Latest Articles

Auctionable Offense

Interior Secretary Gale Norton has rejected an appeal from Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) to immediately cancel plans to auction off 6 million acres of offshore oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico. Even as his older brother, President Bush, talked up the need to open up areas all over the country to […]

All Choked Up

Fertilizer-soaked sediment is choking off Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, putting its long-term survival into question, says the Australian Institute of Marine Science. After compiling the work of 30 scientists around the world, a researcher for the institute found that much of the wetlands and rainforests along the Queensland coast neighboring the reef have been cleared […]

Galluping to the Rescue

A Gallup poll released yesterday showed that Americans favored environmental protections over energy drilling and economic growth. And it found that the public didn’t agree with President Bush’s decision to withdraw from the Kyoto treaty on climate change. Almost 60 percent of respondents to a recent CBS News poll opposed Bush’s decision “not to reduce […]

Green Day

Hit hard with criticism about its environmental record, the Bush administration for the second day in a row let stand an environmental rule approved by former President Clinton and upheld a plan affecting industry’s lead emissions. The decision, announced yesterday by U.S. EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman, means that companies will be required to report […]

Dust in the Wind

Particulate pollution quadrupled across a quarter of the U.S. last weekend because of a dust storm from Mongolia that picked up industrial pollution in China. Some scientists have claimed for years that pollution can spread from China to the U.S., causing air quality to plummet. Russ Schnell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said […]

Marsh Mellow

In a defeat for developers, the Bush administration said yesterday it wouldn’t try to weaken a rule approved by former President Clinton to expand protections to tens of thousands of acres of wetlands. The rule requires developers to obtain permits under the Clean Water Act for many basic activities such as digging artificial lakes, constructing […]

Slope a Dope

In what may be one of the largest oil spills ever on Alaska’s North Slope — and a poorly timed one for the oil industry — 92,400 gallons of saltwater and crude oil leaked from a pipeline on the Kuparuk oil field Sunday night. Phillips, which operates the field, said yesterday it had cleaned up […]

Massive Transit

The number of folks riding buses, subways, and trains in the U.S. last year rose to the highest level since 1959, while the number of miles driven on roads remained constant between 1999 and 2000. The American Public Transportation Association said yesterday that riders across the country took 9.4 billion rides on mass transit in […]

The Horror, the Horror

The civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo has devastated wildlife, killing off thousands of elephants, gorillas, and other endangered species, according to a report commissioned by the U.N. Security Council. The report said that soldiers have slaughtered elephants for their meat, as well as their tusks. In Garamba Park in northeastern Congo, nearly […]

Nyetskis

Personal watercraft will be banned in national parks and recreation areas by September 2002 except in special cases where the National Park Service can prove the machines won’t harm the environment, according to a court settlement approved by a federal judge last week. U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler dismissed a challenge from watercraft manufacturers to […]