Climate Politics

Farm Band-aid

Here’s another provision to watch out for in the national spending bill: $3.1 billion in disaster assistance for farmers in the wake of this summer’s (and, in many places, this winter’s) drought. Sounds good — but if the spending bill is approved, the money will come at the expense of a national conservation program. The […]

I Want to Be Your Pledge Hammer

In what the Bush administration hailed as proof that voluntary environmental initiatives can work, representatives from 13 different industries gathered in the Energy Department cafeteria yesterday to pledge their commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The industries, ranging from energy companies to paper manufacturers, have agreed to commit to reductions targets to help the administration […]

Pain in the Tongass

Moderate Republicans, as well as Democrats and environmentalists, are up in arms over eleventh-hour language added by Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) to a huge $395 billion spending bill that would boost logging in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. The provision would exempt nearly 2 million acres in the Tongass from a rule approved by former President […]

The Reilly Factor

Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas Reilly (D) yesterday threw his weight behind opponents of a plan to build a wind farm off the state’s coast. In a friend-of-the-court brief filed in federal court, Reilly argued that the seabed of Nantucket Sound belongs to the federal government and therefore cannot be casually granted to a private company. […]

Meet the White House Lexicographer

A travel club provides a greener alternative to AAA

It’s not easy to knock AAA. The venerable organization has 45 million members who count on it for trip insurance, travel advice, and, most of all, emergency services. It’s no wonder that many members have sworn lifetime loyalty to Triple A: Rescuing drivers marooned on dark, lonely highways can do wonders for membership renewal rates. […]

Coal Play

It would seem that preemptive measures are all the rage among anti-environmentalists these days. In Alaska, Gov. Frank Murkowski (R) is awaiting the Interior Department’s response to a request he made last year (while still a senator) to prohibit the establishment of new wilderness areas in the state. “Congress set aside all this wilderness, all […]

Smart Attack

Smart-growth policies, designed to put a damper on runaway development and preserve local character, have recently come under attack in a handful of U.S. communities. In Loudon County, Va., on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., nearly 200 lawsuits were filed last week against the county’s growth-control policies. Also last week, the mayor of Erie, Colo., […]

When You Dish Upon a Star

Minnesota would become the first state in the U.S. to effectively ban phosphorus in automatic-dishwashing detergent if a bill working its way through the state legislature gets the eventual thumbs-up. Phosphorus, which helps to remove those oh-so-unsightly spots from glasses and dishware, ultimately gets flushed out of homes and into lakes and streams, where it […]

Hydra-gen

President Bush yesterday tried out several neat-o gadgets powered by hydrogen fuel cells (a video camera and cell phone, among others) and reinforced the lofty language of his State of the Union speech, saying that he would ask Congress to spend $1.2 billion on “a new national commitment to take fuel-cell cars from the laboratory […]