Climate Politics
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Rocky Mountain Low
Hoping to give himself a green sheen, President Bush traveled to Rocky Mountain National Park yesterday to engage in trail work for a few minutes and talk about character. “There’s a grand vision embodied in these mountains,” he said. “And the vision is that we can teach our children right from wrong.” He also criticized […]
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Spreading Like Wildfire
The Bush administration and governors from Western states agreed yesterday to the outlines of a 10-year plan to reduce the risk of wildfire, but postponed until next spring discussion on how the plan would be implemented. In the past, fire authorities focused on suppressing fires that had already begun. The new plan focuses on better […]
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Hodge Podge
South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges (D) said last week that he would do "whatever it takes" to keep plutonium shipments from coming to the Savannah River Site, a nuclear-processing complex run by the U.S. Energy Department near Aiken, S.C. Hodges says the Bush administration has gone back on a plan he worked out with the […]
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Time Off for Bad Behavior?
U.S. President Bush told ABC News on Friday that his administration could have done a better job spinning its environmental policies. Bush, in an interview from his Texas ranch, where he is vacationing for the month, said, “My administration’s made a lot of very thoughtful and environmentally sensitive decisions, but you get no credit for […]
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In the wake of Bonn, Bush's isolationism takes a page from China
After reading more than a dozen articles about the failure of the U.S. to engage in the recent Kyoto negotiations in Bonn, President Jiang Zemin of China angrily called President Bush yesterday. “Isolationism has always been our thing,” Jiang reportedly said during the phone call. “This would be like your Seinfeld saying, ‘Whatchu talkin’ ’bout, […]
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I've Got a Secret and I'm Not Telling
Vice President Dick Cheney has formally refused to turn over documents relating to the development of the Bush administration’s energy plan to the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress. The GAO may now take the White House to court over the issue. Democrats and enviros believe the energy plan was tailor-made for energy […]
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At Whit's End
U.S. EPA Administrator Christie Whitman now thinks her decision to revoke a Clinton administration rule to reduce arsenic in drinking water was a bone-headed move. She told USA Today that her decision wasn’t bad policy, but bad politics: “Politically, if I’d been smart, I would’ve never changed it. … I would’ve let the courts decide. […]
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Bush should listen to his inner dad on climate change
We were exploring an unfamiliar pond. My four-year-old daughter was out in the water, up to her knees, when I called her back to shore: “It’s so muddy I can’t see if the pond gets deep quickly,” I said. “And I couldn’t reach you if you fell in. Better safe than sorry.” Parents try to […]
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Hard Corps
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers yesterday did an about-face and abandoned a plan to change the way it manages the Missouri River, even though it has publicly acknowledged that the current system violates the Endangered Species Act. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has said for years that the river must be returned to […]
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Fool Efficiency
Casting aside arguments made by the auto industry for years, a panel appointed by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences said yesterday that the industry could significantly increase fuel-efficiency in SUVs and light trucks over the next decade. But a majority of the panel’s 13 members, most of whom have strong ties to the industry, […]
