Latest Articles

Big Mess on Campus

Widespread Environmental Violations Found at Colleges Colleges and universities are normally thought of as hotbeds of environmental activism — but now, it turns out that some of them are hot with hazardous waste. Twelve colleges in New York and New Jersey have been hit with a total of $2 million in fines for violating environmental […]

Should enviros embrace liquefied natural gas?

It’s clear from the name alone that liquefied natural gas (LNG) is an oxymoronic commodity — but its chemical state is just one of the many paradoxes of this increasingly popular energy source. On the one hand, natural gas is the cleanest-burning fossil fuel and among the most viable near-term alternatives to coal, which currently […]

Promises, Promises, You Knew You’d Never Keep

Breaking Promise, EPA Will Drop Cases Against Polluting Power Plants The U.S. EPA announced yesterday that it will drop investigations into 50 power plants accused of violating the federal Clean Air Act. Enviros and agency watchdogs warned about the possibility of such a shift when the Bush administration rolled back the act’s New Source Review […]

Baby, We Use Corn to Run

House and Senate Reach Agreement Over Ethanol in Energy Bill Clearing one of the last major hurdles on the way to a final energy bill, negotiators from the House and Senate agreed yesterday on most parts of a plan to almost double the use of ethanol by 2012 and provide a new tax credit for […]

Fish Less Foul

Strict Environmental Laws Yield Drop in Mercury Levels in Everglades Mercury levels in the wildlife of the Florida’s Everglades have declined by at least 60 percent over the last decade, according to a study by the state Department of Environmental Protection. The findings were hailed as the first indicator that efforts to reduce mercury pollution […]

Missouri Compromised

Bush Administration Boots Scientists Studying Missouri River Just weeks before producing its final report on the ecosystem of the Missouri River, a team of government scientists was yanked off the job by the Bush administration. The scientists had been at work for years and had recommended, among other things, changes to the river’s flow to […]

A breakdown of the Senate vote on the Climate Stewardship Act

On Thursday, Oct. 30, the Senate voted on Senate Bill 139, better known as the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act, which aimed to cap industrial greenhouse gas emissions and establish a system for swapping emissions credits. The legislation represented the first serious congressional attempt to rein in global warming. It lost by a vote of 55 […]

Sprawl in a Day’s Work

Slow Growth Sees Rapid Setback in Virginia County The vote took place yesterday in Loudoun County, Va., but the outcome was a blow to smart-growth advocates around the nation. Four years ago, voters propelled slow-growth advocates into eight out of nine county board positions, turning Loudoun into a national model of environmentally friendly urban planning. […]

Board of Miseducation

Environmental Textbook Author Sues Texas Over Alleged Censorship When it comes to textbook publishing, Texas calls the shots across the nation, by virtue of being big enough to need a whole heck of a lot of books. In the past, the Lone Star State has grabbed headlines for refusing to use science texts that teach […]

Terry Good News

Schwarzenegger Names Conservationist to Head Cal/EPA To the delight of environmentalists, California Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger has chosen Terry Tamminen to head the state’s Environmental Protection Agency. Tamminen helped start the Santa Monica environmental organization BayKeeper, then went to work for another green group, Environment Now. He was one of the drafters of Schwarzenegger’s environmental platform, […]