Latest Articles

A review of Arctic Refuge

First, the facts. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge covers about 19 million acres in northeastern Alaska, almost all north of the Arctic Circle. It was created in 1980 by the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which renamed and more than doubled the size of an existing wildlife range, designated about 8 million acres within the refuge as wilderness, and prohibited oil and gas production in the refuge unless authorized by Congress.

Sonar or Later

It is highly likely that Sonar transmissions from U.S. Navy ships caused an unprecedented number of whales and a dolphin to strand themselves in shallow waters off northern Bahama islands last March, according to a task force from the Navy and the National Marine Fisheries Service. But the Navy is still hoping to get a […]

Gone With the Flow

Severe drought is forcing dam operators in the Northwest to choose electricity generation over salmon. Under an emergency order issued last week that is expected to last much of the year, the Bonneville Power Administration is using what water remains to spin turbines to generate power on the Columbia and Snake rivers, overriding Endangered Species […]

Sorry States

The Bush administration wants to shift significant responsibility for enforcing federal environmental laws from the U.S. EPA to the states. The fiscal year 2002 budget proposed by the White House would eliminate funding for 9 percent of the federal enforcement staff and instead provide states with money for enforcement grants and environmental assessments. EPA chief […]

The Unkindest Cuts

President Bush unveiled a budget yesterday for the next fiscal year that would slash spending on the environment and break a campaign promise he made to protect rainforests. In a campaign speech last August attacking then-Vice President Al Gore for a weak commitment on the issue, Bush pledged to set aside $100 million a year […]

A Toad in the Coal Mine

Global warming may be contributing to the decline of the western toad and other amphibians, according to a study published last week in Nature. The western toad has been dying off from a fungal-like infection of its eggs. Previous studies had shown that the eggs are susceptible to infection because of higher exposure to ultraviolet […]

Zed, last of his species, in "Carbon Copycat"

Plan — Nein!

A federal judge in Idaho ruled last week that the U.S. Forest Service under President Clinton did not follow public-disclosure requirements before settling on a plan to ban road-building and logging on more than 58.5 millions acres of national forestland. But Judge Edward Lodge did not grant the request from the state of Idaho to […]

A Light Truck at the End of the Tunnel

After jeering at its competitors Ford and General Motors last year for promising to improve the fuel efficiency of their light trucks and SUVs by almost 25 percent over five years, DaimlerChrysler on Friday did an about-face and said it would manufacture light trucks that burn fuel at least as efficiently as those of its […]

Support Can Be Beautiful

European Union officials today said they had won China’s support of the Kyoto treaty on climate change. On Sunday, Chinese Environment Minster Xie Zhenhua joined environmental ministers from South Korea and Japan in a joint statement urging President Bush to reconsider his decision to have the U.S. withdraw from the treaty. China said the decision […]