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The Firm
The text of a bill being pushed by Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.) that would weaken regulation of pesticides is almost a word-for-word duplicate of a draft written by a consulting firm working for a coalition of pesticide manufacturers, agricultural organizations, and food processors. A landmark 1996 law set a new, stringent safety standard for using […]
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Following Suits
Friends of the Earth and other enviro groups are moving forward with a lawsuit arguing that the U.S. Forest Service has violated laws that require it to consider the full costs of logging on national forests, including the financial impacts on tourism, watershed protection, and wildlife. The groups filed the case in 1998, seeking to […]
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Salmon Day, My Prince Will Come
During a campaign swing through Portland, Ore., Vice President Al Gore on Friday said that as president he would use hard science to quickly resolve the controversy over how to restore salmon runs in the Northwest, but he avoided taking a stance on whether four dams on the Snake River in Washington state should be […]
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News Flash: SUVs Get Low Gas Mileage
Ford Motor Co. admitted yesterday that SUVs are bad for the environment because they guzzle more gas, contribute more to global warming, and spew more smog-causing pollution than cars. In the company’s first “corporate citizenship report,” released yesterday at its annual shareholders’ meeting, Ford said it will step up efforts to make its vehicles more […]
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It's a Hardrock Life
Hardrock mining companies and electric power plants are the worst toxic-chemical polluters in the U.S., according to EPA Toxics Release Inventory data unveiled yesterday. In all, the EPA found that 7.3 billion pounds of toxic chemicals were released by eight industries in 1998, the most recent year for which data are available. Metal mining accounted […]
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Mighty Don Young
The House overwhelmingly approved a major bill yesterday that would set aside $45 billion over 15 years to buy green spaces, protect wildlife, restore damaged coastal areas, and pay for other environmental projects. The measure, which would be funded by oil-drilling royalties collected by the federal government, would more than double the government’s current budget […]
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Bubba Drubbing
President Clinton went on the attack against Texas Gov. George W. Bush (R) yesterday, accusing him of being wrong-headed on the environment and other issues. During an interview on National Public Radio, Clinton said that if Bush wins, “he will do what he did in Texas — he will let the people who basically are […]
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Not-So-Sunny Bonobos
Nearly a quarter of the world’s primate species are endangered by human activities, according to the World Conservation Union. The group — which is composed of 10,000 scientists, several hundred of whom are meeting in the U.S. this week to discuss the problem — says 50 of 600 primate species are critically endangered, while 88 […]
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Patently Absurd
In a decision hailed by environmental and development groups, the European Patent Office yesterday revoked a patent granted six years ago for an anti-fungal product derived from the neem tree, which is widely grown in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh and has been used for centuries to make medicines, insect repellants, cosmetics, and contraceptives. The scientists […]
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Baa Baa Baa Bad to the Bone
Levels of radioactivity from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster are likely to remain high in parts of Northern Europe for 100 times longer than originally estimated, according to a report published in the journal Nature. Researchers from Britain and the Netherlands found that the environment is not cleansing itself as fast as expected, particularly in the […]
