Climate Politics

9021-woe

Remember that episode of 90210 where Brenda and Dylan fell ill from toxic gases leaking out of oil wells and into Beverly Hills High School? Actually, that never happened on the show — but according to famed environmental legal crusader Erin Brockovich, it happened in real life. Brockovich and her partner, Ed Masry, are preparing […]

In the Doghouse

The U.S. Supreme Court announced yesterday that it would review a clean air case that could determine when the federal government can overrule state environmental decisions. The case concerns the Red Dog mine in Alaska, which produces zinc and lead. Two years ago, when the mine sought to build a new diesel generator, the state […]

Homeland Insecurity

Oakless Creek Canyon

Flagstaff, Ariz., is shaping up to be the testing grounds for the Bush administration’s Healthy Forests initiative, a highly controversial effort to ease environmental reviews of logging projects on many Western public lands and ban reviews entirely in areas where forest fires could threaten human developments. Some 2,000 suburban Flagstaff homes are located just seven […]

Who will represent the voice of the world’s people?

Petitions have been arriving in a flurry in my email inbox lately. I have some doubts about the efficacy of all this petitioning and tend to be quick with the delete button, but one recent petition drew me in. The message itself — which stated that the United Nations was collecting signatures of people opposed […]

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. […]

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