Feds Knew "Dolphin-Safe" Rules Were Being Broken In 2002, the Bush administration relaxed restrictions on foreign-caught tuna, allowing boats that netted dolphins to sell their tuna as "dolphin-safe" in the U.S. as long as the dolphins were released. The relaxed rule relied on the fact that observers were placed on boats to report on whether dolphins were caught in nets. Turns out, though, that in Mexico -- a major source of foreign tuna -- those observers are regularly bribed with payments of $10,000 to lie about dolphin netting. And it gets better: According to an internal Commerce Department email, U.S. …

Cheney Task Force Supreme Court Case Gets Underway Court watchers hoping to witness fireworks or heated accusations about duck hunting or energy-executive cuddling were sorely disappointed by the kickoff yesterday of the Supreme Court case regarding Vice President Dick Cheney's infamous energy task force. Opening arguments -- by Cheney's lawyer Ted Olson and lawyers from the Sierra Club and Judicial Watch, which brought the original suit -- were dense with jargon and complex reasoning about sometimes-obscure legislation and constitutional powers. The core issue is whether Cheney's task force was composed entirely of executive branch officials or whether, instead, the energy-company …

Pollution Gives Girlish Traits to Boy Turtles Some male snapping turtles in the Great Lakes are suffering from reduced penis size and are producing egg yolk protein, a capability once available only to female turtles, according to researchers from the Canadian Wildlife Service of Environment Canada. The research adds to a growing body of knowledge about the gender-bending effects of some industrial pollutants that mimic female hormones. The feminization of males has been found primarily in fish, but similar effects have been observed in herring gulls along the Detroit River and panthers and alligators in Florida. More than 50 synthetic …

Endangered Species Act Under Attack Again Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.) is once again on the attack against the Endangered Species Act. Nearly a decade ago, during the "Gingrich Revolution," Pombo was one of two reps chosen by the GOP leadership to assault the law, but the "reforms" he proposed then were so radical that they never came close to passing. Now Pombo -- chair of the House Resources Committee, which oversees the ESA -- is changing his tactics, taking a piecemeal approach. Today his committee is holding a hearing on a bill sponsored by ally Dennis Cardoza (D-Calif.), which would …

Ford Unveils New Green Assembly Plant On the site of its nearly 90-year-old Rouge manufacturing complex, where workers once assembled Model A's, Ford Motor Co. yesterday unveiled its new Dearborn Truck Plant, touted as a model of 21st-century, eco-friendly manufacturing. The multibillion-dollar plant is chockablock with innovative features. A 10-acre "living roof" covered in sedum grass, a porous-paved parking lot, and human-made swales all reduce storm-water runoff, saving on sewer-building expenses. The grass roof also insulates the factory, reducing heating and cooling costs, while 36 skylights and 10 glass-walled rooftop window boxes direct sunlight to workers on the floor. A …

New Border Enforcement Plan Worries Enviros An aggressive new plan to crack down on illegal immigration and smuggling over the Arizona-Mexico border will damage fragile federally protected land that serves as habitat for several endangered species, say some enviros. The Arizona Border Control Initiative, announced in March by the Department of Homeland Security, involves, among other things, the use of motorcycles and off-road vehicles by some 2,000 agents to patrol known smuggling routes. Enviros say that the DHS did not do the environmental impact studies required by law, and that patrols will destroy areas that "do not recover quickly," according …

Blair Launches New Climate Change Group U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair spoke today at the launch of the Climate Group, an international coalition of financial institutions, business leaders, environmental groups, and local politicians dedicated to speeding the reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions. The group will hold a major conference in May, create working groups to discuss best practices, and launch a "carbon university" in 2005 to serve as a central repository for its findings. In his remarks, Blair called climate change "the most important environmental issue facing the world today." Several British politicians and enviro groups took the opportunity to blast …

What work do you do? I work through a creation of mine called the Global Water Policy Project to promote the protection of rivers and other freshwater ecosystems. My goal is to generate ideas and inspiration to change the way we use, manage, and think about freshwater. How does it relate to the environment? Water is the basis of life and the blue arteries of the earth! Everything in the non-marine environment depends on freshwater to survive. Because we haven't managed water wisely in the past, many freshwater species are at risk of extinction. And because we've used water too …

Colleen Freeman is a policy analyst at Friends of the Earth-U.S. and Peter Bossard is policy director at International Rivers Network. They took part in discussions between environmental and other nonprofit groups and officials of the World Bank and IMF in the lead-up to the institutions' annual spring meetings held April 24-25. Monday, 26 Apr 2004 Washington, D.C. Over the past weekend, the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund met to take stock of the institutions' work and build consensus on how to tackle development issues. As in past years, the spring annual meetings were also an opportunity …

Upcoming Climate-Change Disaster Movie Provokes Silliness "The Day After Tomorrow," a big-budget climate-change disaster flick directed by Roland Emmerich (creator of such visionary fare as "Independence Day" and the 1998 "Godzilla" remake), is due for release on May 28, and it's got folks on both sides of the global-warming debate all atwitter. Fearing that the scenario in the movie -- wherein climate change, to the dismay of some Cheney-esque politicians, all of a sudden causes blizzards, tsunamis, and much bad acting -- might provoke a panicked public to question why the Bush administration isn't doing more to address climate change, …