste-free by 2015.

Photo: davidgalestudios16. Bates College, Lewiston, Maine*

Bates does a good job of favoring local food, diverting food waste, and using renewable energy, and offers Prius rentals to its eco-savvy student body.

Photo: Jason McHuff17. Willamette University, Salem, Ore.

"The first university in the West" adopted strong green purchasing policies, has a new LEED Gold residence hall, and composts 50 percent of its food waste. Its Center for Sustainable Communities hires students to lead selected sustainability projects, and the National Wildlife Federation deemed it first in the nation for "sustainability activities."

Photo: blueathena718. Warren Wilson College, Asheville, N. Carolina

This tiny college is big on waste management, composting all food waste from its dining halls and receiving the Outstanding College Recycling Award from the Carolina Recycling Association.

Photo: oppositeofsuper19. Dickinson College, Carlisle, Penn.*

Dickinson has committed that all new buildings will meet at least a LEED Silver certification. The college also has a Center for Environmental and Sustainability Education and an organic farm, and has eliminated Styrofoam from its dining services.

Photo: wallyg20. New York University

This large university buys enough renewable-energy credits to offset all of its electricity use, and for a while was the top campus purchaser of green energy, according to the EPA. It requires new construction and renovations to meet LEED Silver standards (all the cool schools are doing it!), and doesn't let the big city stand in the way of offering local, organic food in dining halls.

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One flu east, one flu westThe
outbreak of a new flu strain -- a nasty mash-up of swine, avian, and
human viruses -- has infected 1,000 people in Mexico and the U.S.,
killing 68. The World Health Organization warned Saturday that the outbreak could reach global pandemic levels.

Is Smithfield Foods, the world's largest pork packer and hog
producer, linked to the outbreak? Smithfield operates massive
hog-raising operations Perote, Mexico, in the state of Vera Cruz, where
the outbreak originated. The operations, grouped under a Smithfield
subsidiary called Granjas Carroll, raise 950,000 hogs per year,
according to the company Web site.

On Friday, the U.S. disease-tracking blog Biosurveillance published a timeline of the outbreak containing this nugget, dated April 6 (major tip of the hat to Paula Hay, who alerted me to the Smithfield link on the Comfood listserv and has written about it on her blog, Peak Oil Entrepreneur):

Residents [of Perote] believed the outbreak had been caused by contamination from
pig breeding farms located in the area. They believed that the farms,
operated by Granjas Carroll, polluted the atmosphere and local water
bodies, which in turn led to the disease outbreak. According to
residents, the company denied responsibility for the outbreak and
attributed the cases to "flu." However, a municipal health official
stated that preliminary investigations indicated that the disease
vector was a type of fly that reproduces in pig waste and that the
outbreak was linked to the pig farms. It was unclear whether health
officials had identified a suspected pathogen responsible for this
outbreak.

From what I can tell, the possible link to Smithfield has not been
reported in the U.S. press. Searches of Google News and the websites of
the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal all came up empty. The link is being made in the Mexican media, however. "Granjas Carroll, causa de epidemia en La Gloria," declared a headline in the Vera Cruz-based paper La Marcha. No need to translate that, except to point out that La Gloria is the village where the outbreak seems to have started. Judging from the article, Mexican authorities treat hog CAFOs with just
as much if not more indulgence than their peers north of the border, to
the detriment of surrounding communities and the general public health.
Get this:

De acuerdo con uno de los habitantes de la
comunidad, Eli Ferrer Cortés, los desechos fecales y orgánicos que
produce Granjas Carroll no son tratados adecuadamente, lo que genera
contaminación del agua y del viento en la region.

My rough translation: According to one community resident, the
organic and fecal waste produced by Granjas Carrol isn't adequately
treated, creating water and air pollution in the region. I witnessed --
and smelled -- the same thing in Hardin County, Iowa, a couple of years ago, another area marked by
intensive industrial hog production. The article goes on to say that
area residents have long complained of "fetid odors" in the air and
water, and swarms of flies hovering around waste lagoons. Like their
counterparts who live in CAFO-heavy U.S. areas, they also complain of
respiratory ailments. Now, with 30 percent of the area's residents now
infected with the virulent flu bug, people are demanding that state and
federal authorities inspect hog operations there. So far, reports La Marcha, the response has been: nada.

