Free Republic

The people who try to save endangered species in Hawaii are immune to despair. They have to be, to keep doing what they do. They dangle on ropes from 3,000-foot sea cliffs on Molokai to brush pollen on a flower whose only natural pollinator - some unknown bird or insect - has died out. They trudge into remote forests to play taped bird calls, hoping that a survivor of a vanished species will reply. Or they capture and tend one small bird, old for its kind and missing an eye, then spend fruitless months searching for another to be its...

From an Alaska land swap to tours of a Georgia barrier island, business interests bested environmentalists in battles that shaped Congress' $388 billion spending bill. The legislation wasn't totally one-sided as it boosted expenditures for operating national parks and continued bans on oil drilling in national monuments and many offshore areas. Lawmakers also omitted business-sought provisions to help a huge Oregon logging project and to ease standards for some pesticide use. Business groups said the spending bill, which with accompanying documents ran 3,646 pages, was too wide-ranging for either side to declare victory. "I'd be hard-pressed to say it was...

Environmentalists hooted when Ronald Reagan claimed — wrongly — that trees produce more pollution than cars. But right now, the biggest single source of air pollution in Washington isn't a power plant, pulp mill or anything else created by man. It's a volcano. Since Mount St. Helens started erupting in early October, it has been pumping out between 50 and 250 tons a day of sulfur dioxide, the lung-stinging gas that causes acid rain and contributes to haze. Those emissions are so high that if the volcano was a new factory, it probably couldn't get a permit to operate, said...

Environmentalists see some of their worst fears playing out as President Bush moves to cement a second-term agenda that includes getting more timber, oil and gas from public lands and relying on the market rather than regulation to curb pollution. Bush's top energy priority - opening an Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling - is shaping up as an early test of GOP gains in Congress. "This is going to be a definitional battle, and we're ready," said Deb Callahan, president of the League of Conservation Voters. Though the election didn't emphasize such issues, administration officials believe the results validated...

Hundreds of people spent the night as evacuees in central and southeastern Texas because of flooding caused by days of torrential rain that was blamed for one death. Rain continued falling in some areas Tuesday and the National Weather Service issued a tornado watch for a 17-county region. In Southern California, meanwhile, campers stranded by nearly 2 feet of snow on a mountain near Palm Springs were rescued early Tuesday. Rain began falling on southeastern Texas on Saturday, and on Sunday up to 15 inches of rain fell across parts of Wharton and Jackson counties. Fifty to 100 homes and...

An unusual type of storm nicknamed an "insider slider" blanketed Southern California mountains with up to 3 feet of snow and even coated desert areas with white. Children built snowmen and had snowball fights in low-lying towns such as Murrieta in Riverside County, where Chris Sousounis said he was told it would never snow when he moved there from Chicago. "Somebody lied," he said as he swept piles of snow off his pickup truck. The weekend storm was tapering off Monday, although an additional 6 inches fell in some mountain communities. The storm developed in British Columbia and swept into...

City officials are considering charging grocery stores 17 cents each for grocery bags to discourage use of plastic sacks. More than 90 percent of consumers choose plastic bags, which are blamed for everything from clogging recycling machines to killing marine life and suffocating infants. But the fee would also apply to paper bags to help reduce overall waste. Promoting a healthy environment "means we need to help change people's patterns, and that even means their shopping patterns," said incoming city Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, who takes office in January. "This is a sensible user fee." The city's Commission on the Environment...

Indonesia's natural resources are among the most bounteous in the world. They are also among the most abused. Desperate for foreign investment and plagued by corruption and weak regulation, Indonesian governments over the years have virtually invited multinational corporations - and, for that matter, their own citizens - to clear-cut the country's incomparable rain forests, foul the air and pollute the water. Now more than 80 percent of the country's 19,700-square-mile reef system, the world's largest, is at risk. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a former general, became Indonesia's first directly elected president last month partly on the promise of a cleaner,...

<p>Red Alert to Sierra Clubbers, bearded Birkenstockers and other greenies: Under no circumstances be duped into attending the (mildly oxymoronic) Greater North American International Automobile Show now under way here.</p> <p>Utopians might expect that the auto makers will offer countless octane-stingy hybrids and zero-emission fuel-cell vehicles to a public seeking to wean itself from all addiction to the cursed internal combustion engine. Sadly, this is not the case. Tree-huggers and Friends of the Earth would be better advised to picnic on the banks of the Love Canal than to set foot in the vast precincts of Detroit's Cobo Hall--where, last Friday evening, the auto show kicked off with the world's largest charity ball. Seventeen thousand of the industry's closest friends pitched in $400 apiece for a champagne-soaked, black-tie gala that might have been confused with a world convention of maitre d's and cocktail-lounge hostesses.</p>

An environmental group on Monday sued two wind energy companies, claiming that wind farms they operate east of San Francisco are killing tens of thousands of protected birds, including eagles, hawks and owls. The Center for Biological Diversity filed the lawsuit against two companies_ Florida Power & Light Group Inc. (FPL) and NEG Micon A/S of Denmark - that operate about half of the 5,400 wind turbines in the Altamont Pass, one of California's main centers for wind power production. Environmentalists often promote wind power as an alternative form of energy, but some environmental groups here have started complaining that...

