Climate Politics
All Stories
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Cornerstone environmental law, NEPA, under fire in energy bill
When the energy bill sailed through the House of Representatives late last month, the media reported that it was the same old grotesquely corpulent package that the GOP leadership had previously tried — and failed — to pass through Congress four times in the last four years. This is true. But what flew under the […]
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Reservoir Hogs
Norton won’t reduce water releases from Lake Powell Following a year’s worth of unsuccessful negotiations between governors of seven parched Western states, Interior Secretary Gale Norton stepped in yesterday to make a decision on how to divvy up the much-coveted water of the Colorado River. A winter of heavy precipitation and subsequent spring thaws have […]
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Tit for Habitat
Habitat conservation plans poorly monitored, sporadically effective Today, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer kicks off a big three-day series on the increasingly ubiquitous but nonetheless poorly understood and poorly monitored phenomenon of habitat conservation plans (HCPs). Congress authorized the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to administer such plans in 1982, but it wasn’t until the late ’90s […]
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Johnson Scores
Senate confirms Johnson to head EPA Scientist and career agency veteran Stephen Johnson is the new head of the U.S. EPA. After a confirmation process that was oddly turbulent given the mild-mannered bureaucrat’s generally warm reception on both sides of the aisle, the Senate voted 61-37 just after midnight last night to approve a cloture […]
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Strongarm of the Law
Supreme Court rules that pesticide makers are liable for damages The U.S. Supreme Court has acted to restore a measure of sanity to the world of pesticides and weed-killers. In the 1990s, lawyers for big chemical companies pushed a novel interpretation of the 1972 federal law governing pesticides: By submitting pesticides for approval by the […]
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Louisiana environmental advocate forced out of job by state attorney general
After scoping out an ExxonMobil refinery in Baton Rouge last month, Willie Fontenot, a community liaison officer for the Louisiana attorney general’s office for 27 years, found himself faced with the option of forced retirement or getting the boot. A longtime environmental-justice advocate, Fontenot had been accompanying a group of master’s students from Antioch New […]
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Moot Causes
Bush pushes refineries and nuke plants as solution to high energy prices Many analysts say high energy prices are the result of inefficient use of non-renewable resources. President Bush does not employ any of those analysts. In a speech today, he will propose to address the “root causes” of high energy prices by, um, increasing […]
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Everything coal is new again
Congress seeks tax money to make defunct “clean coal” plant dirty again For aficionados of government pork, the energy bill that recently passed the House is the gift that keeps on giving. The latest gem uncovered is a provision that would offer $125 million in loan guarantees to a “clean coal” power plant in Alaska. […]
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Allan Thornton, environmental investigator, answers questions
Allan Thornton. What work do you do? I run the Environmental Investigation Agency, a nonprofit environmental group with offices in Washington, D.C., and London. I generally oversee the strategic development of the organization, which includes targeting research, deploying investigative teams to obtain documentary evidence, and exposing environmental crimes; I work in close cooperation with our […]
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Before Sunset
Language in budget bill could unravel federal environmental protections Buried deep in the 2,000-page budget bill President Bush recently sent to Congress is a three-sentence provision that threatens to eviscerate environmental and other protections. Authored by the White House Office of Management and Budget, the provision would, if passed unamended, subject any and all federal […]