The Mexico City daily La Jornada has also made the link.
According to the newspaper, the Mexican health agency IMSS has
acknowledged that the orginal carrier for the flu could be the "clouds of flies" that
multiply in the Smithfield subsidiary's manure lagoons.

I'll be in touch with contacts in Mexico as this story develops  --
and I'll be curious to see whether the U.S. media explores the link with
Smithfield's Mexico operation.

Note: In the original version of this post, I had called production at Granjas Carroll "nearly equal to Smithfield's total U.S. production." I had been confusing total production at Granjas Carroll -- 950,000 hogs produced in fiscal 2008 -- with the number of sows, or breeding pigs, kept by Smithfield in the United States. According to my source -- "Concentration of Ag Markets, 2007" (PDF) by Hendrickson and Heffernan -- Smithfield keeps 1.2 million sows. Actual hog production is much larger -- thus Smithfield's total U.S. hog production is much larger than Granjas Carroll's. I regret the error.

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Kay Hagan (D-N.C.)

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UPS will test new hydraulic hybrid trucks

If you thought the muscled deliveryfolk in tight brown shorts were hot, wait 'til you get a load of their trucks. UPS drivers in Detroit will be testing new hybrid delivery trucks developed by the U.S. EPA, which the agency claims will boost fuel efficiency up to 70 percent in stop-and-go traffic. The "hydraulic hybrid" trucks -- also intriguing to the Army and FedEx -- sport low-emission diesel engines and store braking energy not in a battery, but in a hydraulic system. A hydraulic hybrid will save about 1,000 gallons of fuel a year compared to a typical UPS truck. If the trucks are mass-produced, the new hybrid technology will add $7,000 to their cost, but could save companies as much as $50,000 over a delivery truck's 10- to 20-year lifetime, says EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson. He declared, "With this new system, I guess you can say brown is the new green." But wait -- we thought green was the new black? We're so confused.

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When it comes to public transit in the U.S., there are certain predictable all-stars: the Metro in Washington, D.C., is convenient, efficient, and clean. The anthropomorphically nicknamed El and BART in Chicago and San Francisco are legendary. And everyone knows it's easier to navigate New York City without a car than with one.

But what about the rest of the country? As cities big and small rethink how their residents get around, new systems are taking shape -- and as gas prices and paychecks fluctuate, riders are responding in droves. While the current economic crunch is forcing many cities to hike fares and cut back on service, innovations continue, and the tracks are laid for a bright future.

Here are a few surprising places where public transit is gaining speed -- steer yourself to the comments section below to leave your own nominations.

By the time I get to Phoenix, you'll be riding.Jim JeffersPhoenix, Ariz. Pop. 1.5 million

The desert-gobbling Arizona capital opened its first light-rail line in January with much fanfare and a few days of free rides. The 20-mile line is a modest start, but it beat early expectations, proving that even a poster child for sprawl can change its ways. Future corridors would further connect the city, America's fifth largest. One less-than-sunny idea: The county sheriff's "Con Rail" plan to transport inmates on city rails. And drivers are still getting used to those big moving objects: vehicles have collided with trains 22 times this year, with motorists, not Metro, taking the blame.

Rapid transit: the final frontier.GRTCRichmond, Va. Pop. 202,002
The Capital of the South is served by a century-old non-profit that runs bike-rack-equipped buses, vans, and a carpooling and ride-matching service. Honored last year by the American Public Transportation Association for its deep commitment to the community, the Greater Richmond Transit Company has taken an active role in educating residents about the joys of carless living, with initiatives including a Lunch Time Express shuttle that makes downtown stops and even a transit TV show. A plan known as Mission 2015 envisions rapid transit and a downtown transfer center -- big plans for a system dubbed by CEO John Lewis as "the little engine that could."

