Thomas Jefferson is renowned as a true Renaissance Man. He was a master of letters, music, architecture, biology, government…and mountaintop removal.

I only learned of this fact recently, on a delightful revisit to Monticello, TJ’s famed estate in Albemarle County. Every school kid in Virginia visits Monticello, repeatedly, so I’d been there several times already. As this was the first time I’d gone since I was in school, this was the first time I paid attention to the exhibits. Thus I learned that Mr. Jefferson removed Little Mountain’s little mountaintop in order to accommodate his mansion.

I wonder if the Sage of Monticello could build Monticello today. The EPA is cracking down on mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia, illegally and against the will of elected officials, so as to protect an insect that lives for a day, which isn’t an endangered species. (That’s an outrageous subject I discuss here, here, and here.) Even if he received the necessary permits, he’d still have to do battle with environmentalists and NIMBY-types. Sadly, I doubt he’d win.

Louisiana

Three weeks ago, a federal judge in Louisiana found the Department of the Interior in contempt for its moratorium on oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico enacted in the wake of last year’s BP spill. As a result of the ruling, the government will have to pay the plaintiff’s legal fees, but it didn’t impact the moratorium, which was lifted on October 22, 2010. Despite the end of the de jure moratorium, the Obama administration has kept in place a de facto moratorium through bureaucratic foot-dragging.

Two weeks ago, the same U.S. District Judge, Martin Feldman, lifted this de facto moratorium, by granting a preliminary injunction requiring that the Interior Department act within 30 days on five pending permit applications. According to Judge Martin’s ruling, “Delays of four months and more in the permitting process, however, are unreasonable, unacceptable and unjustified by the evidence before the court.”

New Hampshire

By a 246 to 104 vote, the New Hampshire House of Representatives last week passed HB 519, legislation that would withdraw New Hampshire from a regional energy-rationing scheme known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Governor John Lynch (D) promised to veto the bill before it was introduced, but this week’s vote is veto-proof. The State Senate is expected to pass HB 519 with enough votes to overturn the Governor’s promised veto.

Virginia

By a 64-33 vote, the Virginia House of Delegates last Wednesday passed HR 72, a measure urging Congress to stop, “by any means necessary,” the Environmental Protection Agency from adopting regulations for greenhouse gases. The non-binding resolution does not require Senate approval. Virginia is one of three states (the others are Texas and Alabama) that have brought a suit before the Washington D.C. Circuit Court seeking to overturn EPA’s decision to regulate greenhouse gases.

Your host Richard Morrison teams up with collaborators Jeremy Lott and William Yeatman to bring you Episode 72 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We begin with UN climate hypocrisy in Copenhagen, presidential arm-twisting on health care and a cloudy look at government transparency. We conclude with the end of the tobacco road in Virginia and scandal of banking and nepotism in Venezuela.