Climate Politics
All Stories
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Abstinence Makes the Heart Grow, but Not Fonder
The Bush administration indicated last week that it might withdraw its support from a landmark international agreement on population over concerns that it promotes abortion. At a U.N. meeting last Thursday in Bangkok, Thailand, U.S. State Department official Louise Oliver said the 1994 Cairo accord included terms such as “reproductive services” and “reproductive health care” […]
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Bambi Vs. Thumper
The Bush administration’s plan to expand fossil fuel exploration in the West ran into an obstacle Wednesday when a federal judge temporarily blocked the Interior Department from allowing energy prospecting on thousands of acres of public land in Utah. The ruling halted a project by a seismic exploration company to search for oil and gas […]
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Not With a Bang but a Whimper
The Bush administration’s plan to open federal lands in the western U.S. to oil and gas drilling would produce a measly amount of energy and a massive amount of environmental destruction, according to a Wilderness Society report released yesterday. The proposed drilling areas, which are scattered throughout millions of acres in six Rocky Mountain states […]
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Whistle While You Work
In a new twist to the Klamath River controversy, Michael Kelly, a biologist with the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service, is blowing the whistle on the Bush administration for drafting and approving a water plan that he says provides inadequate protections for endangered salmon. The accusations come after the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation rejected water-flow […]
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On a Roll Back
Turning up the heat on Republicans in the final weeks before the U.S. elections, Democrats and environmentalists are requesting documents from the U.S. EPA detailing the Bush administration’s effort to roll back clean-air regulations on older coal-fired power plants and refineries. But EPA officials have refused to pony up the evidence, and Sen. James Jeffords […]
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Gutter Politics
At the same time that is it seeking to rollback the Clean Water Act and other historic environmental legislation, the Bush administration is cracking down on sewage spills in Portland, Ore., and other major cities. Municipal leaders in Portland accuse the administration of selectively punishing areas that are traditional Democratic strongholds, but the U.S. EPA […]
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Sen. Wellstone Killed in Plane Crash
U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) was killed today along with seven others in a plane crash in northern Minnesota. Wellstone, 58, was one of the most outspoken liberals in Congress; he opposed the use of force in Iraq and was a longtime ally to environmentalists, earning a near-perfect 96 percent lifetime score from the Washington, […]
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No Respect
In a report released yesterday, the Governmental Affairs Committee of the U.S. Senate accused the Bush administration of “a predetermined hostility” toward environmental regulations initiated by former President Clinton. The withering 90-page assessment of President Bush’s actions questioned the legality of a 60-day freeze, issued hours after Bush took office, affecting all pending federal environmental […]
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The Eagle Has Landed — With a Thump
The U.S. Department of Defense would be permanently exempted from an international law protecting more than 850 species of migratory birds, under a tentative agreement reached between negotiators from the House and Senate and disclosed by environmental groups yesterday. The negotiations began after the Bush administration complained that the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act interfered […]
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A Dehli-cate Balance
Delegates from around the world are meeting in New Delhi, India, today for the latest round of international talks on climate change. In part because the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions — the United States — has rejected the Kyoto Protocol, the meeting is focusing on ways to adapt to climate change rather […]
