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Ja, Ja, Let's Get This Finnished
European Union governments reached agreement yesterday on a common approach for international talks next month on the Kyoto climate change treaty. Sweden, Finland, and the Netherlands had sought to water down the European stance, but they relented and agreed that at least 50 percent of greenhouse gas emissions reductions would come from domestic action. The […]
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L.A.D.P. Green
The Los Angeles Department of Power and Water, the nation’s largest municipal utility, is leaning green. Today the department is launching a “Green Power” program that will let customers get their energy from solar, wind, and biomass power for a 6 percent rate increase. In return, customers will get price breaks and rebates on energy-efficient […]
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Spoken Like an Athlete
Democratic presidential hopeful Bill Bradley, speaking to YMCA volunteers and young people in Manchester, N.H., about the environment: “My approach would be to try to clean up what is polluted and prevent what is not polluted from becoming polluted.”
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A Slice of Eden Saved by Divine Intervention
Bette Midler (a.k.a. the Divine Miss M) saved the day for New York City community gardens yesterday, swooping in at the last minute with personal funds and money from her private conservation organization to buy and preserve gardens that were headed for the auction block. In all, Midler’s group and the Trust for Public Land […]
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Give Me a Home Where the Stealth Bombers Roam
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is trying to stealthily hand over millions of acres of public land to the military permanently, including a southwestern Arizona bombing range that is home to endangered Sonoran pronghorn, enviros charged yesterday. McCain wants to grant the military permanent use of the 2.7 million-acre Barry M. Goldwater Bombing Range in Arizona, […]
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Riders Thrown
During late-night discussions last night over a massive spending package, congressional negotiators dropped two riders that had angered environmentalists. Alaska Sen. Frank Murkowski’s (R) effort to extend commercial fishing in the waters of Glacier Bay National Park was killed, as was Sen. Pete Domenici’s (R-N.M.) rider that would have prevented the Interior Department from setting […]
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Summers-Time Blues
Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin will announce his resignation later today, according to White House officials. They said that Pres. Clinton planned to nominate Lawrence Summers, now Treasury deputy secretary, to replace Rubin. Stuart Eizenstat, the State Department’s undersecretary for business and economic affairs, is expected to move into Summers’s current slot. Summers has been widely […]
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Gray Prospects for MTBE
MTBE, a controversial gasoline additive intended to reduce smog, has done little to improve air quality, according to a study released yesterday by the National Research Council. MTBE has been blamed for widespread water contamination, and California Gov. Gray Davis (D) in March ordered the additive to be phased out of gas in the state […]
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Trying to Buck Riders
The House and Senate appropriations committees are wrangling over anti-environmental riders attached to a massive spending bill that would fund military action in Kosovo and send hurricane relief to Central America. House Speaker Denny Hastert (R-Ill.) and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) are insisting that most riders that add significantly to the bill’s projected […]
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Listen to What the Flower People Say
New York City is working on a deal to sell 63 parcels of land used for community gardens for $3 million to the Trust for Public Land, an arrangement that would keep the gardens open to citizens. Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) had wanted to sell 114 of New York’s community gardens to the highest bidder […]
