Climate Politics
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Election Day Is Green Day
If the voting record is any measure, most Americans are green at heart when it comes to conservation. Last year, voters approved spending $1.7 billion for parks and open spaces, according to a tally released today by the Trust for Public Land and the Land Trust Alliance. Seventy percent of 196 local ballot measures in […]
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Coal-burning Bush
In other mining news, President Bush did not mince words about his energy plan during an address in the town of Belle, W.Va., yesterday: “We need to use coal. We got a lot of it,” he said. The president touted exploitation of domestic coal and other traditional energy resources as a way to avoid dependence […]
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Garden State, Meet the Cement State
Bad news on the environmental justice front: Poor and minority residents of Camden, N.J., aren’t having much luck with efforts to sue the state for allowing a cement factory to spew pollution in their neighborhood. The residents successfully convinced U.S. District Judge Stephen Orlofsky that the siting of the plant was discriminatory, but Orlofsky’s decision […]
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Oil the Way
California Gov. Gray Davis (D) reiterated his opposition to offshore oil drilling in his state yesterday and vowed he would fight the Bush administration all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary to stop development of 36 drilling leases granted by the federal government. Because of a moratorium imposed by the first President […]
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Fairy Fairy, Quite Contrary
The U.S. Supreme Court refused yesterday to hear a challenge to the protected status of the endangered fairy shrimp, a tiny crustacean that lives in rainwater ponds in California’s Central Valley. The decision was a boon to fans of the Endangered Species Act, but a blow to property-rights advocates, for whom the case was one […]
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A Developer’s Wet Dream
The Bush administration weakened protection for wetlands, streams, and swamps across the U.S. yesterday by making changes to the Clean Water Act, despite the objections of the U.S. EPA and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The changes, which were proposed by the Army Corps of Engineers and approved by the White House, make it […]
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No Comment
Here’s the latest bit of unconscionable news from the U.S. Department of the Interior: Interior Secretary Gale Norton failed to submit comments from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service blasting a proposed Army Corps of Engineers plan to relax wetlands protection rules. As a result, the Army Corps will announce its final version of the […]
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Once There Were Brownfields
President Bush headed to Pennsylvania on Friday to sign into a law a five-year plan to revitalize brownfield sites around the country. Under the plan, which was approved by Congress last month, the feds will allocate up to $250 million per year to states, local governments, and Native American tribes, with the goal of cleaning […]
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David Brower leaves a legacy for dolphins
The one-year anniversary of the death of environmental legend David Brower has come and gone, just a week after the U.S. Department of Justice decided not to appeal a dolphin protection lawsuit the Earth Island Institute filed with Dave back in 1999. Dolphins on the run. Photo: NOAA. For reasons that are still unknown, a […]
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Taking Liberties?
The U.S. Supreme Court will begin today to consider a lawsuit over private property development in Lake Tahoe that has had lot owners and land-use planners squared off for more than two decades. At issue is a 1981 moratorium on the development of certain lots where runoff from rain and snowmelt would pollute the lake. […]
