Articles by Lisa Hymas

Inhofe tries to intimidate clean-air officials

John Paul, a regional air pollution officer from Dayton, Ohio, dared to argue in congressional testimony last month that the Clear Skies Act was "simply not protective enough" and "far too lenient" on polluters.

For that sin, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), chair of the Senate Environment Committee, is going to make Paul and his cohorts pay.  

It’s too late to stop climate change

"At the core of the global warming dilemma is a fact neither side of the debate likes to talk about: It is already too late to prevent global warming and the climate change it sets off," writes environmental author and advocate Mark Hertsgaard in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Well, at least she’s a feminist

Interior Secretary Gale Norton is reviled by many enviro activists for pushing energy development at the expense of environmental protection. But as Elizabeth R. Washburn argues in an op-ed in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, she's to be commended for "helping women break through the glass ceiling in a federal bureaucracy known for its good old boy leanings."

In her four years at the helm of the Interior Deparment, Norton has filled key management positions with women, including Lynn Scarlett, Rebecca Watson, Kathleen Clarke, Johnnie Burton, Fran Mainella, Sue Ellen Wooldridge, and Teresa Chambers (though things went a bit awry in Chambers' case). "This is the first time that such a large group of women has been assembled to make decisions that affect land, minerals, water and the general environment of the United States," writes Washburn.

That's impressive. But personally -- even as a progressive who cares about equal representation -- I'm far more interested in policy outcomes than in who's behind them. Give me a stale old white guy who cares about multilateralism and opposes "preemptive war" over Condoleezza Rice any day.

If not dead, then illin’

Michael Milstein of the Portland Oregonian delves into the sickly state of the environmental movement, focusing in on the Beaver State. It's the Death of Environmentalism quandary distilled down to the state level -- and it's a bummer.

"The environmental community seems to be at a new low for the amount of influence it has," said Noah Greenwald, a biologist based in Portland for the Center for Biological Diversity.