Great Lakes
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Lessons from the Great Lakes on how enviros can win votes and influence people
Bush chats up Michiganders in Monroe. Photo: White House. President Bush swooped into Monroe, Mich., in mid-September for an appearance at one of the largest and most polluting coal-fired power plants in the world. As an exploration of his ideas about environmental policy, the visit was completely baffling. (Why go to such a filthy facility? […]
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Michigan residents fight for control of the state’s water
Until two years ago, the 40,550 generally well-behaved Midwesterners of Mecosta County, Mich., regularly attended church, sent their children off to school on yellow buses, and never for a moment worried that their clean, freshwater supply would ever run dry. Mecosta County, after all, sits near the center of Michigan’s lower peninsula, which itself sits […]
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Hard of Huron
Michigan natural resources officials voted on Friday to lift a four-year moratorium on oil and gas drilling beneath Lakes Huron and Michigan. Supporters said the lake-bottom deposits would boost energy supplies in the U.S. while bringing the state royalty money that could be used to purchase public land. Critics said the risks of the drilling […]
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A plan to drill under the Great Lakes is fracturing the Michigan Republican Party
Only a few things really get Americans to sit up and pay attention. Oprah’s weight. Ally’s hair. And a rise in the price of gasoline. The latter, coupled with lucrative campaign contributions from the energy industry, is why President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney thought that an energy plan based on new drilling from […]