Climate Politics
All Stories
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The Wrath of Grapes
Ban on Biotech Crops Makes the Ballot in a California County Voters in Northern California’s Mendocino County will be the first in the nation with a chance to rebuff growers of genetically modified (GM) crops. Local anti-biotechnology activists gathered enough signatures to secure a spot on the March ballot for an initiative that would ban […]
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A Low-level Blow
Bush Plans to Loosen Rules for Radwaste Disposal Radioactive waste may be coming soon to a dump near you, brought to you by — you guessed it — the Bush administration. The U.S. EPA is proposing a significant rule change that would let the nuclear industry dispose of low-level radwaste at commonplace dumps and hazardous […]
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Kill Bill!
Final Version of Energy Bill Is Bad News for the Environment After many weeks of pork-barrel politics conducted behind closed doors, Republican negotiators yesterday released a final version of the first big energy bill to emerge from Congress in more than a decade — and it’s a doozy. The package, which contains loads of subsidies […]
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Empty Suits
MTBE Producers Would Get Relief from Lawsuits Under Energy Bill Of all the anti-environmental provisions in the energy bill, the one raising perhaps the most ire would limit the liability of companies that produce the fuel additive MTBE, which has been found to contaminate water supplies across the country. Not only would the measure shield […]
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Commission: Possible?
Kerry Proposes Commission to Protect Integrity of Environmental Regulation John Kerry, the Massachusetts senator who has slipped substantially in the ranks of Democratic presidential contenders, sought to reinvigorate his campaign yesterday by returning to one of his keystone issues: environmental protection. Speaking in New Hampshire, Kerry proposed creating a new federal commission to prevent political […]
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Lawn Order
Senate Says No to California Plan to Cut Small-Engine Pollution California’s cutting-edge environmental policies were dealt a blow yesterday when the U.S. Senate voted to prevent the state from regulating air pollution from small engines such as those found in gas-powered lawn mowers, leaf blowers, and weed whackers. Although lawn equipment is small, its environmental […]
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The Bush administration is jettisoning real scientists in favor of yes-men
Craig Manson. Photo: USFWS. In the final days of October, Craig Manson, assistant Interior secretary for fish and wildlife and parks, dealt a “Godfather”-style blow to a team of government biologists that was about to release a final report with flow recommendations for the Missouri River — a blow that could have a sizable ripple […]
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Strawberry Yields Forever
U.S. Could Endanger Ozone Layer with Push for Pesticide Use In pushing for continued use of a controversial pesticide, the Bush administration could undermine international efforts to protect the ozone layer. The Montreal Protocol, a 1987 treaty ratified by the U.S. and other industrialized nations, calls for phasing out the ozone-depleting pesticide methyl bromide by […]
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He’s Crafty, He Gets Around
Anti-Environmental Riders Popping Up on Spending Bills With a raft of must-pass spending bills making their way through Congress this month, a handful of crafty lawmakers are tacking on unrelated anti-environmental provisions, or “riders,” in hopes of circumventing the usual legislative process. Perhaps the craftiest of all is Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), head of the […]
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Drop and Give Me 50
States Fight Back Against EPA Decision to Drop Power Plant Cases It didn’t take long for the backlash to set in against the U.S. EPA’s decision, announced Wednesday, to abandon its investigations into 50 polluting power plants in the face of the Bush administration’s rollback of the Clean Air Act’s New Source Review rules. One […]
