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  • We Was Cobbed!

    NAFTA panel says U.S. GM corn is invading Mexico A panel of scientists convened by NAFTA at the request of Mexican farmers and officials has concluded that genetically modified corn grown in the U.S., where it is legal, is crossing the border and contaminating crops in Mexico, where it is not, and that the contamination […]

  • The energy bill is alive — alive! — and that could be bad news for ANWR

    A day after winning the presidential election last week, George W. Bush made this now-legendary — and, to some, menacing — statement: “I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it.” Without dwelling on the notion that conservatives are supposed to protect and grow capital, not fritter it away, […]

  • Terry on, My Wayward Son

    Schwarzenegger promotes environmental advocate to Cabinet secretary California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) will elevate self-described tree hugger Terry Tamminen from his current position as environmental protection secretary to the more powerful position of Cabinet secretary, where he’ll serve as a liaison between the governor and department and agency heads. While Tamminen made decisions opposed at […]

  • See You Later, Regulator

    Bush victory portends big and enduring changes in environmental regs U.S. EPA chief Mike Leavitt is touting last week’s election as “a validation of our philosophy and agenda,” and his agency and others that oversee environmental matters are expected to move aggressively to relax mandatory regulatory limits in favor of market-based systems and voluntary targets. […]

  • Rhymes with “ditty” too

    The radio program "Living On Earth" had some hack from the Wall Street Journal editorial page on, along with Grist contributor Bill McKibben, to discuss what Bush's victory means for the environment.  It's interesting (and like Shalini, what I mean by interesting is "makes me reach for a noose").  You can read the transcript here.

  • Solution Dilution

    Bush admin opposes recommendations in Arctic climate-change report Last week, details emerged about a comprehensive study on the accelerated and destructive effects of global warming on the Arctic, involving more than 300 scientists from eight nations and six indigenous tribes. Now some members of an eight-nation negotiating team are accusing the U.S. of working to […]

  • Cya-nara

    State rejects attempt to repeal cyanide mining ban Voters in Montana decisively rejected Initiative 147, which would have repealed the state’s 1998 ban on open-pit cyanide leach mining, a highly destructive and polluting gold-mining technique that extracts small amounts of gold and silver diffused through large amounts of rock. Some 98 percent of the money […]

  • Sorry, No Vacancy

    Washington initiative blocks further nuke-waste dumping at Hanford By a more than a 2-to-1 margin, Washington state voters passed Initiative 297, which blocks the U.S. Department of Energy from sending more nuclear waste to the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in the southern part of the state until current waste at the former nuclear-weapons facility is fully […]

  • Colorado Rocky Mountain High

    Colorado passes renewable-energy initiative Colorado voters approved Amendment 37 yesterday, marking the first statewide renewable-energy portfolio standard in the U.S. to come directly from a popular vote rather than through the legislature. The state’s largest utilities will now be required to generate 3 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2007, and 10 percent […]

  • Irrelevance: The New Relevance

    How did the environment play in the election? Funny you should ask … Remember all that earnest debate about whether environmental issues would play a significant role in the presidential election? Well, as it turns out … not so much. And in the Senate races we’d been keeping an eye on, one would also be […]