Articles by Lisa Hymas

NYT bashes new forest-management rules

The New York Times editorial page has a lucid take on the Bush admin's new forest-management rules. Daily Grist summarized the basic news here, but the NYT digs a little deeper into the likely ramifications of the policy overhaul -- and the Gray Lady doesn't like what she sees:

The ostensible purpose of the change is to streamline a cumbersome management process and give individual forest managers more flexibility to respond to threats like wildfires and the increasing use of the forests by off-road vehicles. But the new rules would also eliminate vital environmental reviews, as mandated by the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, jettison wildlife protections that date to President Ronald Reagan, restrict public input, and replace detailed regulations, like those limiting clearcuts and protecting streams, with vague "results-based" goals. These are unacceptably high costs to pay for regulatory efficiency.

More broadly, the whole idea of giving local managers more flexibility defies history, however reasonable it appears on the surface. The main reason Congress enacted the National Forest Management Act in 1976 was that the public had lost confidence in the Forest Service, not only local foresters but also their bosses in Washington, who seemed mainly interested in harvesting timber no matter what the cost to the forest's ecological health.

BINGOs talk back about World Watch article

The debate rages on. World Watch magazine's new issue contains a whopping 16 pages of letters [PDF] in response to Mac Chapin's controversial article "A Challenge to Conservationists" [PDF], which accused big international conservation NGOs of trampling indigenous people's rights as the groups work to put ever-larger chunks of land under protection.  

“Climate variability”

Global warming, climate change, global climate change -- so 2004. The hipsters are now calling it "climate variability." Or, well, at least a few Bush admin spinmeisters are hoping they will be 'ere long.

In Buenos Aires earlier this month, when they weren't busy stymieing progress on Kyoto, U.S. reps were trying to get folks jazzed about the fresh coinage "climate variability." So much more pleasing to the ear than those stilted, passe climate phrases of yore. After all, variety is the spice of life!

Look forward to a lot of spicy weather ahead.

Is “Clear Skies” really so ghastly?

David Whitman, in a compelling article in the Washington Monthly, argues that Bush's Clear Skies initiative is getting a bum rap from enviros. (He also argues that the much-vilified Jeff Holmstead, the Bush appointee who heads the EPA's Office for Air and Radiation, doesn't wholly deserve his anti-green rep.) Whitman asserts that the bill would do some real good, and debunks the widely repeated claim that the proposal would permit more pollution than the Clean Air Act. (Turns out there was more than met the eye to that bit about a secret EPA PowerPoint slide asserting that Clear Skies would make compliance cheaper and easier for utilities.)