Climate Politics
All Stories
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What Fuels These Mortals Be
Surprise, surprise: The U.S. Department of Transportation decided yesterday not to increase fuel-efficiency requirements for sport utility vehicles and other light trucks for the model year 2004. The decision comes after the Senate voted last month against a sharp increase in Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, instead directing the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a […]
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Right in the Solar Plexus
From the believe-it-or-not department: To cover the costs of printing its 170-page energy plan last May, the Bush administration tapped into the Department of Energy’s solar and renewable energy and energy conservation budgets. Documents released under court order by the DOE on Monday night indicate that $135,615 of the renewables and conservation budget was spent […]
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Is the U.S. nuclear industry writing its own ticket on security?
Over the last 15 years, the nuclear power industry has lobbied the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Congress to weaken security requirements at atomic plants, even as the threat of terrorism has grown. But in reality, as Shelley Smithson shows in Part I of this series, nuclear energy security is already poor. In drills conducted by […]
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Parroty, Not Parody
In the latest disheartening news about the energy task force, documents released Monday night by the Energy Department show that an executive order on energy policy released by President Bush last May was copied nearly verbatim from the energy policy proposed to the administration by oil lobbyists. On March 20, representatives from the American Petroleum […]
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Slim Victory for Whitman
The U.S. Court of Appeals yesterday upheld the Clinton administration’s clean air standards for ozone and particulate pollution, ending a five-year campaign by industry groups to have the standards overturned. To the chagrin of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Trucking Associations, and others, the court ruled that the U.S. EPA did not exceed […]
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Favor Dis-Spencer
The word is out that U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham met only with energy industry executives and no environmental or consumer groups as he helped to write the Bush administration’s energy policy last year. But only now is the extent of that exclusive access becoming clear. On Monday night, after a court-ordered release of 11,000 […]
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How secure are U.S. nuclear power plants?
Roughly 40 miles from the rubble of the World Trade Center, U.S. Navy cutters patrol the chilly waters of the Hudson River. Military planes circle overhead. On the ground, members of the National Guard stand ready. The Indian Point nuclear power station, which churns out electricity to nearly 2 million homes around New York City, […]
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Not-So-Super Power
Amid heated controversy over the Bush administration’s plans to weaken air pollution regulations, two environmental organizations and a large New Jersey utility are releasing today a new study ranking the worst polluters in the power industry. The study, “Benchmarking Air Emissions of the 100 Largest Electric Generation Owners in the U.S. — 2000,” tracked company […]
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Wham, Bam, No Thank You, Graham
The Bush administration has announced plans to hire more scientists for its regulatory review office, seek more input from citizens and businesses, and adopt cost-benefit analyses for rulemaking. The White House’s point person on regulatory reform, John Graham, said the plan reflected the administration’s “commitment to science-based quality regulation.” Industry reps, who know they have […]
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Really Endangered Species
In a sweeping policy shift that has environmentalists deeply worried, the Bush administration is urging federal judges to roll back legal protections for almost two dozen populations of endangered species. Government officials say the rollbacks are necessary because the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service, which both enforce the Endangered […]
