[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=”HOUSE APPROPRIATORS SUPPORT CAP ON CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS”] The influential House Appropriations Committee went on record in support of addressing global warming through a mandatory cap on U.S. emissions. The Republican-led panel accepted a nonbinding climate change amendment that endorses capping greenhouse gas emissions as long as the program does not harm the U.S. economy….
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”TEN STATES SUE EPA ON EMISISSIONS”] Ten states, two cities and three environmental groups filed a lawsuit today against the Bush Administration for failing to regulate heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants. New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer (D) took the lead on the lawsuit, which was filed in the Washington D.C.-based federal…
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”SENATE BILL WOULD AUTHORIZE $13B FOR GREAT LAKES RESTORATION”] Two senators introduced legislation to authorize about $13 billion for Great Lakes restoration projects. Most of the money would be drawn from the Clean Water State Revolving Loan Fund (SRF), which the bill would reauthorize. Sens. Mike DeWine (R-OH) and Carl Levin (D-MI) are sponsors of…
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”ESA HOLDS CONGRESSIONAL VISITS DAY”] Ecological Society of America scientists met with the congressional offices of their Senators and Representatives to emphasize the importance of funding the biological and ecological sciences across federal agencies. The meetings formed part of the Biological and Ecological Sciences Coalition (BESC) Congressional Visits Day, a two-day event that brought over…
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”ESA BRIEFS PRESS, CONGRESSIONAL STAFF ON INVASIVE SPECIES”] ESA Rapid Response Team members David Lodge, Dick Mack, and Susan Williams briefed members of the press, federal agency representatives, and congressional staff on the Ecological Society of America’s scientific position paper, Biological Invasions: Recommendations for U.S. Policy and Management. Lodge, Mack, and Williams, three of the…
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”BUSH ADMIN UNVEILS PROPOSED BUDGET FOR FY 2007″] On February 6, President Bush released his proposed budget for fiscal year (FY) 2007. The new budget proposes substantial increases for physical sciences and engineering programs as part of an “American Competitiveness Initiative” that was first previewed in the President’s State of the Union address as a…
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”BUSH TO HAIL $50B ENERGY RESEARCH PACKAGE IN STATE OF THE UNION”] A $50 billion package of Senate bills designed to shore up U.S. energy research and development will be featured in President Bush’s upcoming State of the Union address, Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) said. The three bills — collectively called the Protecting America’s Competitive…
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”U.S. INTERIOR TO OPEN ALASKAN LAND TO DRILLING”] Citing the desire to “alleviate some of the pressure” for energy needs, the U.S. Department of Interior announced plans that it would open some 400,000 acres of Alaska’s North Slope for exploratory drilling. Much of the 23.5 million-acre petroleum reserve is already open to oil development. Created…
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”FISHERIES BILL MOVES FORWARD IN SENATE”] The Senate Commerce Committee approved a bill to reauthorize the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the country’s most significant fisheries law. The panel voted unanimously for the measure sponsored by Chairman Ted Stevens (R-AK), an author of the original 1976 Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which expired in 1999. The legislation…
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”US STAND POSES CHALLENGE AT CLIMATE CHANGE TALKS”] The Kyoto Protocol became fully operational after delegates at a United Nations (U.N.) climate change conference in Montreal, Canada approved a set of final regulatory measures defining how the Protocol will proceed in coming years. The decision gives legal force to the agreement by 34 developed nations…
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”CURRENT BUDGET STATUS”] Nine months after President Bush unveiled his budget proposal for fiscal year 2006, Congress has wrapped up work on nearly all of the twelve Research and Development (R&D) funding agencies before adjourning for the Thanksgiving Holiday. Now nearly two months into fiscal year 2006, the Departments of Agriculture, Energy, Homeland Security, Interior,…
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”EVOLUTION SUFFERS SETBACK IN KANSAS”] The controversy over teaching intelligent design in public schools produced widely divergent results in two key states, Kansas and Pennsylvania. In Kansas, the state Board of Education voted to redefine “science” to include non-natural explanations of the world such as intelligent design. The vote, expected for months, approved the new…
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”ESA BRIEFS CONGRESSIONAL STAFF ON ECOLOGY OF GULF COAST”] ESA Rapid Response Team (RRT) members Robert Twilley, of Louisiana State University, and Dennis Whigham, of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, briefed congressional staff on the ecology of Gulf Coast wetlands and the role of ecological science in restoring Gulf Coast ecosystems. The scientists highlighted the…
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”SUPREME COURT TAKES UP WETLANDS CASES”] The Supreme Court will hear two cases that test the government’s use of the Interstate Commerce clause to regulate wetlands that are not directly connected to navigable waters. In the case of John Rapanos v. United States, a Michigan landowner is facing jail time and millions of dollars in…
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”HOUSE PASSES MAJOR REWRITE OF ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT”] By a vote of 229 to 193, the House passed a bill that would make the biggest changes to the Endangered Species Act since its passage 32 years ago — substituting many of the law’s mandatory programs with voluntary measures. The bill would require the government to…
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”ESA SUPPORTS SCIENCE ON CAPITOL HILL”] Ecological Society of America scientists met with the congressional offices of their Senators and Representatives to emphasize the importance of funding the National Science Foundation across scientific disciplines. The meetings formed part of Congressional Visits Day, a two-day event that brought 60 scientists of various disciplines from across the…
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”NSF PICKS BIO DIRECTORATE”] ESA member Jim Collins was tapped to become head of the Biology Directorate at the National Science Foundation (NSF). A longtime NSF grantee for his work on morphological variation within species, Collins has more recently begun to explore the fledgling field of ecological ethics. He hopes to expand biology’s interactions with…
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”SCIENCE FUNDING UPDATE – ACTION ALERT”] The federal appropriations process for Fiscal Year 2006 is still underway. The Ecological Society of America encourages ecological scientists to contact their Member of Congress and Senators-especially if they serve on an appropriations committee-and urge support for agencies that fund scientific research. Instructions for sending letters, as well as…
[toggles title=”In This Issue”] [toggle title=”SCIENTISTS CRITICIZE HOUSE PANEL’S INVESTIGATION OF CLIMATE STUDIES”] House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton’s (R-TX) request for the personal and financial records of three scientists who wrote a controversial climate change study is an attempt to intimidate them, the head of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) said. In a…