Earlier this week, Native Americans and environmentalists won a surprising victory when a power company abandoned plans to build a highly controversial coal mine in New Mexico. Zuni Salt Lake. Photo: Zuni Salt Lake Coalition. For 20 years, the Salt River Project, an Arizona-based utility company, had sought to build an 18,000-acre strip mine near a salt lake in Western New Mexico. The Zuni Pueblo, other tribes, and environmentalists fought the plan, saying the mine would disrupt sacred Zuni burial sites and damage Zuni Salt Lake, a focal point of spiritual life for many tribes. The tribes and their allies …

Automakers Can Dodge Fuel-Economy Rules with Flex-Fuel Vehicles U.S. automakers are dramatically boosting production of "flexible-fuel" cars and trucks that can run on either gasoline or E85, a mixture of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gas that results in lower greenhouse gas emissions -- but this trend is more likely to harm the environment than help it. Owners of flex-fuel vehicles almost always fill them up with gasoline because E85 is so hard to find -- it's sold at fewer than 150 of the estimated 176,000 gas stations in the U.S. Still, car manufacturers get credits toward meeting federal …

Four elderly Pehuenche Indian women have thrown a big wrench into plans for a $570 million hydroelectric dam in southern Chile. Arguing that the hydro project would flood sacred land and destroy their traditional way of life, the four have refused to sell 103 acres they own along the Bio Bio River, land that would be submerged if the dam were finished. The Chilean government and the Endesa power company insist that the hydro project, which is 90 percent complete, is needed to meet Chile's energy needs and stimulate economic growth, but Indians and environmentalists have battled the project in …

It's never been easy to make a living in Libby, Mont. Citizens in this town of 12,000, tucked into the dense, damp conifer forests of northwestern Montana, have long scraped by on seasonal logging jobs and other sporadic work. So in the 1920s, when local entrepreneur Edward Alley discovered that a nearby vermiculite deposit yielded an efficient, lightweight insulation and fireproofing material, Libbyites were thrilled. Mine site in Libby, Mont. Photo: CDC. For decades, the mine -- dubbed Zonolite, like the brand-name insulation it produced -- offered the best jobs in town. Townspeople bragged that their local product had "a …

Two ambitious clean-energy coalitions made headlines this month, sweeping out from under the rug vital and far-reaching environmental issues that the Bush administration has steadfastly ignored. The Energy Future Coalition, boasting endorsements from heavies on both sides of the party line as well as from high-profile industry and environmental interests, called for a one-third reduction in U.S. oil consumption and a one-third reduction in carbon dioxide emissions over the next 25 years. At the same time (though in a completely unrelated effort), the Apollo Alliance, a labor-environmental coalition endorsed by a dozen influential unions, called for a 10-year, $300 billion …

One of President Bush's most ambitious environmental proposals is in jeopardy -- the goal of cutting mercury emissions from coal-burning power plants 46 percent by 2010. Many in the utility industry are complaining that such a requirement, which is part of Bush's "Clear Skies" legislation, would cost far more than expected and could force some coal-fired plants to switch to cleaner-burning natural gas. Republicans from the Midwest, home to many of the nation's dirtiest coal-burning power plants, are insisting that the mercury provision in the bill be rewritten -- and the administration seems content to go with the flow rather …

Meanwhile, Maine is several steps ahead of the federal government when it comes to combating climate change: Today, the state will become the first in the nation to enact a law establishing specific goals and deadlines for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Other New England states have addressed carbon dioxide emissions through different means -- such as executive orders, action plans, and a region-wide emissions-control agreement -- but the Maine initiative marks the first binding legislation enacted by a state. By passing it, the state has committed itself to developing ways to reduce CO2 emissions to 1990 levels by 2010, to …

By the end of the year, only $28 million will be left in the U.S. EPA's Superfund account. Superfund pays for the reclamation of abandoned toxic-waste sites, and $28 million barely affords a study just to figure out how to clean up one of the 1,200 deserted dumps wasting away in American communities. Money's tight to fund cleanups of Superfund sites like this one in Pennsylvania. Photo: U.S. EPA. How did Superfund, which used to have an annual account ledger of $1.5 billion, end up functionally bankrupt? Going back to 1995, the Republican-controlled Congress killed off the corporate "polluter tax" …

New gadgetry at truck stops could help slash pollution from idling big rigs. Most truck drivers across the U.S. leave their vehicles' engines running all night while they're parked at truck stops because it's the only way to keep the heating or air conditioning on while they get some shuteye. Between 840 million and 2 billion gallons of gasoline are burned each year in the U.S. by these idling trucks, according to an estimate from the South Coast Air Quality Management District in southern California, and that results in a lot of dangerous diesel exhaust that can damage lungs and …

Meanwhile, in nuclear news from elsewhere on the globe, Ireland has gone to international court in The Hague to try to shut down Britain's Sellafield nuclear power plant. The Irish, who have been fighting the plant for decades, claim that it violates the U.N. Convention of the Law of the Sea by polluting the Irish Sea with radioactive waste. The Sellafield plant handles mixed plutonium and uranium oxide and is located just across the sea from Dublin and Ireland's populous east coast. The Brits say it does not discharge significant amounts of radioactive waste, but Ireland (which has no nuclear …