Latest Articles

Red Tape, Brown Results

The Bush administration released yesterday a list of more than 300 federal regulations that could be altered or scrapped in the coming year, including many pertaining to the environment. The list grew out of an announcement made by President Bush in March, when he urged companies to contact the administration “[if] there are nettlesome regulations […]

Mitt’s Catch

Here’s a tidbit of holiday cheer: Massachusetts Gov.-elect Mitt Romney (R) has picked Douglas Foy to fill a key position in his administration, and environmentalists couldn’t be more delighted with the choice. As president of the Conservation Law Foundation since 1977, Foy has been an outspoken advocate of environmentally friendly urban planning. (He’s also made […]

Things That Make You Go Hum-vee

Tax deductions granted by the federal government to small-business owners and the self-employed provide an incentive to purchase oversize, gas-guzzling vehicles like a General Motors Hummer, rather than small, more fuel-efficient cars like the hybrid Toyota Prius. An eligible buyer of a 2003 Hummer H2 could deduct $34,912 of the base price of the vehicle, […]

There Goes the Neighborhood

Despite pressure from the glitterati in Los Angeles, the Ahmanson Ranch, a proposed 3,050-home development project in Southern California, received a crucial vote of confidence from Ventura County supervisors yesterday, when they agreed in a 4-1 vote that the project would effectively balance the region’s housing needs with its environmental concerns. The Ahmanson Ranch project […]

Activists are split on a proposed wind project off Cape Cod

  Look there, friend Sancho Panza, where 30 or more monstrous giants rise up, all of whom I mean to engage in battle and slay, and with whose spoils we shall begin to make our fortunes. For this is righteous warfare, and it is God’s good service to sweep so evil a breed from off […]

And other words from readers

  Re: Point. Click. Ignore. Dear Editor: I was appalled that the U.S. Department of Interior is ignoring email appeals now. However, email filtering can be defeated: If the criteria for tossing an email were that it looks just like 80,000 other emails with the exception of the signature, then one can write software to […]

Morgue of Orca

Environmental organizations sued the U.S. government yesterday for failing to grant protections under the Endangered Species Act to orcas in Washington state’s Puget Sound. The population of orcas in the region has declined almost 20 percent since 1996. Earlier this year, the National Marine Fisheries Service acknowledged that the region’s orcas were at risk of […]

We Got to Get Ourselves Back to the Garden

New Jersey may be the Garden State — but can it be known as green in other ways as well? Gov. James McGreevey (D) thinks it can, and he’s embarking on an ambitious plan to make the state a national leader in clean energy. Earlier this year, the state government agreed to purchase at least […]

Just Goshute Me

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said yesterday that it was not responsible for evaluating the potential environmental impacts of a terrorist attack on a proposed nuclear-waste storage facility in western Utah. Opponents of the $3.1 billion facility, which would be located about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City on sovereign lands belonging to Skull […]

Is That USGS or USBS?

Here’s some news to make you think twice about the reliability of government figures: The U.S. Geological Survey has announced that there is far more coal bed methane gas available in the Powder River Basin than previously thought — while simultaneously acknowledging that the Rocky Mountain West contains far less oil than the agency had […]