Climate Politics
All Stories
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De-railed
The U.S. House Appropriations Committee has voted to deny $1.2 billion in funding to Amtrak and pushed through a bill that threatens most, if not all, long-distance train service in the U.S. The Republican-backed bill would give the rail service $760 million next year — about $500 million less than the $1.2 billion proposed by […]
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All Griled Up
During his confirmation hearing in May 2001, J. Steven Griles promised the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that his former job with a lobbying firm, where he represented a broad array of utilities, mining companies, and energy producers, would not interfere with his new position as deputy interior secretary of the United States. […]
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Reid It and Weep
The Bush administration distorted a report to the U.S. EPA by deleting the views of government experts who sought to curb emissions from snowmobiles, according to Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.). Reid has released documents (which he says he obtained from an anonymous whistleblower) showing that the Interior Department removed pro-emissions-restrictions comments from a government report […]
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Schroeder’s Symphony
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s Social Democrats will remain in power by a narrow majority, thanks to a strong showing by his coalition partner, the Green Party. Commentators agree that the most remarkable achievement of the tight parliamentary elections belonged to Joschka Fischer, foreign minister and leader of the Greens. Despite the small size of the […]
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Acting Up
The Bush administration announced yesterday that it plans to consider new rules for enforcing the Clean Water Act. Some conservative lawmakers have been pressuring the administration to revise the enforcement rules since January 2001, when the Supreme Court imposed new limits on the scope of the act. Some interpreted that court ruling to suggest that […]
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Deaf Charges
In better news for environmentalists, a federal judge has rejected an effort by the White House and the U.S. Navy to exempt underwater military testing and other deep-sea activities from environmental review. Judge Christina Snyder ruled yesterday that the National Environmental Policy Act applies to such activities even if they are conducted beyond U.S. territorial […]
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Speed Limit
President Bush issued an executive order yesterday directing federal agencies to speed environmental reviews of important transportation projects, arguing that highways, airports, and other such projects are critical to the nation’s economy and need to be freed of red tape. Environmentalists immediately denounced the move, calling it part of a systemic effort to restrict public […]
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Borderline Insane
Two new power plants being built just south of the U.S. border will generate billions of watts of electricity for Californians, a handful of jobs for Mexicans, and plenty of pollution for everyone. The plants, which are the first to be built in Mexico specifically to provide power to the U.S., mark a new era […]
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Stuffed Sacs
Unhappy with some of the findings of the scientific advisory committees that guide federal policy, the Bush administration has begun to stack the deck in its favor, eliminating some committees entirely and reshuffling membership in others. Fifteen of the 18 members of a committee assessing the effects of environmental chemicals on human health have been […]
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Warm Globally, Don’t Warn Locally
For the first time since 1995, the U.S. EPA’s annual report on air pollution trends, released earlier this month, has no section on global warming. The EPA, which deleted the chapter with White House approval, said the decision was made because the agency had released two other reports on global warming earlier in the year […]