Blizzard? What's a little blizzard?!Yokota FritzDenver, Colo. Pop. 588,349
Denver's mile-high sprawl is a lot easier to navigate thanks to one of the leading transit systems in the West. An established network of light rail and buses connects the city's grid, all centered at the downtown Union Station. The voter-approved FasTracks plan will extend rail and bus lines into the suburbs, reaching into eight counties. And the Rocky Mountain Rail Authority hopes to run high-speed trains (up to 300 mph) along the oft-choked I-25 and I-70 corridors that traverse the state (though Colorado was among the states that got no love in President Obama's national high-speed rail plan).

A MAX bus bound for glory.busride.comSalt Lake City, Utah. Pop. 180,651
What would you do if you expected millions of visitors to descend on your city for a couple of weeks? In Salt Lake City's case, the answer was obvious: make it easier for them to get around. In advance of the 2002 Olympics, the city undertook several upgrades, including building a light rail system known as TRAX. The Utah Transportation Authority also runs a comprehensive bus system -- which offers winter service to nearby ski areas -- and a new commuter rail called FrontRunner. In fact, the city aims to build seventy miles of rail in seven years; officials are also studying the possibility of adding a downtown streetcar and a bicycle transit center. UTA actually decreased fares this year by dropping a fuel surcharge, but now budget cuts are being leveled at paratransit services, and disabled riders are none too pleased.

Exploring the Charlotte light rail.Charlotte ObserverCharlotte, N.C. Pop. 671,588
Charlotte's light-rail line is certainly more of an up-and-comer than a well-rounded network, with its first 10-mile route opening in 2007. But what a story it's been: Republican Mayor Pat McCrory put his career on the line for mass transit, asking this auto-loving Southern city (future home of the NASCAR Hall of Fame) to pony up nearly $500 million for the LYNX line. Sure as shootin', voters responded. The rail line blew through 2020 ridership projects last summer, sparking new development downtown. Ridership has dropped along with the economy and gas prices since then, forcing service cuts. Still, other Southern cities have sent delegates to Charlotte to learn from this regional transit pioneer.

Fight the power ... of smog.Fred Camino via flickrLos Angeles, Calif. Pop. 3.8 million
The city known for smog, sprawl, and freeways has been working for two decades to reinvent itself as a transit-friendly place, spending $11 billion on a comprehensive rail network and creating a Metro Rapid bus line that uses low floors, traffic signal priority, and limited stops to minimize travel times. The work is paying off: despite its bad rap for public transit, L.A.'s ridership ranks among the top in the nation. "We want to rethink what the city looks like," Mayor Anthony Villaraigosa (D) has said, "to focus on a new urbanism that makes transit-oriented development and mixed-use development the future of L.A."

Lolly the Trolley, the ride that started it all.Crawfishpie via flickrCleveland, Ohio. Pop. 438,042
Despite financial hardships earlier this decade, the Greater Cleveland Regional Transportation Authority saw several years of rail and bus ridership growth, added "free with a smile" downtown trolleys, and was hailed as one of the nation's best transit systems by the American Public Transportation Association in 2007. In 2008, it added a route traveled by hybrid buses. Bike racks on buses and an airport connector make it theoretically possible to get around car-free. All of which rocks! But during the last year, route cuts and fare hikes have left some customers feeling stranded.

Riders crowd the platform at a MetroLink grand opening in 2006.Steve Patterson/Urban Review STLSt. Louis, Mo. Pop. 354,361
The Gateway City is working to reinvent itself, and its MetroLink light-rail system has played a crucial part. Ridership exceeded predictions, and advocates say the system has helped attract new shops, offices, residences, and hotels in both the Missouri and Illinois sections of the greater metro area. But after a November sales-tax referendum failed to get countywide support, the system had to raise fares and make major cuts in service. Despite the bumpy ride, experts say St. Louis is a great example of the positive impact that transit can have on development patterns.

