Climate Politics
All Stories
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A Dam Sham
Bush Officials Stand Atop Dam to Trumpet Salmon Funding Bush administration officials announced a $10 million increase in funding for restoration of endangered Northwest salmon on Monday, drawing election-year attention to recent increases in salmon numbers. Enviros expressed measured support for the rise in funding, but pointed out that higher salmon numbers were mostly attributable […]
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The League’s Extraordinary Gentleman
League of Conservation Voters Endorses Kerry The League of Conservation Voters has officially endorsed John Kerry for president, marking the first time in the organization’s history that it has backed a candidate prior to the first primaries. Kerry, four-term Democratic senator from Massachusetts, has the best environmental voting record of the Democratic candidates, with an […]
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Rivers and Tithes
Judge Rules Government Must Pay for Withheld Water In a case that could have substantial implications for enforcement of the Endangered Species Act, a federal judge ruled recently that the U.S. government must pay California irrigators some $14 million for water it withheld from them during an early 1990s drought in the state. The water […]
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You Know the Drill
Bush Admin. Opens Nearly 9 Million Alaskan Acres to Oil Exploration Interior Secretary Gale Norton approved a plan on Thursday that will open nearly 9 million acres of pristine land on Alaska’s North Slope to oil exploration and drilling. She pledged that the exploration and production in the area, a section of the huge National […]
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The Thinners Have Much More Fun
Forest Service to Triple Sierra Nevada Logging Citing the need to prevent catastrophic forest fires like the ones that plagued Southern California last year, on Thursday the U.S. Forest Service announced a plan to spend $50 million a year to thin forests in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. The plan would allow logging of 330 million […]
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Veteran environmental leader gives Kerry the green light
Ted gets Kerry-ed away. Photo: Lou Dematteis, Kerry for President. A mischievous grin spread across John Kerry’s face last week as he was introducing Ted Kennedy, his fellow Massachusetts senator, to an Iowa crowd. It caught my eye because I hadn’t seen Kerry smile for quite a while. “I’m now pleased to introduce,” he said, […]
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Zinc Positive
Supreme Court Sides With EPA in Clean Air Case A narrowly divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that the U.S. EPA has the authority to override state government decisions on what constitutes the “best available” anti-pollution technology. Enviros hailed the decision as a victory for clean air, while libertarian think tanks, a coalition of […]
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Patently Absurd
GM Giant Monsanto Sues Canadian Farmer Speaking of genetic drift: The Canadian Supreme Court began hearing arguments on Tuesday in a case that has become a cause celebre for both opponents and fans of agricultural biotechnology. Agro-giant Monsanto Co. sued Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser when its patented biotech canola was found growing in his fields […]
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Misstate of the Union
Bush State of the Union Speech Silent on Environment In a State of the Union speech that found time to discuss the evils of steroid use among athletes — an issue entirely outside the purview of the federal government — President Bush did not mention the environment, or the environmental challenges facing the country, a […]
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Tipping the Scalias of Justice
Cheney-Scalia Connection Raises Questions About Energy Task Force Case In December, the Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal from Vice President Dick Cheney, who had been ordered by lower courts to release documents related to his secretive energy task force meetings. In January, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and Cheney — long-time friends — […]
