[Mb-civic] latest environews!

[Mha Atma Khalsa]

THE MOD SQUAD
GOP moderates derail drilling plans for Arctic Refuge
and offshore areas

Opponents of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge got some
shocking good news last night: 25 moderate House
Republicans, led by Rep.
Charles Bass (R-N.H.), defied pressure from the GOP
leadership and vowed
to oppose a $54 billion, filibuster-proof budget bill
unless provisions
allowing drilling in the refuge and in offshore areas
around the country
were eliminated -- and promises made they would not
return. And lo, in
late-night negotiations, House GOP leaders blinked;
the provisions are
gone. This unexpected development of moderate GOP
spine is a blow to the
Bush administration's plans for expanded dirty-energy
production, but the
struggle ain't over. Senate drilling monomaniacs Ted
Stevens (R-Alaska)
and Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) say they'll bottle the
legislation up well into
2006 if the final version doesn't include Arctic
Refuge drilling. But the
House coalition avers it'll stand firm. Elephant
fight! Elephant fight!

straight to the source: The Washington Post, Jonathan
Weisman, 10 Nov 2005
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=6017>

straight to the source: Anchorage Daily News, Liz
Ruskin, 10 Nov 2005
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=6018>

straight to the source: The Boston Globe, Associated
Press, 10 Nov 2005
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=6019>


LEAVE US IN OUR TIME OF GREED
Oil execs defend profits, drink all the beer, leave
the place trashed

The nation was treated to an exquisite piece of Kabuki
theater yesterday,
as Big Oil executives trudged to Congress to justify
their record profits
at a time when pricey gasoline and the looming threat
of sky-high
home-heating costs have Americans up in arms. The
Republican leadership
decided to give the oil chieftains a stern talking-to.
But not too stern,
mind you: Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who chaired the
hearing, refused to
have them testify under oath. Despite the deference,
the execs didn't do
much to provide anxious senators with political cover.
They said any
temporary tax or fee on their profits is a bad idea.
They don't
particularly feel like voluntarily chipping in to
defray heating costs.
They want regulations governing refinery construction
eased. And, most
amusing, they don't even need all the tax breaks and
subsidies Congress
insists on lavishing on them. In short, the message
was: Leave us alone.
Shoo, now. Shoo.

straight to the source: The Christian Science Monitor,
Mark Trumbull, 10
Nov 2005
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=6021>

straight to the source: Reuters, Deepa Babington and
Chris Baltimore, 09
Nov 2005
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=6022>

see also, in Gristmill: Kabuki play by play
<http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2005/11/10/10568/439?source=daily>


CABAL AND CHAIN
International Energy Agency predicts grim future

Unless the industrialized world gets off its ass and
starts weaning itself
from oil, the future holds sky-high energy prices, a
more than 50 percent
rise in greenhouse-gas emissions over the next 25
years, and near-total
dependence on a small cabal of Middle Eastern
countries. This grim portent
comes not from peak-oil doomsayers but the
International Energy Agency,
which represents the consensus of mainstream
developed-world experts. The
IEA's just-released "World Energy Outlook" warns that
after decades of
under-investment in oil-production and refinery
capacity, oil prices are
almost certain to rise and stay high. Even if the
countries that produce
the lion's share of the world's oil invest heavily,
says IEA economist
Fatih Birol, "we are ending up with 95 percent of the
world relying for
its economic well-being on decisions made by five or
six countries in the
Middle East." This, she says, "is not a sustainable
energy future." Says
IEA's William Ramsay, "We would be quite happy to see
our reference
scenario made irrelevant by good policy decisions." Us
too.

straight to the source:  The Wall Street Journal,
Selina Williams and
Bhushan Bahree, 08 Nov 2005
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=6012>

straight to the source:  Reuters, Marguerita Choy, 07
Nov 2005
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=6014>

see also, in Grist: An interview with peak-oil
provocateur Matthew Simmons
<http://grist.org/news/maindish/2005/11/03/simmons/?source=daily>