For iRiders, a glut of tourist attractions await.Orlando, Fla. Pop. 227,907
In a city perennially clogged with tourists, downtown traffic was a downer. So Orlando officials created a free bus rapid transit system known as LYMMO in the late 1990s. Today, they credit the system with inspiring the development of several nearby office and residential buildings and improving walkability. The city is now looking at expanding beyond its current corridors, which total about twelve miles, and replacing its "clean-diesel" buses with hybrids. In a classically American catch, the bus remains free to riders because it is subsidized by income from -- wait for it -- parking garages.

Grand Rapids Station, the nation's first LEED-certified public transit facility.Rapid Growth MediaGrand Rapids, Mich. Pop. 193,627
The transit system in Grand Rapids, known fondly as The Rapid, is like an eco-catchprase come to life. Green building? Check, in the form of a LEED-certified central terminal. Green jobs? Yep, expansion is expected to create 1,200 of them in the short-term, with about 400 being permanent. Transit-oriented development? You betcha: That LEED terminal has helped inspire $74 million of development in a three-block radius. Plus the system boasts super-friendly Midwest benefits like a shuttle in the 'burbs that takes riders to the nearest bus stop. OK, OK -- so maybe walkability is the one eco-catchphrase that hasn't caught on yet.

This list was created by Jonathan Hiskes and Katharine Wroth. Thanks are due to the American Public Transportation Association, Environmental Defense, Planetizen, and Reconnecting America for their suggestions, information, and advice.

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You keep hearing about the Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill -- aka the American Clean Energy and Security Act, ACES, H.R. 2454 -- but what's actually in it? We combed through the 946-page beast so you don't have to.

Here are the highlights of the bill, which is sponsored by Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and was passed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee on May 21.

The bill creates a renewable electricity standard (RES) that would require large utilities in each state to produce an increasing percentage of their electricity from renewable sources. Qualifying renewable sources are wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, marine and hydrokinetic energy, biogas and biofuels derived exclusively from eligible biomass, landfill gas, wastewater-treatment gas, coal-mine methane, hydropower projects built after 1992, and some waste-to-energy projects.

The RES:

The bill would put a cap on emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases, and would require high-emitting industries to reduce their output to specific targets between now and the middle of the century. (This is the "cap" part of the "cap-and-trade" program.) The bill covers 85 percent of the overall economy, including electricity producers, oil refineries, natural gas suppliers, and energy-intensive industries like iron, steel, cement, and paper manufacturers.

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The goals for U.S. emission reductions, below 2005 levels:

Regulated industries would need to acquire permits for their emissions. (Emission permits are also referred to as "carbon credits," "pollution allowances," and various combinations of these words.)

If a company cuts its emissions so much that it has more permits than it needs, it can sell excess permits to other companies or bank them for future use. If a company doesn't have enough permits, it can buy more or borrow its future credits and pay interest on them. Non-regulated entities (banks, nonprofits, people like you) can also buy and sell permits. (This is the "trade" part of the "cap-and-trade" program.) If a company's emissions exceed its permits, it would be fined two times the fair market value of the permits it should have purchased.

Some of the permits would be given away to industries regulated under this bill:

Some of the permits would be given to entities that are not covered under the bill, which would sell them and use the proceeds for specific purposes:

About 15 percent of the pollution permits would be sold by the federal government in the initial years of the program. Here's how the revenue would be spent (shown as a percentage of the value of all permits):

By 2025, the bill would direct an estimated total of $190 billion to energy technologies and efficiency measures:

The bill also creates a Clean Energy Deployment Administration within the federal government that would provide loans and loan guarantees to spur more private investment in energy technology.

Regulated companies would be allowed to purchase carbon offsets to meet a portion of their required emission reductions -- meaning they could fund clean-energy projects elsewhere instead of cutting their own emissions. This could lower the cost of complying with the new law.

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This post by Marianne Lavelle and Matthew Lewis is reprinted with the permission of The Center for Public Integrity.
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Hundreds of lobbyists are cramming into Room 2123 of the Rayburn House Office Building this week for the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s mark-up of landmark legislation to curb global warming through a complex cap-and-trade system. But some of those lobbyists will carry a bit more weight — or at least a heftier client list — than others.

