By a vote of 62 to 38, the U.S. Senate decided yesterday to remove from the energy bill a provision that would have increased Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency vehicle standards. Instead, the Senate opted for an industry-backed proposal to give the Bush administration two more years to study the implications of raising CAFE standards. You can find the full text of Amendment 2997 here; the English translation is that a yea vote for the amendment is a thumbs-down to cleaner, greener vehicles. See how your senators voted. Meanwhile, by a vote of 56 to 44, the Senate agreed to exempt …

U.S. EPA Administrator Christie Whitman faced tough questioning from Congress members yesterday as she tried to defend her agency's decision to cut the number of Superfund toxic waste cleanups in half, from more than 80 per year during the Clinton administration to about 40 under President Bush. Whitman blamed the cuts on lack of funding; House Republicans have blocked reauthorization of an expired tax on polluting companies, and the Bush budget proposal includes no plans for reinstating the tax or otherwise boosting the Superfund coffers. The cuts are part of a series of controversial decisions that have left Whitman and …

Giving the lie to the myth that lower income and minority Americans don't care about the environment, Latino voters are proving to be some of the most dedicated environmentalists in California. For example, 74 percent of Latino voters approved a recent $2.6 billion parks and open space measure that was supported by just 56 percent of white voters. A 1999 survey found that while Latinos often felt cut off from the mainstream green movement, preserving the environment was important to an astonishing 96 percent of respondents -- more people than supported protecting immigrant rights or ensuring bilingual education. As minority …

Jonna Higgins-Freese is environmental outreach coordinator at Prairiewoods: Franciscan Spirituality Center in Hiawatha, Iowa. She is a fellow of the Environmental Leadership Program. Monday, 11 Mar 2002 HIAWATHA, Iowa Just for the record, I am not a nun. I do work for nuns, so folks often want to know if I'm one of them. I usually say that I'm not qualified on two counts: I'm married, and I'm a Quaker. The place where I work, Prairiewoods: Franciscan Spirituality Center, is one of three spirituality centers owned by the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration. Prairiewoods' mission is to integrate spirituality and …

Critics have long suspected that the Bush administration's energy policy was the result of very cozy relations with corporations, and now they've got the evidence to back it up: Eighteen of the energy industry's top 25 financial contributors to the Republican Party advised Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force, according to interviews and election records. The White House has refused to release the names of consultants to the energy policy, which calls for additional oil and gas drilling and the building of 1,300 to 1,900 more power plants over the next 20 years. The General Accounting Office has sued …

In the most dramatic move yet relating to the Bush administration's internal battle over federal clean air policy, a senior U.S. EPA official resigned this week to protest White House efforts to weaken tough emissions standards for power plants and oil refineries. Eric Schaeffer, head of the agency's Office of Regulatory Enforcement, accused the Energy Department and the White House of kowtowing to the power industry and interfering with EPA efforts to enforce New Source Review rules. The rules require that companies install state-of-the-art pollution controls when upgrading power plants and refineries -- and the Clinton-era EPA sued several utilities …

BP, the world's third-largest oil company, announced last night that it will halt all of its political contributions worldwide. The decision appears to reflect a desire to avoid accusations of influence peddling in the era of Enron, and could set a precedent for other companies. It could also be seen as a triumph for anti-globalization activists and other organizations, which BP CEO Sir John Browne said had "intensified scrutiny" on corporate activities. Browne said the company would continue to engage in policy debate, but would not fund any political activity or party. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, BP, …

Under pressure from the Bush administration, a federal judge yesterday revoked the protected status of several hundred thousand acres of Southern California land considered essential for the survival of two imperiled species. U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson called on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to re-assess the economic effects of protecting the land on behalf of the tiny California gnatcatcher and the San Diego fairy shrimp. The move is part of a sweeping reevaluation of millions of acres of land that have been set aside as "critical habitat" for at-risk species. Real estate developers, ranchers, and farmers have lobbied …

Chemical giant Monsanto and its spin-off company Solutia are legally responsible for polluting the town of Anniston, Ala., with PCBs, a jury ruled Friday morning. The verdict represents an initial victory for the people of Anniston, but the battle is far from over: Some 3,500 individual claims of illness and financial loss have yet to be tried in this case alone, and all told, more than 25,000 people have sued or are suing the companies from damages related to PCB production in the area. The folks at Solutia said they were "disappointed" by the jury's unanimous ruling of guilt on …

In what was billed as her first major environmental speech of the year, Interior Secretary Gale Norton called Wednesday for "a new environmentalism" in which local residents and landowners, not just the government, would take responsibility for protecting the Earth. Norton also called for an environmentalism that did not threaten jobs. The Interior secretary said that a number of her pet projects -- such as the $100 million Citizen Conservation Initiative, which will pay landowners to protect the environment -- fall under the rubric of new environmentalism. Environmentalists were both unsurprised and unimpressed, saying there was nothing very new about …