NUKE REST FOR THE WARY
Lawmakers slash funding for Yucca Mountain nuke dump 

In a season of setbacks for President Bush, Congress
delivered yet another
this week, cutting funding for the Yucca Mountain
nuclear-waste dump well
below the amount requested by the White House. House
and Senate
negotiators working on a funding bill for energy and
water projects
allotted $450 million for Yucca Mountain in 2006, not
only below Bush's
requested $650 million but far less than the project's
$577 million budget
for each of the past two fiscal years. Apparently
ongoing delays at the
Yucca site in Nevada have chilled estimations of the
project's eventual
success. "No matter what side of Yucca you're on,"
said Sen. Pete Domenici
(R-N.M.), "the truth of the matter is Yucca is ...
behind schedule." The
Department of Energy responded via a spokesflack that
it's still committed
to opening the Yucca dump. Good lucka.

straight to the source: Las Vegas Sun, Associated
Press, Erica Werner, 07
Nov 2005
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=6013>





SHANGHAI HOPES
China plans even bigger expansion of its clean-energy
capacity

China yesterday announced plans to more than double
its clean-energy
capacity -- from 7 percent of electricity production
today to about 15
percent by 2020, up from a previous goal of 10
percent. While this could
make the country a leading global player in the
hydropower, solar, and
wind industries, it still wouldn't offset the
country's climate-damaging
emissions, say greens. China's heavy reliance on coal
to power its
economic growth makes it the world's second-largest
greenhouse-gas emitter
(after the U.S.) and causes an estimated 400,000
premature deaths a year
from heavily polluted air. Chinese leaders are
increasingly vocal about
the serious consequences of reliance on dirty power.
"The environmental
situation is ... very grim and emissions of carbon
dioxide, sulfur
dioxide, and other greenhouse gases are very great,"
says Zhou Dabing,
president of a leading Chinese energy company. 

straight to the source: The Guardian, Jonathan Watts,
08 Nov 2005
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=6005>

straight to the source: Reuters, 07 Nov 2005
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=6006>


BUT PLEASE, COME ON BACK
Toxic nasties abound in New Orleans muck; big cleanup
being planned

Despite a well-publicized -- hyped, even -- recent
study suggesting that
Hurricane Katrina floodwaters weren't so bad, turns
out the muck coating
much of New Orleans poses serious long-term health
risks. The Dallas
Morning News compared the government's raw testing
data from New Orleans,
where the U.S. EPA looked for about 200 metals,
industrial compounds,
petroleum products, pesticides, and more, with
screening levels the agency
applies to residential soil testing. About 77 of the
200 substances were
found in the post-Katrina glop, at least 15 at
potentially dangerous
concentrations. Potentially unsafe amounts of arsenic
appear at nearly
every site tested; petrochemical carcinogens at
worrisome levels are
widespread. The now-banned pesticide dieldrin was
found at 58 of about 300
spots, nearly all at potentially dangerous levels. The
Army Corps of
Engineers is now planning one of the most massive
environmental cleanups
ever -- and given its successes so far in this tale,
what could go wrong?

straight to the source: The Dallas Morning News, Randy
Lee Loftis, 06 Nov
2005
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=6000>

straight to the source: The Dallas Morning News, 06
Nov 2005
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=6002>


BETWEEN BARACK AND A HARD PLACE
Obama will block EPA nominees until agency issues new
lead rules

President Bush's latest U.S. EPA nominee has run into
an obstacle no one
anticipated: a Democrat with cajones. On Friday, Sen.
Barack Obama
(D-Ill.) announced he was placing a hold on the
nomination of Susan Bodine
to head the EPA's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency
Response -- and
furthermore, that he planned to block all future
nominees to the EPA.
What's his beef? Long-delayed rules for lead-paint
exposure from home
remodeling, which the agency has been under orders to
produce since 1996.
The EPA's own figures show that about 1.4 million
children under age 7 are
at risk of exposure to health-impairing levels of lead
from home repairs
and renovations; Illinois has the nation's highest
rate of childhood lead
poisoning. Faced with Obama's threat, EPA blinked and
now says it'll get
those rules out by year's end -- but the senator wants
the promise in
writing before he'll relent. Swoon.