A new analysis of Senate disclosure records by The Center for Public Integrity shows that more than 880 businesses and interest groups registered to lobby on climate change in the first quarter of 2009 — up more than 14 percent over the same time last year. But just 10 lobbying firms have amassed such large client lists that they represent nearly 100 of those business interests — including some of the biggest trade organizations and companies most active in the debate. Here are the top 10 firms representing climate change interests, by number of clients. Most of them boast lobbying teams heavy with former government officials and Capitol Hill staffers.

Alpine Group — 13 Clients
It’s no surprise that Alpine Group tops the list, given its environment and energy pedigree. The shop was co-founded in 1996 by Richard White, former legislative coordinator for the late Rhode Island Senator John Chafee, a Republican who often bucked his party as an environmental champion, and by James Massie, a longtime energy lobbyist. Alpine Group’s stable of climate lobbyists includes former House Energy and Commerce Committee Democratic aide Courtney Johnson, former Senate Appropriations Republican staffer Les Spivey, and former staffers for three of the moderate Democratic Senators whose votes hang in the balance on climate legislation: Jason Schendle (former staffer to Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana), Charles Barnett (Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas), and Rhod Shaw (Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio). Alpine Group’s list of 13 climate clients includes Ford, BP America, BNSF Railway, 3M, Duke Energy, and NRG Energy.

Ogilvy Government Relations — 13 Clients
The firm formerly known at the Federalist Group has made its name as one of Washington’s premier lobby shops since being acquired in 2005 by Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide. Stewart Hall, a former legislative director for Senator Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican, founded the firm and directs its operations. Joining him in representing some of the biggest oil and chemical groups — the American Petroleum Institute and the American Chemistry Council, as well as power companies and agriculture groups — are other former congressional staffers. That group includes Julie Dammann, one-time chief of staff to Senator Christopher “Kit” Bond, a Missouri Republican, as well as Dean Aguillen, a key former staffer to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat. Reliant Energy, Chevron, Monsanto, and the National Milk Producers Federation count themselves among Ogilvy clients.

Patton Boggs LLP — 11 Clients
If you’re a city, county, or municipal organization seeking a share of the revenue stream that a cap-and-trade system might create — like San Diego or King County, Washington — then international law firm Patton Boggs is the place to go. Patton Boggs represented 10 local governments in the first quarter, in addition to chemical manufacturer INEOS. Nearing a half-century old, Patton Boggs has been the King of K Street since it eclipsed Cassidy & Associates as the highest-paid lobbying firm in 2003, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Patton’s pair of municipally-minded climate lobbyists: Tanya DeRivi, a former adviser to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and Marek Gootman, a former adviser on community development policy and intergovernmental affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Morgan Meguire, LLC — 11 Clients
This specialized firm is led by Deborah Sliz, who started her Washington career in the late 1970s as counsel to one of Capitol Hill’s most legendary environmental advocates, the late Arizona Democratic Representative Morris Udall — whose son, Mark, is now Colorado’s freshman Democratic senator. Sliz later headed up lobbying for the American Public Power Association, and the firm’s climate clients indeed include some of the nation’s biggest public and consumer-owned water and power utility groups. Among them are Southern California’s Imperial Irrigation District, the Tennessee Valley Public Power Association, and the Northwest Public Power Association. Another Morgan Meguire climate lobbyist, Karen Zanoff, came to the firm after serving as House Energy and Commerce Committee adviser to former Missouri Democratic Representative Karen McCarthy.

McBee Strategic Consulting — 10 Clients
The client list at McBee Strategic Consulting is diverse, and so are its lobbyists. McBee’s roster includes a bipartisan pair of former counsel to the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee (Democrat Samuel Whitehorn and Republican Robert Chamberlin) and a bipartisan pair of former legislative aides to Washington state’s members of Congress, including name partner Steve McBee. McBee worked for then-Representative and current Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington. Ashley Slater served as director of legislative affairs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality under President George W. Bush, while her colleague Glynda Becker also served that administration as associate political director in the White House Office of Political Affairs. McBee’s clients include a wide array of companies from JPMorgan Chase to Boeing and Eastman Chemical. The Port of Seattle, the American Trucking Associations, and alternative energy firm Akermin are among other clients.