Pa. - The overseers at Fallingwater released plans to fix the source of a consistent complaint by visitors to Frank Lloyd Wright's masterpiece — the bathrooms. Composting toilets near the home, about 70 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, have failed to work properly and have left many of the 140,000 visitors each year talking about the aroma as well as the architecture. A new system, which has been six years in the making, calls for nearly five miles of underground piping and a waste disposal system intended to protect the pristine environment around Bear Run, the stream that flows underneath the...

The White House called the shots when Christie Whitman was running the Environmental Protection Agency, and from the looks of things, the White House is still calling the shots. Michael Leavitt's first major action as E.P.A. administrator last week was to rescind a Clinton-era proposal to reduce mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants. The reversal came right out of the Karl Rove playbook, a long-promised payoff to President Bush's big contributors in the utility industry. Nobody blamed Mr. Leavitt personally. Still, the ruckus surrounding the announcement got his tenure off to a wobbly start, while overshadowing two positive initiatives on...

The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday proposed designating all of New Jersey and Connecticut as being out of compliance with tougher anti-smog standards adopted several years ago. It also classified the rapidly growing counties west and north of New York City in such a way that could bring tougher emissions controls to these areas. The E.P.A. plan is the culmination of a highly charged debate over whether more rural and suburban areas should be lumped with the city in facing strict emissions rules meant to reduce smog in the region. For example, New York State environmental officials wanted Orange, Putnam...

<p>While Congress was debating last month an energy bill stripped of provisions to raise fuel-efficiency standards for sport utility vehicles, the Chinese government announced fuel-economy standards for all new cars that are significantly stricter than anything contemplated in the United States. China's economy is booming, and with that boom China must decide how to address areas of increased energy production, recycling, transportation, building standards and clean water.</p>

With two decisions in the last two weeks, the Bush administration has sent its clearest message yet that it values corporate interests over the interests of average Americans. In the Securities and Exchange Commission's settlement with Putnam Investments, the public comes away short-changed. In the Environmental Protection Agency's decision to forgo enforcement of the Clean Air Act, the public comes away completely empty-handed. The 95 million Americans who invest in mutual funds paid more than $70 billion in fees in 2002. These fees went to an industry that did not take seriously its responsibility to safeguard investors' money. Investors...

Wireless carriers continued their push for more research on whether tower facilities kill large numbers of birds, while environmental groups shook their collective finger at the government, alleging the Federal Communications Commission is breaking the law in comments filed with the agency on the effects of communications towers on migratory birds. Telecommunications carriers including Sprint Corp., AT&T Wireless Services Inc., Cingular Wireless L.L.C. and SBC Communications Inc., all commended the FCC for its quest for further information on the topic. The carriers agree that valid scientific information has not yet been shown regarding allegations that communications towers are responsible for...

AP -- LILLE, France - The first of 13 aging U.S. Navy vessels destined for a controversial demolition in Britain passed through the English Channel off France on Monday, maritime officials said. The two World War II-era oil tankers Canisteo and Caloosahatchee will likely have to wait in storage amid a dispute with environmentalists, who say the ships are tainted by toxic PCBs and asbestos. A British court last week ruled that plans to scrap all 13 ships from the "Ghost Fleet" of retired U.S. Navy vessels will have to wait until legal challenges by environmentalists are heard next month....

<p>Opponents call them unsafe and bad for the environment — but that hasn't stopped Americans from eagerly snapping up more and more SUVs each year.</p> <p>In fact, sport utility vehicles (search) have increased in popularity, with sales up almost 7 percent in 2002 and up 42 percent over the past five years, according to industry figures.</p>

The impasse over an energy bill is music to the ears of Anna Aurilio of the environmental group USPIRG and to the Sierra Club's Debbie Boger. David Alberswerth of the Wilderness Society is rooting just as hard for the energy gridlock to continue. As lawmakers face off in Congress over the details of a national energy blueprint - the first in 10 years - environmentalists are in wide agreement on one thing: They don't like the bill that is emerging. "There's little in the bill for the conservation community," says Alberswerth, a land use specialist for the Wilderness Society. "We...

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - Dog tracks are a horse-and-buggy bet in gambling's space age. And they're hurting. Everywhere. Bill and Cheryl Ruettgers sat outside the Daytona Beach Kennel Club during a recent Wednesday matinee, watching young handlers show off the greyhounds before race 7. Another 200 or so bettors joined them, a very small crowd searching the programs for a winner. It didn't used to be like this at Daytona. You used to wait in lines a dozen deep to place your bet, said 61-year-old Bill Ruettgers. You used to have a shot at a real score when you won,...