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  • Wait a Minute There, Buster

    Aides to Sen. Slade Gorton (R-Wash.) got a bit of a shock last Saturday when they logged onto the website of Maria Cantwell, one of Gorton’s Democratic challengers, and saw a goofy photo of their boss posing with “Buster the Salmon,” a costumed protestor who dogs Gorton at campaign events over his refusal to support […]

  • Won't You Be My Nader?

    Russell Peterson, former governor of Delaware, ardent environmentalist, lifelong Republican until a few years ago when he switched to being a Democrat, was appalled when I told him I couldn’t bring myself to vote for Al Gore. Tell it like it is, Ralph. He gave me the undeniably rational argument. George W. shows no sign […]

  • Chamber of Horrors

    You’d think the U.S. Chamber of Commerce wouldn’t have much free time on its hands these days, what with the raging debate over permanent normal trade relations for China. But the industry-friendly group recently managed to cobble together a charming volume called The Environmentalists’ Little Green Book, a compendium of off-the-wall quotes and blistering bon […]

  • Look on Seabright Side

    Jeff Seabright, executive director of the White House Task Force on Climate Change, is bailing out in the waning days of the Clinton administration for a plum job in the private sector, namely as vice president for policy planning at Texaco. Muckraker had been hearing rumblings of the imminent departure for a week, but couldn’t […]

  • It's high time people stopped shooting mountain lions

    V It’s legal to kill a mountain lion in most Western states if it threatens your safety or the safety of your property (including livestock and pets). Williams thus had the legal right to kill that lion. But did she have the moral right? My, what a big kitty. Photo: Predator Defense Institute. One of […]

  • A Real Windfall

    All federal agencies in the Denver area will be powered in part by wind under the U.S. government’s largest contract to buy green energy, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson announced yesterday. The agencies will buy 10 megawatts of power annually from wind farms operated by Colorado utilities — enough energy to run 3,500 households for a […]

  • Green Giant? Ho, Ho, Ho

    In honor of Earth Day, we take a one-week respite from our dizzying political tour of the United States in order to take a dizzying political tour of Vice President Al Gore. What could be more fun? Perhaps you will require sedation before reading further. Gore-the-environmentalist blasted back on the scene just in time for […]

  • I-M-Furious

    Thousands of enviros and other demonstrators hit the streets of Washington, D.C., this weekend to protest corporate globalization, hoping to build on the momentum of last year’s demonstrations in Seattle against the World Trade Organization. They have been thwarted in their efforts to shut down meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank by […]

  • Fire on the Mountain

    Enviros in Washington are apoplectic over what they fear will be a pre-Earth Day cave-in by the Clinton administration over mountaintop-removal mining in West Virginia. This used to be a mountain. Photo: David Miller, www.mountaintopmining.org. Readers may recall this battle from last year’s appropriations season, when powerful Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) introduced a rider that […]

  • It's time to renew your enviro vows, Al

    The environment should be a winning electoral issue for Al Gore, so why has he said so little about it — thus far — during his run for president? Day after day, the vice president pounds away on his core themes of health care, education, the booming economy, and now, his sinner’s conversion to campaign […]