Climate Politics
All Stories
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The Coast Is Murky
The California Coastal Commission has been declared unconstitutional by an appellate court, a decision that could result in a significant power shake-up at the entity in charge of managing one of the world’s most popular and politically charged coastlines. At issue is the balance of power on the commission: A majority (eight of 12) of […]
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Calling in the Reserves
The debate over oil and gas drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has been in the limelight a lot lately — but what about energy exploitation in the rest of the state? On Friday, the Bush administration released a report on the likely environmental impact of new drilling in the National Petroleum Reserve, an […]
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The Truck Stops There
In a setback for the Bush administration, a federal appeals court yesterday halted a federal plan to permit thousands of Mexican trucks on U.S. roads, calling instead for environmental reviews that could take up to three years. In November, President Bush approved the entry of 30,000 Mexican trucks per year, citing obligations under the North […]
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Basin and Strange
Since Sept. 11, the Bush administration has claimed that strict environmental laws are hindering oil and gas exploration in the West — thereby compromising national security by forcing ongoing dependence on foreign energy sources. But a new federal study undermines that claim by showing that most oil and gas reserves on Western federal lands could […]
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Range Bedfellows
Energy exploration has been part of Western landscape and culture for decades — but it seems the thrill of the drill may finally be wearing off. As the Bush administration pushes for further exploitation of Western resources (such as coal-bed methane mining in Wyoming and Montana and oil and natural gas drilling in the Rocky […]
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You’re in the Army Now
Environmentalists and the Pentagon have never been the best of friends — in fact, the folks at the Department of Defense are currently trying to wiggle out of complying with as many environmental regulations as possible in the name of national security — but it would seem that military leaders can think green when it […]
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Mexico City’s mayor plans to reduce pollution by building more roads
Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has come a long way in the last decade — too far, some environmentalists would argue. O, brador. Photo: Gobierno del Distrito Federal. In February 1996, AMLO (as the Mexican press calls him) was arguably the country’s most prominent environmentalist, organizing a string of high-profile protests in his […]
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Park and Writhe
The National Parks Conservation Association has released its annual list of endangered parks — and, sadly, it includes some of the most treasured wild areas in the U.S.: Yellowstone, Denali, and the Great Smoky Mountains, among others. The unlucky parks made the list because they are plagued by problems such as air pollution, excessive motor […]
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The Gas They Pass
In other news from the Golden State, California’s two Democratic senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, have introduced legislation that would prevent energy companies in Mexico from using Californian natural gas in their plants near the California-Mexico border unless those plants complied with the state’s strict air-quality standards. The legislation would apply to natural-gas-powered generators […]
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Wet ‘n’ Not-so-wild
New guidelines unveiled by the Bush administration on Friday could spell trouble for 20 million acres of wetlands across the United States. The guidelines were prompted by a 2001 Supreme Court decision that found that isolated, non-navigable ponds and wetlands in Illinois did not merit protection under the Clean Water Act. Environmentalists say that narrow […]