straight to the source: Tallahassee Democrat,
Associated Press, John
Heilprin, 04 Nov 2005
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=6003>

straight to the source: The State Journal-Register,
Copley News Service,
Dori Meinert, 05 Nov 2005
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=5999>

discuss in Gristmill: Obama Mia!
<http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2005/11/7/81958/8538?source=daily>


CRIMINAL NEGLIGEE-NCE
Protests target Victoria's Secret, call for protection
of boreal forest

Activists took to the streets in more than 100 North
American cities
yesterday to protest logging of the continent's boreal
forest, a vast
expanse of ancient trees that stretches from Alaska to
Canada's Atlantic
coast. Demonstrators charged corporations with
sacrificing the world's
third-largest intact forest to make extra-soft toilet
paper and lingerie
catalogs (not that there's any connection). In
particular, luxury
underthings retailer Victoria's Secret came in for
criticism for mailing
about 395 million catalogs a year on paper from
ancient trees. The company
claims that it's striving to keep its mailing lists
accurate to avoid
wasted catalogs, and that it prints all 24 million of
its clearance sale
catalogs on 100 percent recycled paper. Enviros aren't
mollified. "What a
waste of our heritage," said lawyer and activist
Clayton Ruby. "The sale
of underwear -- that's not a good enough reason for
destroying boreal
forests."

straight to the source: The Brandon Sun, Canadian
Press, 03 Nov 2005
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=5989>

see the protesters in action: Corporate Watchdog Media
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=5993>


CRIMINAL NEGLIGEE-NCE
Protests target Victoria's Secret, call for protection
of boreal forest

Activists took to the streets in more than 100 North
American cities
yesterday to protest logging of the continent's boreal
forest, a vast
expanse of ancient trees that stretches from Alaska to
Canada's Atlantic
coast. Demonstrators charged corporations with
sacrificing the world's
third-largest intact forest to make extra-soft toilet
paper and lingerie
catalogs (not that there's any connection). In
particular, luxury
underthings retailer Victoria's Secret came in for
criticism for mailing
about 395 million catalogs a year on paper from
ancient trees. The company
claims that it's striving to keep its mailing lists
accurate to avoid
wasted catalogs, and that it prints all 24 million of
its clearance sale
catalogs on 100 percent recycled paper. Enviros aren't
mollified. "What a
waste of our heritage," said lawyer and activist
Clayton Ruby. "The sale
of underwear -- that's not a good enough reason for
destroying boreal
forests."

straight to the source: The Brandon Sun, Canadian
Press, 03 Nov 2005
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=5989>

see the protesters in action: Corporate Watchdog Media
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=5993>

1.
YOU MAKE ME WANNA SPOUT
Conservation agreement will help protect gray-whale
lagoon in Mexico

OK, stay calm. We don't want to freak you out or
anything, but we've got
some ... good news. Seems American and Mexican
conservationists have
united with local Mexican landholders to preserve a
pristine gray-whale
calving ground. The Laguna San Ignacio, an area of
bird-friendly wetlands
and fish-rich mangroves on the northwestern Mexican
coast, hosts the giant
cetaceans during their yearly 6,000-mile migration
along the Pacific
coast. Now a new cross-border conservation pact
guarantees a communal
landholding group, Ejido Luis Echeverria, $25,000 a
year in perpetuity for
limiting development on 110,000 acres of coastal land.
Mexican
conservation group Pronatura will help administer the
funds in ways that
promote ecologically sound development and tourism.
"If we hadn't signed
this agreement, we could have been forced to sell some
of our land," says
landholder Raul Lopez, but with the financial
assistance, "we can open
small business and strengthen the economy of our
communities." 

straight to the source: MSNBC.com, Associated Press,
01 Nov 2005
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=5974>

