The Pioneer: An Interview With Jerome Ringo Jerome Ringo is used to treading on new ground. As a child, he was the first and only African-American ranger at the world's largest Boy Scout camp. In 1998, he was the sole African-American delegate at the Global Warming Treaty negotiations in Kyoto. And earlier this April, he was sworn in as the Chairman of the National Wildlife Federation – the first African-American in history to chair a major conservation organization. Ringo’s commitment to the environment dates back to his early childhood in the Bayous of Southern Louisiana, and was strengthened by his experience working in Louisiana's petrochemical industry for over two decades. He saw firsthand the harmful effects of that industry on local communities, which included many of his own family members. When his company offered him an “early retirement” in 1994 at the age of 39, he took his 22 years of experience and expanded his pursuit of environmental activism into a full-time affair. ...Full Story   Tribe's Lawyer Argues Yucca Mountain Case A lawyer for an American Indian tribe that wants to stop a national nuclear waste dump from being built on ancestral lands told a federal judge that workers might have provided false information to win the project's approval. Robert Hager, an attorney for the Western Shoshone tribe, said in oral arguments Wednesday that the $58 billion project should be halted because of Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman's disclosure last month that information may have been falsified to obtain congressional approval for the project. "Misrepresentations were made. Lies were made," Hager told Judge Philip Pro. "At some point, it's got to stop, your honor, and it's got to stop with the courts." ...Full Story