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Urethra Ranklin’

California plumbers union opposes water-conserving urinals If California plumbers have anything to do with it, you’ll be peeing in water ’til the day you die. (We feel that our whole careers have been leading up to that sentence.) Many public facilities in the water-strapped Golden State have installed no-flush urinals, which use gravity and replaceable […]

Fine and Randy

Bush admin deal exempts thousands of farms from pollution fines A Bush administration deal announced yesterday will allow thousands of factory farms to evade pollution fines. The U.S. EPA has signed consent agreements with nearly 2,700 companies in the egg, poultry, dairy, and hog industries, exempting them from paying major daily fines for toxic air […]

Exxon Lax

Exxon posts record-breaking profit, tries to evade Exxon Valdez penalty ExxonMobil has announced that it reaped $36 billion in profits for 2005 — the largest single-year profit ever by any American corporation. In related news, last week Exxon lawyers asked a federal court to effectively waive $5 billion in punitive damages related to the massive […]

Gosh, they just seemed like normal folk!

The CS Monitor's Brad Knickerbocker has a competent backgrounder on the recently arrested "eco-terrorists." There's not a whole lot new in it, particularly about ELF, which is what I'd most like to see some solid reporting on. He does point out that activists in this extremist community (centered in the Northwest, principally around Eugene, Ore.) deny that the feds have the right people, but I suppose that's to be expected.

This passage, however, jumped out at me:

New head of mine safety administration is a coal man from way back

Shortly after Bush became president, the head of the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration, Dave Lauriski, stepped down. Lauriski had spent his entire career working for coal companies. As his interim replacement, Bush appointed David Dye, who'd only joined the MSHA six months earlier.

On Tuesday, Congress will hold confirmation hearings on Richard Stickler, Bush's nominee for new permanent MSHA head. Stickler too has been a coal-industry man his entire career, principally at Bethlehem Steel -- where, between 1980 and 1992, 13 miners died in coal operations. Three of those miners died at mines directly managed by Stickler.

Last week, the United Mine Workers asked Bush to withdraw Stickler's nomination. It didn't happen.

Looks like the Sago tragedy hasn't made the feds any tougher on the coal industry.

Makower hour

I'm getting stuck in a cycle. Joel Makower writes something, I say, "hey, that's interesting, I should link to it," forget for a few days, he writes something else, I say, "hey, I should link to that, but first I should link to that other one," and then forget again, and so on.

So anyhoo, to bust out of this cycle, see interesting Makower posts on:

• the 2006 Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations,
• new "nutritional labels" that Timberland will be putting on all its shoe boxes, and
• interesting uses of "web 2.0" widgets to track corporate chicanery.

Some stuff in The Nation

The Nation, like just about every lefty media outlet in the world, is running a "Real State of the Union"-type series in their latest issue. It's about what you'd expect. Of particular interest to Gristmillians are Raul Grijalva on "Coming Clean and Green," Marcy Kaptur on "Saving Small Farmers," and Dennis Kucinich on "The Big Fix" (about reconstructing New Orleans).

And while you're over there, you might as well check out Mark Hertsgaard's "Green Power," about the German Green Party, "without question the most influential environmentally based party ever" (despite having been booted from the ruling coalition in the last election).

Who will advocate for green measures that don’t make anyone money?

So, when pondering Bush's upcoming SOTU speech -- specifically, the energy proposals contained therein -- I had a thought (stop the presses!). It's not an original thought, but it's worth discussing in a general way.

What smart greens would like to see happen is a balanced program of changes. A move to clean, renewable energy from an array of decentralized sources, perhaps with some bridging technologies to buffer us until we get there (clean coal, nuclear, etc.). Eventually, electric cars run by renewable power. Also, less driving, more public transit, more compact communities, more sustainable agriculture, more application of the precautionary principle in manufacturing, dramatically improved energy efficiency in all areas of the economy. Etc.

Here's the problem, though: Out of that grab bag of changes, there are two kinds. One kind has the backing of large financial interests. The other doesn't. I fear that difference, rather than any particular suitability to the problems at hand, will decide which are implemented.

Hazel Wolf Environmental Film Festival

Are you an aspiring filmmaker hoping to have your work reviewed by Grist one day? Or perhaps you love watching movies about your favorite subject: the environment! If so, the 8th Annual Hazel Wolf Environmental Film Festival will be taking place March 23 - 26 in Leavenworth, WA.

For a sense of what this year's event will be like, you can watch a video, consisting of footage from previous festivals.

Iran and oil

If you're interested in the energy implications of increasing tensions with Iran, Big Gav has an insanely comprehensive roundup of various discussions of the matter.