WE'VE GOT A BEEF WITH THAT
Federal grazing program loses money hand over hoof

Aren't you just sick of welfare queens sucking off the
public teat? We're
talking, of course, about Western ranchers who graze
their cattle on
public land. A new analysis from the Government
Accountability Office
reveals that 10 federal agencies spent $144 million
managing the
government's grazing program in the last fiscal year,
and got back only
$21 million in fees -- less than a sixth of the cost.
Most ranchers pay an
average of $13.30 a month to graze a cow-calf pair on
private land, while
running the same bovine duo on public land costs them
only $1.79 a month.
Conservationists say the program subsidizes activities
that destroy the
land and provide only a fraction of the nation's beef,
but Jim Hughes of
the Bureau of Land Management says the Bush
administration has no plans to
change current policies. After all, he says, ranchers
need "that public
land to subsidize operations to stay in business."

straight to the source: The Washington Post, Juliet
Eilperin, 01 Nov 2005
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=5963>

ARBOR SLAY
Poverty drives forest loss in Malawi

Southern Africa's Malawi (yes, it's a country -- look
it up) loses about
200 square miles of forest a year to illegal logging
for firewood and
charcoal; over a fifth of the nation's forests
disappeared between 1990
and 2000. Twenty-three tree species are endangered,
streams are drying up,
air pollution is increasing, and some rivers get so
clogged with silt that
hydroelectric-power operations are impaired. Poverty
and joblessness are
the primary drivers -- about 8 million of the nation's
12 million people
earn less than a dollar a day, far too little to buy
stoves or devices
needed to hook up to the electrical grid. "The problem
is that we have
nothing else to do," says one illegal logger. "We have
no money ... So we
have to cut the trees to feed our families." Studies
suggest Malawians
could prosper by using the forests sustainably --
selling honey from
forest beehives, or botanicals for traditional
medicines -- if they can
just escape the daily struggle for survival.

straight to the source: The New York Times, Michael
Wines, 01 Nov 2005
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=5965>


THE OLD MUNITIONS AND THE SEA
U.S. Army dumped heaps of chemical weapons in Davy
Jones' locker

Between 1944 and 1970, the U.S. Army secretly dumped
about 64 million
pounds of chemical warfare agents, plus over 400,000
mustard-gas-filled
munitions, off several state shores -- and more than
that in the waters
around 11 other nations. A fair amount of the dumping
took place right
after the end of World War II, when the Army needed to
divest of a lot of
spare chemical munitions. A two-part investigation by
Virginia's Daily
Press reveals that the Army doesn't know where most of
these dump sites
are, whether the munitions are leaking, or what effect
they may be having
on the environment or fishers. The situation is "a
disaster looming -- a
time bomb," says Gert Harigel, a physicist and expert
on chemical weapons.
"The scientific community knows very little about it.
It scares me a lot."

straight to the source: Daily Press, John M.R. Bull,
30 Oct 2005
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=5960>

CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN GAGGIN'
China's economic boom leading to dreadful air quality

China's zooming economy is a wonder of the modern
world, but the eco-toll
is becoming increasingly severe. Acid rain affects
about a third of the
country, approximately 70 percent of its lakes and
rivers are polluted,
and more than 400,000 Chinese a year are estimated to
die prematurely due
to extreme air pollution. And the problems don't stay
within China's
borders: The country is the world's second-largest
greenhouse-gas
producer, and the U.S. EPA says that at times nearly a
quarter of the
particulate pollution over Los Angeles originated from
China. Last week,
environmental official Zhang Lijun cautioned that
China's pollution levels
could quadruple or worse within 15 years if automobile
use and energy
consumption are not curbed. Though the government has
been setting higher
benchmarks for auto fuel efficiency and clean energy
development, and
boasting of a green Beijing Olympics in 2008, it's
also been cracking down
on environmental activists. 'Cause obviously they're
the problem.

straight to the source: The Guardian, Jonathan Watts,
31 Oct 2005
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=5958>

straight to the source: The New York Times, Jim
Yardley, 30 Oct 2005
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=5959>






		
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