[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”ENDANGERED SPECIES: BUSH ADMIN DRAFT CONTEMPLATES SWEEPING REGULATORY OVERHAUL”] The Bush administration’s internal discussions of regulatory changes to the Endangered Species Act included an across-the-board overhaul that would have scaled back the government’s power to list species or prevent disruptive activities in their habitat, according to a draft proposal circulated March 27 by the Center…
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”CLIMATE: POLAR BEAR LISTING WOULD NOT SIGNAL NEED FOR CARBON CAPS”] The Interior Department does not plan to address carbon emissions or other issues of global climate change, even if the Department moves to list the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act ( ESA ), department officials said March 5. The Bush administration has…
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”CLIMATE: FLOOR VOTE LIKELY WEEK OF MARCH 5 ON PELOSI’S SELECT COMMITTEE ON GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY INDEPENDENCE”] The House is expected to vote the week of March 5 on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) new Select Committee on Global Warming and Energy Independence. Pelosi called for the new select committee in January in large part…
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”BUSH BUDGET PRIORITIES FOR FISCAL YEAR 2008″] The Bush Administration unveiled its proposal for the fiscal year (FY) 2008 federal budget on February 5, 2007. The proposed budget reflects the Bush Administration’s desire to keep spending for non-security discretionary programs capped at a 1.0 percent increase. In contrast to mandatory programs such as Social Security…
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”HOUSE FY 2007 BUDGET WRAP-UP PROVIDES GOOD NEWS FOR SCIENCE AGENCIES”] The 110th Congress filed a spending bill to finalize the FY 2007 appropriations bills left unfinished by the previous Congress. The ‘joint funding resolution’ provides funding for the entire fiscal year for all programs funded by the 9 unfinished FY 2007 appropriations bills covering…
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] >Congressional News: [/toggle][toggle title=”BOXER ACCEPTS DUAL ROLE CHAIRING ETHICS, ENVIRONMENT & PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEES”] Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) will take on another potentially time-consuming responsibility during the 110th Congress, temporarily chairing the Senate Ethics Committee while Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD) recovers from brain surgery. The Ethics Committee could take on…
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”SENATE DEMOCRATS PLAN SPRING VOTES ON WARMING, ‘ENERGY INDEPENDENCE”] As the 110th Congress began its session January 4, Senate Democratic leaders announced that they plan to send legislation addressing global warming and energy issues to the floor this spring. In a memo to rank-and-file Democratic senators dated January 3, incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid…
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”INHOFE CHASTISES MEDIA FOR WARMING COVERAGE”] Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) ended his tenure as Chairman of the Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee with a final hearing aimed at castigating the press for its coverage of climate change. Spotlighting both mainstream broadcast and print reporters, the three-term senator argued that man-made climate change is a…
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”SUPREME COURT APPEARS DIVIDED IN GREENHOUSE GAS CASE”] The Supreme Court appeared divided as it ventured for the first time on November 29, 2006, into a raft of legal questions surrounding the regulation of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. Justices spent most of the time during the Court’s one-hour oral arguments examining whether Massachusetts and 11 other…
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”UNFINISHED FISCAL YEAR 2007 SPENDING BILLS TOP LAME-DUCK AGENDA”] Congress returned for a lame-duck session to contend with the remaining spending bills for Fiscal Year (FY) 2007, to include measures that fund the National Science Foundation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the departments of Energy, Interior and Agriculture. Senate Republicans said they hoped to…
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”BUSH’S REMARKS ON “NUCLEAR AS RENEWABLE” SPUR DEBATE”] “Nuclear power is renewable, and there are no greenhouse gases associated with nuclear power,” President Bush declared in a wide-ranging energy policy speech in October. As questions surround Bush’s potential home-stretch energy plans and bills in the next Congress, one place his rebranding of nuclear power could…
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”HOUSE RESOURCES COMMITTEE: POMBO’S LOSS SIGNIFICANT FOR ECOLOGICAL ISSUES”] Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA), Chairman of the House Resources Committee who had relentlessly sought to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s coastal plain to oil and gas leasing, lost to Jerry McNerney (D-CA). West Virginia’s Rep. Nick Rahall — in line to take the House Resources…
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”USDA AND DOE ANNOUNCE $17.5M FOR BIOFUELS RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT”] U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Mike Johanns and U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Samuel Bodman announced nearly $17.5 million for 17 biomass research, development and demonstration projects to help break U.S. dependence on oil. The grants are intended to develop technologies necessary to…
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”CALIFORNIA SUES U.S. CARMAKERS FOR CONTRIBUTING TO CLIMATE CHANGE”] California filed a lawsuit against the six largest automakers operating in the United States, contending that car and truck emissions are causing global warming, injuring the state’s environment and economy, and endangering public health. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court in Oakland, is the…
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”EIGHTY SCIENTISTS PROMOTE SCIENCE ON CAPITOL HILL”] On September 13, 2006, eighty scientists and engineers from 25 states visited over 100 congressional offices to advocate for the National Science Foundation. Sponsored by the Coalition for National Science Funding (CNSF) the event featured interdisciplinary teams that met with congressional delegations and showed broad support for the…
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”OFFSHORE DRILLING IN GULF FINDS OIL RESERVES”] An announcement by three oil companies of a successful production test in the Gulf of Mexico — potentially the largest American oil find in a generation — was seen by policy experts as ushering in a new era in ultra-deepwater offshore drilling. Chevron, Devon Energy and Statoil ASA,…
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”UN PLEDGES FUNDS TO CLEAN UP MEDITERRANEAN OIL SPILL”] The United Nations (UN) Environment Program pledged 50 million euros, about $64 million, to help clean up and contain a major Mediterranean oil spill caused by the conflict in Lebanon. The 87-mile-long slick, described by experts as the worst environmental disaster in Lebanese history, stained Lebanon’s…
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”SENATE PANEL BOOSTS FUNDING FOR NSF, NASA, NOAA”] The Senate Appropriations Science, State, Commerce, and Justice Subcommittee approved a Fiscal Year (FY) 2007 appropriations bill that boosts funding for the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NSF received a $411 million increase…
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”SUPREME COURT SPLITS ON WETLANDS PROTECTION”] A split Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Army Corps of Engineers may have misinterpreted the Clean Water Act when they prevented two Michigan landowners from developing on wetlands. In a 5-4 ruling in the joint cases of Rapanos v. United States and…
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”BUSH TO CREATE WORLD’S LARGEST MARINE PROTECTED AREA”] President Bush will create the world’s largest protected marine area, designating as a national monument a 1,200-mile-long chain of small Hawaiian islands and surrounding waters and reefs that are home to a spectacular array of sea life, senior administration officials said. In his second use of the…