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You Can't Hide Your Lion Eyes

At least 35 sea lions were found dead and mutilated in Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands on Sunday. Acting on an anonymous tip, officials of the Galapagos National Park discovered the bodies washed up on the beach, with their teeth and genitalia removed. Authorities suspect that the sea lions were killed to sell the body parts as […]

We'll Mop the Floor With Them

The U.S. House Resources Committee voted 26-17 yesterday to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling, but Democrats believe they will be able to win enough votes from Republican moderates to defeat the measure on the House floor. Meanwhile, the full U.S. Senate passed a bill yesterday to ban drilling under […]

Top of the R&D Charts

Undercutting an argument made by the Bush administration, a study by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences has found that federal research and development efforts to improve energy conservation and efficiency have produced big environmental and economic gains. The academy released a report yesterday detailing how a $13 billion federal investment since 1978 has returned […]

Dental Damn

A coalition of health and environmental groups sued the American Dental Association last month for misleading consumers about the content and safety of dental fillings. The groups say the ADA is duping consumers into believing that amalgam fillings are made of silver, when the major component is actually mercury. A scientist from the University of […]

The Price of Whales

A week before the International Whaling Commission is due to meet in London, a Japanese official has admitted that his country is using cash to help persuade countries to vote to lift an international ban on whaling. Japan’s fisheries minister, Maseyuku Komatsu, told Australian television today that Japan must use overseas aid as one way […]

The Year and a Half of Living Dangerously

The Bush administration took steps yesterday to delay moving forward with a Clinton-era rule to improve water quality in more than 20,000 lakes, ponds, streams, and rivers across the country. The rule, issued in June 2000, requires states to determine the total maximum daily loads of pollution that bodies of water can handle and make […]

Bearly Legal

Grizzly bears in Yellowstone National Park could suffer from inbreeding if a plan to reintroduce grizzlies to neighboring areas north of the park is dropped, say federal biologists. U.S. Interior Secretary Gale Norton has indicated that she will scrap the plan, which was developed by a local partnership of environmentalists, timber officials, and mill workers. […]

Elliot Diringer, Pew Center on Global Climate Change

Elliot Diringer, a veteran environmental journalist and a deputy press secretary in the Clinton White House, is now director of international strategies at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. The center is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to providing credible analysis and innovative solutions to address climate change. Tuesday, 17 Jul 2001 BONN, Germany […]

The Ties That Blind

The scientists who advise the U.S. EPA on regulatory decisions often have ties to the very industries that would be affected by the regulations being assessed, according to a study scheduled to be released today by the General Accounting Office, a congressional watchdog agency. In one case, seven of 17 members of a Science Advisory […]

Succor Fish

The U.S. Interior Department has rejected a request to convene the cabinet-level Endangered Species Committee — known as the “God Squad” — to consider whether allocating water to farmers in the Klamath River Basin on the Oregon-California border should rank above saving several species of fish. Farmers in the region have protested a move by […]