US EPA
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EPA plan would spew under-treated sewage into U.S. waterways
Like clean water? Then you’ll love Rep. Bart Stupak. Swimming in sewage just isn’t this fun. For the last year, Stupak has been fighting a U.S. EPA proposal that would allow inadequately treated sewage to be “blended” with fully treated waste during rain and snow events. The messy mix would then be released into the […]
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Bush EPA nominee Steve Johnson garners praise and sympathy
Stephen Johnson. Photo: Energy Star. The next chief of the Bush EPA wasn’t expected to have more than a dewdrop’s chance in hell of widespread acceptance in the disgruntled environmental community. So it came as a surprise on Friday when the president tapped respected scientist and 24-year EPA veteran Stephen Johnson to captain the agency, […]
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Pombo eggs on mercury debate with controversial report
Pombo says: Eat up! House Resources Committee Chair Richard Pombo (R-Calif.) — longtime bete noire of the environmental community — cooked up what appears to be some fishy science in a report released last week titled “Mercury in Perspective: Fact and Fiction About the Debate Over Mercury” [PDF]. The report — written not by scientists […]
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Dole-ing Out Favors
A lobbying success story, from the maker of atrazine The manufacturer of atrazine, an herbicide connected by studies to frog deformities and increased risk of prostate cancer in humans, spent $260,000 lobbying the U.S. EPA and other government bodies on behalf of the chemical. Not only that, but Syngenta Crop Protection enlisted the formidable lobbying […]
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Umbra on Energy Star labels
Dear Umbra, When I see the Energy Star rating on an appliance, can I trust that some government or consumer group is monitoring the ratings, or is that just a commercial ploy? Who profits from the Energy Star thing? Not Starry-EyedBridgewater, N.J. Dearest Not Starry-Eyed, A green screen. Photo: EnergyStar.gov. Energy Star is a project […]
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Bush’s mercury proposal draws heat from both sides of the aisle
The Capitol is heating up over mercury. Photo: NIH. A handful of Beltway wags are contending that mercury is the new arsenic, the latest symbol of official disregard for environmental health. Their claim is lent credence by an ongoing flurry of controversies surrounding the Bush administration’s plan for dealing with the toxic pollutant. A revealing […]
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Federal agencies at odds over salvage-logging proposal in Oregon
Siskiyou-hoo! Photo: BLM. A U.S. Forest Service proposal to conduct a massive salvage-logging operation in Oregon’s Siskiyou National Forest has come up against a surprising critic — the U.S. EPA. While the Bush administration has advertised the plan as a necessary measure to protect the future health of the forest — which was hit by […]
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EPA attempts to defuse MTBE issue in New Hampshire
Folks who paid close attention to the speeches of New Hampshire primary victor John Kerry in recent weeks would have noticed an emphasis on MTBE — a gasoline additive that makes fuel burn more efficiently and cleanly, but is suspected to be carcinogenic* and widely known to contaminate groundwater. To outsiders, this may have seemed […]
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Whitman highlights Republican rift on environment
Whitman has her say. On Monday, former U.S. EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman published an uncharacteristically opinionated commentary in the New York Times lamenting the Bush administration’s disregard for moderate Republican viewpoints. Though gently worded, the op-ed stands as the closest thing Whitman has made to a confession that she abandoned her post over an […]
