Climate Politics
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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 […]
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Land O’ Flakes
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has got a blueprint for implementing the Bush administration’s energy plan, and it involves speeding up approval for petitions to drill for oil and gas, creating easier access to petroleum deposits, reducing royalty payments by industry to the government, and easing environmental restrictions. All that, without harming the environment, […]
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Remote Controls
After months of internal debate, the Bush administration has decided (surprise, surprise) to replace pollution lawsuits with voluntary incentives to encourage coal-powered utilities and oil refineries to clean up their acts, according to U.S. EPA officials. The Clinton administration sued dozens of the country’s worst polluting power plants for violating New Source Review rules, which […]
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A breakdown of the renewables vote in the Senate
One day after declining to support tougher fuel-efficiency standards, the Senate yesterday voted down a measure that would have required 20 percent of the nation’s electricity to be produced from wind, solar, and other renewable energy sources by 2020. Currently, less than 2 percent of U.S. electricity comes from renewable resources. The measure that could […]
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Bush’s global warming plan is just the tip of the iceberg
MEMO TO: All National Petroleum Unlimited employees FROM: Jack Morris, CEO Has this CEO gone soft, or was there something sweet — nay, touching — in the details of President Bush’s new emissions plan? Rather than demand that we do our part to slow the pace of global warming, he’s simply letting us volunteer! Friends, […]
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A breakdown of the CAFE standards yeas and nays in the Senate
By a vote of 62 to 38, the U.S. Senate decided yesterday to remove from the energy bill a provision that would have increased Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency vehicle standards. Instead, the Senate opted for an industry-backed proposal to give the Bush administration two more years to study the implications of raising CAFE standards. You […]
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Supercuts
U.S. EPA Administrator Christie Whitman faced tough questioning from Congress members yesterday as she tried to defend her agency’s decision to cut the number of Superfund toxic waste cleanups in half, from more than 80 per year during the Clinton administration to about 40 under President Bush. Whitman blamed the cuts on lack of funding; […]
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Green-goes
Giving the lie to the myth that lower income and minority Americans don’t care about the environment, Latino voters are proving to be some of the most dedicated environmentalists in California. For example, 74 percent of Latino voters approved a recent $2.6 billion parks and open space measure that was supported by just 56 percent […]
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Jonna Higgins-Freese
Jonna Higgins-Freese is environmental outreach coordinator at Prairiewoods: Franciscan Spirituality Center in Hiawatha, Iowa. She is a fellow of the Environmental Leadership Program. Monday, 11 Mar 2002 HIAWATHA, Iowa Just for the record, I am not a nun. I do work for nuns, so folks often want to know if I’m one of them. I […]