Ryan, MacKinnon, Vasapoli and Berzok, LLP — 9 Clients
The first two name partners at Ryan, MacKinnon, Vasapoli and Berzok both have close ties to the House Energy and Commerce committee. Thomas M. Ryan worked as a Democratic aide to the committee, while fellow partner Jeff MacKinnon served as legislative director to Representative Joe Barton, a Texas Republican and current ranking minority member of the committee. The firm represents the giant association of investor-owned electric power companies, Edison Electric Institute, and large electric power and oil companies, including Southern Company, Entergy and Sunoco, as well as the Association of American Railroads.

Bracewell & Giuliani LLP — 9 Clients
Some of the nation’s largest coal-intensive power companies, including Southern Company, Duke Energy, and Energy Future Holdings, as well as coal-hauling rail company CSX, are on the climate client roster of Bracewell & Guiliani. The firm’s renowned name partner is former New York mayor and Republican Presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani, who joined Bracewell in 2005. But the energy and climate lobbying team in Washington has long been led by attorney Scott Segal, who was joined in recent years by two of the George W. Bush administration’s senior appointees at the Environmental Protection Agency, Jeffrey Holmstead and Edward Krenik.

Alcalde & Fay — 8 Clients
The so-called “super-greenhouse gases” are the focus of Alcalde & Fay’s lobbying work. Not carbon dioxide, but an array of gases thousands of times more potent in trapping heat in the atmosphere. These hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, used widely in refrigeration and air conditioning, have been favored as substitutes for the chlorofluorocarbons phased out as ozone-depleting substances under the 1987 Montreal Protocol. But their global warming potential has been a cause for worry, and a possible phase-down of these gases is one of the issues lawmakers are grappling with. Alcalde & Fay’s two lead climate lobbyists, Kevin Fay and David Stirpe, worked on regulatory controversies before — they both were previously counsel to the Safe Buildings Alliance, the asbestos lobby. On climate, they represent the HFC manufacturer and user group, the Alliance for Responsible Atmospheric Policy, as well as several of the group’s members, including Dow Agrosciences, American Pacific, and the Air Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute.

Colling Swift & Hynes — 7 Clients
With former Democratic Congressman Allan Swift leading the climate lobbying effort, this firm has been a magnet for companies from an industry of historic importance to his home state of Washington — the paper business. Clients include Rock-Tenn Company, The Newark Group, White Pigeon Paper, and Smurfit-Stone Container. The firm also represents the government of the U.S. Virgin Islands. Other experienced Washington, D.C., hands at Colling Swift include Louis Hengen, once an aide to former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, a Mississippi Republican, and Frances McPoland, who coordinated federal recycling and waste reduction programs in President Clinton’s White House.

Hunton & Williams LLP — 7 Clients
Two former Republican counsel to the House Energy and Commerce committee are weighing in on its current climate legislation at Hunton & Williams. Mark Menezes and Joseph C. Stanko are among the climate lobbyists working on behalf of electric power clients including First Energy, as well as the Gas Processors Association, manufacturer Koch Industries, and railroad company CSX. Hunton & Williams represented utilities on the losing side in the Supreme Court’s ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA, in which the court determined that the agency could regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. However, that issue is now very much in play for the firm’s climate lobbying clients on Capitol Hill, as the proposed Waxman-Markey legislation would take away EPA’s power — putting into place the cap-and-trade system to control greenhouse gases instead.

CORRECTION: Samuel Whitehorn of McBee Strategic Consulting was incorrectly identified in the Center’s report as a former Republican counsel to the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. In fact, Whitehorn served as Democratic minority aviation counsel to that committee under Senator Ernest “Fritz” Hollings, Democrat of South Carolina, and as the committee’s minority Deputy Staff Director under Senator Daniel Inouye, Democrat of Hawaii.

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