Climate Politics
All Stories
-
Dyna-shore
In a triumph for Golden State environmentalists, the Bush administration decided yesterday against asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn two lower court decisions upholding California’s right to review proposed offshore drilling projects along its coast. Gov. Gray Davis (D) hailed the decision, noting, “The future of California beaches is now where it should be […]
-
Everybody Wants to Play the Fuel
Sports utility vehicles, vans, and pickup trucks will be subject to slightly more stringent fuel-economy standards under a new rule released yesterday by the U.S. Department of Transportation. Beginning in the 2007 model year, auto manufacturers will have to attain a fleet average of 22.2 miles per gallon for those vehicles, together classified as “light […]
-
Best Western
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has become a household name, but who’s ever heard of the Western Arctic Reserve? Lots of folks will over the coming months if the Campaign for America’s Wilderness gets its way. The Washington, D.C.-based group is trying to pin a new name onto the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska as part of […]
-
Urban Bright
In a groundbreaking move, New York state has developed guidelines for ensuring that low-income and minority neighborhoods are not disproportionately subjected to environmental health risks by developers. The environmental-justice guidelines were drafted by the state Department of Environmental Conservation to limit the ability of developers to build unpopular and potentially hazardous projects in communities that […]
-
Light Truck at the End of the Tunnel
What’s in a name? In the case of “car” versus “light truck,” the name means a lot — so the auto industry and environmentalists are watching closely as the Bush administration begins redefining cars and trucks as it revamps fuel-economy standards. Currently, light trucks are subject to far weaker gas-mileage requirements than passenger cars, a […]
-
Petroleum Jelly-legs
U.S. petrochemical plants pose security risks to millions of Americans and could be targets of terrorist attacks, but the government has no idea how secure the plants are from such attacks, according to an audit released last week by the General Accounting Office. The audit found that both U.S. EPA Administrator Christie Whitman and Homeland […]
-
Wolfowitz at the Door
As part of the Defense Department’s ongoing effort to exempt the U.S. military from environmental regulations, the Pentagon’s Paul Wolfowitz has called on military service heads to provide examples of situations in which President Bush should invoke national security to trump eco-protections by fiat. In a memo to the chiefs of the Armed Forces, Wolfowitz, […]
-
The Spoils of War
The war against Iraq that began last night will lead to “massive and possibly irreversible” environmental damage to the Persian Gulf region and contribute significantly to global warming, experts cautioned this week. Environmentalists who have been monitoring the situation say the ecological destruction could be radically worse than the damage sustained during the 1991 Gulf […]
-
Senior Citizen Diss-count
Anti-war protestors have accused President Bush of placing too little value on human life. Now the Bush administration is trying to literally devalue not Iraqi lives but American ones. The White House is pushing federal agencies to cut the dollar value they place on a human life when determining the costs and benefits of policy […]
