One-click activism has been a one-click failure with the Bush administration thus far. The Interior Department, for example, received 360,000 public comments (the huge majority of them sent by email) about the future of snowmobiles in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks; 80 percent of the writers asked that the government ban the snowmobiles. Last week, however, the administration said it would let the machines continue to rumble through the parks. What gives? Public comments have carried increasingly less weight since a 1987 court ruling that gave officials permission to ignore mass mailings, such as the one generated when green …

Cowboys and environmentalists unite! The unlikely amigos are banding together to try to keep natural gas drillers away from ranches on public land in the San Juan Basin in northwestern New Mexico and southwestern Colorado. Yesterday morning, they blocked drilling crews from entering four ranches, arguing that drilling leads to erosion, water contamination, and livestock deaths, but the ranchers say they've been unsuccessful in their efforts to attract the attention of Congress and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. "This is a David-and-Goliath issue, and as long as Washington is not behind getting the problem fixed, it will not be …

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After years of court battles, the U.S. EPA agreed yesterday to begin enforcing a stricter standard for ozone pollution that was developed by the Clinton administration in 1997. Industry groups such as the American Truckers Associations and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to try to block the standard, but eventually lost their case on most grounds. With the Bush administration in power, it was left to environmental groups to coax the feds (in court) to establish a schedule to enforce the standard and thereby reduce smog levels around the country. The …

Detroit automakers sure aren't complaining about the Republican takeover of the U.S. Senate. They anticipate having a close ally in the incoming chair of the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee, James Inhofe (R-Okla.), who is known for his criticism of clean air regulations and the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. He once referred to federal environmental agencies as "Gestapo bureaucracies." On the other hand, automakers don't quite know what to expect from Sen. John McCain (R.-Ariz.), who will assume the reins of the Commerce Committee. McCain has been an outspoken proponent of increasing fuel-efficiency standards for cars, SUVs, and …

Ignoring the overwhelming consensus among scientists worldwide, the Bush administration this week unveiled a proposal that would have the U.S. embark on another years-long study to assess whether humans are causing the globe to warm. Industry officials and other climate skeptics lauded the research plan. But many climate scientists said it would simply reopen issues that most experts consider resolved. Others said more research would be helpful, but not at the expense of delaying action to address climate change. Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton University said, "If you strip away the rhetoric, there's a valuable agenda of research here to pursue. …

Rolling back a Clinton-era decision that would have banned snowmobiles in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks by the upcoming winter, the Bush administration plans to place no limits on snowmobiles until December 2003 and then to cap the number of snowmobiles at 1,100 per day. For the past decade, the parks have had an average of 840 snowmobiles per day during the winter, but as many as 1,650 per day during peak season. Under the plan, snowmobiles over time would be required to run on cleaner engines. Despite that mini-green concession, environmentalists aren't clapping their hands. Charles Clusen of …

The Green Party says it fared well during last week's election. The Greens ran 541 candidates for office, mostly at the state or local level. That's double the number from 2000, according to Dean Myerson, the party's national political coordinator. Sixty-seven candidates were elected; overall, 171 Greens now sit in office across the country. Another milestone: Maine now boasts the only Green sitting in a state legislature. Myerson attributed the gains to the party's expanding membership and its leftist perspective on the war on terrorism and corporate scandals. He said, "People look at the election as a bad election for …

Another one from the Believe-It-Or-Not Department: Colorado officials want to increase clear-cutting to help solve the state's drought problem. Removing trees would allow more snow to fall to the ground, where it would run off into streams in the spring, providing enough new water to supply as many as a million families, says Kent Holsinger, the top water official at the state Department of Natural Resources. Colorado Gov. Bill Owens (R), a powerful Colorado representative to the U.S. House, and key Bush administration officials are all excited about the idea. They say the logging-for-water plan would kill two birds with …

In addition to suffering a loss at the federal level, the environmental movement came up short in several statewide and local votes on Tuesday. A huge majority of Oregonians voted down an initiative that would have made Oregon the first state to require labeling of genetically modified foods. The Grocery Manufacturers of American, with support from the biotech and food industries, spent more than $5 million to combat the measure. In Utah, voters overwhelmingly rejected a measure that would have outlawed high-level radioactive waste from entering Utah and raised taxes on low-radioactivity waste already brought into the state. In Berkeley, …