Latest Articles

Built Ford? Tough.

Environmental Groups Target Bill Ford, Jr. Ford Motor Co. CEO Bill Ford, Jr., once a darling of the eco-friendly set, has come under attack by a coalition of environmental groups led by California-based Bluewater Network. In full-page national newspaper ads that began appearing Wednesday, the group lambasted Ford, Jr., for reneging on his July 2000 […]

The Otter Limits

DOI Proposes Adding Sea Otters to Endangered Species List The U.S. Department of the Interior yesterday proposed adding southwest Alaska’s sea otters to the government’s threatened species list, which would offer them protections under the Endangered Species Act. The sea otter population in southwest Alaska was robust as late as 1980, but since then has […]

Linkin’ Mercury

New Study Reveals More Babies at Risk From Mercury Roughly 630,000 of the 4 million children born annually in the U.S. are at risk of impaired motor function, learning capacity, memory, and vision due to high levels of mercury in their bloodstreams, revealed a U.S. EPA analysis released yesterday, which doubles the previously estimated number. […]

Do the Domenici

Senate Republicans, led by Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), are trying one more time to get the Bush administration’s energy bill passed, but growing worries over the massive federal budget deficit are making it difficult. You see, Domenici and crew larded the bill up with billions of dollars worth of tax incentives and subsidies (on top of […]

Greensylvania

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) unveiled a $22 billion state budget yesterday with numerous eco-friendly provisions that promise to protect green space, return abandoned mine sites to productive use, improve state parks, and revitalize aging city centers, asserting that such measures would spur economic development. Enviros hailed the budget, saying it would make Pennsylvania the […]

The Sludge Retort

Microbiologist and former U.S. EPA employee David Lewis testified to Congress yesterday that the agency had knowingly used unreliable data when denying a petition to stop the use of sewage sludge as fertilizer. The petition, from 73 labor, environmental, and farm groups, was denied last December based on data from two Georgia dairy farms that […]

I’d Like to Buy the World a … Juice?

Soft drinks made in India by PepsiCo Inc. and Coca-Cola Co. contain levels of toxic pesticides — including lindane, DDT, malathion, and chlorpyrifos — high enough to cause cancer or immune-system failure over time. Such was the conclusion of an Indian parliamentary report released yesterday, confirming similar findings by the Delhi-based Center for Science and […]

Nano, Nano

A new paint set to go on sale in Europe in March promises to absorb the most noxious gases from automobile exhaust. Invented by British company Millennium Chemicals, Ecopaint contains spherical nanoparticles of titanium dioxide and calcium carbonate, suspended in a base of polysiloxane (a silicon-based polymer). Hey, wake up, the good part is coming! […]

Worries over federal deficit could dim prospects for energy bill

Oh, the irony. The same week Fortune magazine released a special “Climate Collapse” issue warning its double-starched readers of “growing evidence” that “abrupt climate change may well occur in the not-too-distant future,” Republican leaders in the U.S. Senate have been attempting yet again to push through a controversial energy bill that would only intensify the […]

Token enforcement of Clean Air Act provision smacks of political opportunism

This election year, U.S. EPA chief Mike Leavitt is playing the part of a Clean Air Act tough guy. Leavitt, left, with Bush, is acting tough. Photo: White House. For three years, the Bush administration and the power industry have been happily entangled in a session of mutual back-scratching — utilities have been generous contributors […]