Latest Articles
-
Riders Thrown
During late-night discussions last night over a massive spending package, congressional negotiators dropped two riders that had angered environmentalists. Alaska Sen. Frank Murkowski’s (R) effort to extend commercial fishing in the waters of Glacier Bay National Park was killed, as was Sen. Pete Domenici’s (R-N.M.) rider that would have prevented the Interior Department from setting […]
-
Riders on the Storm
No one in her or his right mind thinks the 106th Congress is going to pass a whole lot of actual free-standing legislation. It will likely take every ounce of strength this feeble Congress can muster to pass the essential spending bills that fund the government. So riders, those pesky little items that hope to […]
-
Summers-Time Blues
Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin will announce his resignation later today, according to White House officials. They said that Pres. Clinton planned to nominate Lawrence Summers, now Treasury deputy secretary, to replace Rubin. Stuart Eizenstat, the State Department’s undersecretary for business and economic affairs, is expected to move into Summers’s current slot. Summers has been widely […]
-
Gray Prospects for MTBE
MTBE, a controversial gasoline additive intended to reduce smog, has done little to improve air quality, according to a study released yesterday by the National Research Council. MTBE has been blamed for widespread water contamination, and California Gov. Gray Davis (D) in March ordered the additive to be phased out of gas in the state […]
-
Trying to Buck Riders
The House and Senate appropriations committees are wrangling over anti-environmental riders attached to a massive spending bill that would fund military action in Kosovo and send hurricane relief to Central America. House Speaker Denny Hastert (R-Ill.) and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) are insisting that most riders that add significantly to the bill’s projected […]
-
Listen to What the Flower People Say
New York City is working on a deal to sell 63 parcels of land used for community gardens for $3 million to the Trust for Public Land, an arrangement that would keep the gardens open to citizens. Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) had wanted to sell 114 of New York’s community gardens to the highest bidder […]
-
Sucky Appliances
European Union energy ministers want to crack down on domestic appliances, sometimes called vampires, that suck energy when in “standby,” or off, mode. The ministers want to halve “standby losses” by 2010 and are pushing for voluntary agreements and labeling to do the job, but warned that if these efforts aren’t successful they would consider […]
-
Tongues Out at Tongass Plan
In an op-ed in today’s Washington Post, Alaska’s congressional delegation — staunch and powerful defenders of the state’s timber industry — criticize the Clinton administration’s latest plan for managing Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. Sen. Frank Murkowski (R), Sen. Ted Stevens (R), and Rep. Don Young (R) say political appointees without appropriate experience overturned a plan […]
-
Fumenting Conservative Backlash
In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Michael Fumento, a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute, mocks environmentalists for their “blame-man-first mentality,” which he says leads them to assume that problems like frog deformities, temperature swings, and rising asthma rates can be attributed to environmental degradation.
-
Pork on Rye, Hold the Sprawl
This year could see Congress approve the most conservation spending ever, some officials are predicting. Republicans and Democrats alike have introduced six major environmental conservation bills in Congress this year, all of which would for the first time fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund with $900 million a year. Money from the fund […]
