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EV Rider

Better Red Than Dead

A federal judge last week lifted development restrictions on more than 4 million acres of land that had been designated as critical habitat for the threatened California red-legged frog. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service imposed the restrictions in early 2001, but developers quickly sued to overturn them. To the dismay of environmentalists, the court […]

Green Day

The Green Party says it fared well during last week’s election. The Greens ran 541 candidates for office, mostly at the state or local level. That’s double the number from 2000, according to Dean Myerson, the party’s national political coordinator. Sixty-seven candidates were elected; overall, 171 Greens now sit in office across the country. Another […]

Are They Rocky Mountain High?

Another one from the Believe-It-Or-Not Department: Colorado officials want to increase clear-cutting to help solve the state’s drought problem. Removing trees would allow more snow to fall to the ground, where it would run off into streams in the spring, providing enough new water to supply as many as a million families, says Kent Holsinger, […]

Sound the Alarm

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is in the midst of a five-year effort to catalogue the woes of the Puget Sound ecosystem, gathering information for what could become an undertaking as grand in size as the $8 billion Everglades restoration project. Many of the 2,354 miles of the sound’s seashore, containing tide flats, marshes, […]

Uplifting News

If only Bob Dole had known, he could have raked in some environmental brownie points while touting Viagra as a wonder cure for erectile dysfunction: The little blue pill could be the saving grace for thousands of endangered animals, according to research published recently in the journal Environmental Conservation. Tigers, reindeer, and harp seals, among […]

The Bucks Stop Here

The Bush administration slaps fewer polluters with fines than did the Clinton administration, and those it does nab get far gentler punishments, according to federal records compiled by Eric Schaeffer, the former head of the U.S. EPA’s Office of Regulatory Enforcement. In the first 20 months of the Bush administration, civil penalties plunged nearly 56 […]

Subway to Heaven

Congregations in 15 states are joining forces this Sunday to belt out the clean-energy gospel in the launch of a national “What Would Jesus Drive?” campaign. Reverend Jim Ball, who directs the Evangelical Environmental Network, said: “Jesus wants his followers to drive the least-polluting, most efficient vehicle that truly meets their needs — though first […]

Back in Black

Now that President Bush has strengthened his hand with a Republican-controlled Congress, his once-doomed energy plan — which would provide $30 billion in tax cuts for the fossil-fuel and nuclear-power industries and open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling — stands a good chance of passing. Enviros are pinning their hopes on possible presidential […]

Knock the Vote

In addition to suffering a loss at the federal level, the environmental movement came up short in several statewide and local votes on Tuesday. A huge majority of Oregonians voted down an initiative that would have made Oregon the first state to require labeling of genetically modified foods. The Grocery Manufacturers of American, with support […]