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Sorry States

The Bush administration wants to shift significant responsibility for enforcing federal environmental laws from the U.S. EPA to the states. The fiscal year 2002 budget proposed by the White House would eliminate funding for 9 percent of the federal enforcement staff and instead provide states with money for enforcement grants and environmental assessments. EPA chief […]

The Unkindest Cuts

President Bush unveiled a budget yesterday for the next fiscal year that would slash spending on the environment and break a campaign promise he made to protect rainforests. In a campaign speech last August attacking then-Vice President Al Gore for a weak commitment on the issue, Bush pledged to set aside $100 million a year […]

A Toad in the Coal Mine

Global warming may be contributing to the decline of the western toad and other amphibians, according to a study published last week in Nature. The western toad has been dying off from a fungal-like infection of its eggs. Previous studies had shown that the eggs are susceptible to infection because of higher exposure to ultraviolet […]

Plan — Nein!

A federal judge in Idaho ruled last week that the U.S. Forest Service under President Clinton did not follow public-disclosure requirements before settling on a plan to ban road-building and logging on more than 58.5 millions acres of national forestland. But Judge Edward Lodge did not grant the request from the state of Idaho to […]

A Light Truck at the End of the Tunnel

After jeering at its competitors Ford and General Motors last year for promising to improve the fuel efficiency of their light trucks and SUVs by almost 25 percent over five years, DaimlerChrysler on Friday did an about-face and said it would manufacture light trucks that burn fuel at least as efficiently as those of its […]

Support Can Be Beautiful

European Union officials today said they had won China’s support of the Kyoto treaty on climate change. On Sunday, Chinese Environment Minster Xie Zhenhua joined environmental ministers from South Korea and Japan in a joint statement urging President Bush to reconsider his decision to have the U.S. withdraw from the treaty. China said the decision […]

Wolong, Farewell

The forests of China’s largest panda preserve are being destroyed four times faster than before the park was created in 1975, according to a study published last week in the journal Science. The human population living inside the 500,000-acre Wolong Nature Reserve grew 70 percent from 1975 to 1995. Residents of the park depend on […]

No Laughing Matter

With jokes about President Bush’s anti-environmental policies getting center-stage attention on late-night talk shows, the White House has gone into spin mode, trying to put a green lustre on its moves. U.S. EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman on Friday said that critics had been too quick to denounce decisions on global warming and arsenic in […]

Therapy for the Silent

Hook, Line, and Stinker

Despite the brouhaha over the potential health and environmental risks of genetically engineered crops, several biotech companies are moving forward with plans to bring genetically modified fish and meat to your nearest supermarket. Aqua Bounty Farms has already applied to the feds for approval to market salmon eggs laced with DNA from ocean pout that […]