Climate Politics

Obama and a bipartisan crew of colleagues unveil eco-friendly bills on energy

Caterwauling over the Iraq War last week brought Congress to a rancorous new low, drowning out calls from both sides of the aisle for a clean and sane energy future. A handful of senators and reps unveiled proposals pressing for the Bush administration and automakers to shrink America’s outsized energy demands and tackle the climate […]

Mining-law revamp could put millions of public acres up for sale

Greens beamed and GOP leaders bristled last week after language paving the way for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and on the Outer Continental Shelf was stricken from the House budget reconciliation bill. But many Democrats and enviros are now sounding the alarm over another provision in the bill, one that’s stirred […]

Just Joshin’

Electric-car driver was not an eco-terrorist, FBI admits The FBI will issue a rare “letter of regret” and pay environmentalist Josh Connole $100,000 after mistakenly arresting him for domestic terrorism. Agents followed Connole for several days in 2003, after arson-vandalism attacks at four Southern California car dealerships in which gas-guzzlers were spray-painted with phrases like […]

Don’t Just Lie There

Oil industry execs caught fibbing; may lose tax break; still filthy rich Last week, while testifying at a Senate hearing, oil industry executives were asked point blank: “Did your company or any representatives of your companies participate in Vice President Cheney’s energy task force in 2001?” The answers? Three No’s, an “I don’t know,” and […]

A roundup of green plans and brown bills proposed post-Katrina

Resourceful environmental leaders have unearthed opportunity amidst the wreckage left behind by this year’s record hurricane season and the battering of the Gulf Coast. They’ve crafted plans for everything from the building of new, green, affordable housing to the tightening of auto fuel-economy standards. Of course, powerful people with less eco-friendly agendas have seen opportunity […]

The Mod Squad

GOP moderates derail drilling plans for Arctic Refuge and offshore areas Opponents of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge got some shocking good news last night: 25 moderate House Republicans, led by Rep. Charles Bass (R-N.H.), defied pressure from the GOP leadership and vowed to oppose a $54 billion, filibuster-proof budget bill unless provisions […]

Nuke Rest for the Wary

Lawmakers slash funding for Yucca Mountain nuke dump In a season of setbacks for President Bush, Congress delivered yet another this week, cutting funding for the Yucca Mountain nuclear-waste dump well below the amount requested by the White House. House and Senate negotiators working on a funding bill for energy and water projects allotted $450 […]

Hillary Clinton joins the pack in calling for greener energy policy

Hillary Clinton has joined a growing claque of both Democrats and Republicans swigging from the cup of clean-energy Kool-Aid as they gear up for the 2006 congressional elections. In the past two months, the New York senator has popped up at a major Arctic Refuge rally, a high-profile global-warming conference, and a clean-technology investor symposium […]

Unlikely allies send a dispatch from an enviro-justice tour in MichiganLynn:

Lynn Henning (left) is a farmer whose family grows corn and soy on 300 acres in Hudson, Mich. She is an organizer with the Sierra Club’s Water Sentinels program, testing local rivers and creeks for contamination from factory farms. Rhonda Anderson (right) is a single mother and longtime community activist in Detroit. She is an […]

Junk food: The Senate trashes organic standards

The Senate succumbed last week to food-industry pressure and approved a rider that would water down organic standards. (Grist's Amanda Griscom Little a few weeks ago ably laid out the context behind the Senate's surrender.)

This AP article states that a Senate vote last Thursday ...

... unravels a court ruling on whether products labeled "USDA Organic" can contain small amounts of nonorganic substances. Earlier this year, an appeals court ruled that nonorganic substances such as vitamins or baking powder can't be in food bearing the round, green seal.

As I understand it, the real issue isn't that baking powder and vitamins will be allowed in food labeled "USDA organic." Ominously, the Senate's act would strip power to decide which synthetic substances can and cannot be used from the National Organic Standards Board, a 15-member panel made up of  a mix of farmers, processors, retailers, scientists, consumer advocates, environmentalists, and certifying agents. Although the board is appointed by the USDA chief, it has acted independently -- and by most accounts, responsibly -- in its ten-year history, approving only 38 synthetic ingredients.

If the Senate bill becomes law, the power to decide what synthetics can go into "organic" food would be shifted directly to the USDA -- that bastion of food-industry flackery.