Climate Politics
All Stories
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Environmental enforcers get out while the getting’s good (and everything else is bad)
When John Suarez, the U.S. EPA’s top enforcement official, resigned on Monday to take a job at a Wal-Mart division, he assured his colleagues and President Bush that the EPA has “been able to provide more compliance assistance to industry than ever before.” The operative wording here, of course, is “assistance to industry,” seeing as […]
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The Grinch Who Stole Tongass
Bush Reverses Logging Ban in Alaska’s Tongass Forest Doing their part for holiday spirit, the Bush administration announced just two days before Christmas that it is exempting Alaska’s Tongass National Forest — America’s largest, and a longtime environmental battleground — from a controversial Clinton-era ban on development in roadless areas of national forests. The administration […]
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On climate change, other nations get cracking while the U.S. is slacking
The recent Milan conference on the Kyoto Protocol started out with a bang — a commotion of rumors about Russia’s ratification of the treaty — and went out with a whimper, offering no clear signal that the landmark accord on climate change would ever become international law. But one important development became clear amidst the […]
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Willy Wonks
Judge Orders Feds to Reconsider Protections for Puget Sound Orcas The Bush administration’s environmental policies are taking a beating from the judicial branch this week. Not only did a federal court yesterday reject a plan to allow snowmobiles in Yellowstone and Glacier national parks; today, a different federal judge struck down the administration’s decision not […]
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A Smog-and-Pony Show
Bush Team Unveils Plan to Cut Smog-Forming Pollution A new rule proposed yesterday by the Bush administration would cut emissions of smog- and soot-causing pollutants from power plants in the Midwest and East — but not deeply or quickly enough, say enviros. The plan would reduce sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide pollution by implementing a […]
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Judge to Bush: Are You Yellowstoned?
Federal Judge Reinstates Clinton Snowmobile Ban in Yellowstone In a sharply worded ruling issued just hours before the start of the winter snowmobiling season in Yellowstone National Park, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan nixed the Bush administration’s plans to allow nearly 1,000 snowmobiles in the park every day. The 49-page ruling pointed out that a […]
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May the Enforcement Be With You
EPA Enforcement Officials Removed From Homeland Security Duty But wait, there’s more! The Bush administration abruptly changed tack on yet another issue this week, when it announced that it will stop diverting federal environmental enforcement officials from pollution investigations to homeland security matters. The U.S. EPA will also stop using enforcement officials as bodyguards, chauffeurs, […]
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The Supreme Court may alleviate Cheney’s energy task force troubles
On Monday, the Supreme Court offered Vice President Dick Cheney a possible escape hatch from the great energy task force imbroglio. The high court agreed to hear an appeal from Cheney, who for more than a year has been defying a federal judge’s order to pony up documents about his infamous 2001 task force. Those […]
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The Weak in Review
Bush’s Mercury Plan Was Rejected by Clinton EPA as Too Weak The Bush administration’s new plan for regulating mercury emissions from power plants is virtually the same as one that the Clinton administration considered and dismissed because it appeared to violate the federal Clean Air Act, former U.S. EPA officials said yesterday. The Bush proposal […]
