Latest Articles

Snow News Is Good News

In a heartening development for enviros, the National Park Service yesterday recommended banning snowmobiles from Yellowstone National Park by late 2003. The proposal, likely to be made into a final policy next month, would end the estimated 75,000 snowmobile trips that visitors take through the park each winter, spewing air pollution and making loud noise […]

Maine Drag

Hundreds of Maine residents have signed up for a new state program that pays motorists to junk old cars and buy newer models that pollute less, but regulators have no money to implement the program. The state legislature approved a bill last spring to give vouchers worth $1,000 to $2,000 to drivers who bring in […]

Take It Away

The Supreme Court yesterday agreed to hear a property rights case that could reopen the question of when land-use regulations become so burdensome as to constitute a takings of private property that must be compensated by taxpayers. In the case, a developer from Westerly, R.I., Anthony Palazzolo, was prevented from building 74 houses on an […]

Safety Dunce

The U.S. House rejected a pipeline safety bill yesterday as too weak, even though it had been unanimously approved last month by the Senate. The bill by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), which had the backing of the oil and natural gas industry, gained momentum after a gasoline pipeline blast killed three people in Bellingham, Wash., […]

A Nader-do-well

If the first presidential debate was a contest to see who could memorize more numbers and offer crisper rhetoric replete with well-rounded sentences and flawless syntax, then Al Gore won. If it was an audition for national nice guy, then George W. Bush strutted out of Boston riding high. But the truth is that neither […]

Goof Bawl

The Democratic National Committee is going on the attack against George W. Bush with TV ads that lambaste the governor’s environmental record in his home state of Texas. One ad on the air in Washington state shows Seattle’s Space Needle being engulfed by air pollution. “Take a deep breath and imagine Seattle with Bush’s Texas-style […]

Borderline Psychosis

The Czech Republic began activating a nuclear power plant located just 30 miles from the Austrian border yesterday, intensifying a serious diplomatic conflict between the two nations. As they have a number of times over the past month, thousands of Austrians yesterday blocked border crossings into the Czech Republic to protest the commissioning of the […]

Iguana Be Alone

Iguana species in the West Indies are in trouble due to invasive species and habitat destruction. The iguanas — which can reach five feet in length and live up to 40 years — were declared by the World Conservation Union in 1997 to be “the most endangered lizards in the world.” Resort and housing developments […]

No Fuel Like an Old Fuel

Although rising gas prices in the U.S. have set off a raft of complaints this year and 60 percent of the public say they are worried about energy costs, few Americans have significantly curtailed their driving or begun shopping for fuel-efficient cars. The nation actually is on track to use almost as much gasoline as […]

Al Talk and No Action

Although most environmental groups have endorsed Al Gore for president, they also complain that he has been too cautious as vice president. He has certainly talked big about the environment and has a great storehouse of policy ideas, but he has tended not to take big political risks that would require citizens to sacrifice for […]