FEATURED ARTICLES
- A Message From Robert Redford, NRDC
- Bush Administration Presses European Union To Weaken Proposed Chemical Regulations, BushGreenWatch
- EPA to reduce monitoring of smokestack emissions, Knight Ridder
- Plan to open Alaska to more oil, gas development finished, AP
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"Like bones to the human body, the axle to the wheel, the wing to the bird, and the air to the wing, so is liberty the essence of life. Whatever is done without it is imperfect... Liberty is the right of every man to be honest, to think and to speak without hypocrisy."
- - Jose Marti
KNOW YOUR HISTORY - JANUARY
1853 -- Cuban poet, essayist & journalist, José Martí (1853-1895) is born in Havana. Martí became the symbol of Cuba's struggle for independence. He worked on underground papers, was sent to jail & was eventually forced into exile. The popular song "Guantanamera" is based on a poem by Marti' & Cuban children to this day know many of his poems by heart.
http://members.aol.com/enriques/index.html
RHINO HERE:
Not insignificant in the list of havoc that the shrub gang is wreaking on the country & the world, is what they are doing to the environment, and what they are still trying to do. Actor, director and conservationist Robert Redford has been a member of the National Resources Defense Council's (NRDC) board of trustees for three decades. Recently, he sent out an email message urging concerned Americans to unite in opposition to the Bush-Cheney energy bill, which would ravage our public lands, threaten our health and keep us dangerously addicted to fossil fuels. He urges us all to contact your senators, via the NRDC Biogems website, and call on them to defeat this disastrous legislation. He also asks those of us who are not already NRDC BioGem Defenders to join up, and then to help mobilize millions of Americans in protest by forwarding his message to your friends, family members and colleagues.
Check out Redford's message at: http://www.savebiogems.org/redford.asp
Check out all of NRDC's work and join the Biogem Defenders at: http://www.savebiogems.org
Today's Rhino's Blog is a collection of environmental alerts borrowed from Democrats.com:
http://www.democrats.com
Chemical Industry Given Private Access to EPA;
Seeks Approval of Pesticides at Expense of Wildlife
Democrats.com
From BushGreenWatch: "A lawsuit filed last week asserts that the Bush Administration is allowing a special task force from the chemical industry to lobby secretly and illegally inside the Environmental Protection Agency. The task force aims to circumvent current protections for endangered species. If successful, it will be easier for the industry to gain approval for the use of certain pesticides. The lawsuit alleges that the industry group, representing 14 agrochemical companies, is meeting regularly behind closed doors with EPA officials in violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA). Federal 'sunshine' laws require that such meetings be open to members of the public. The industry strategy, according to internal documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, is to eliminate the role of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA Fisheries, whose biologists currently serve as oversight experts as to whether a pesticide poses a risk to wildlife."
Bush Administration Presses European Union To Weaken Proposed Chemical Regulations
Lest They Affect U.S.
bushgreenwatch.org , January 26, 2004
Last year the Bush Administration encouraged American chemical companies to lobby against European efforts to strengthen the regulation of thousands of chemicals contained in household, industrial and personal products. When the chemical industry was slow to respond, Administration officials took it upon themselves to launch "an unusually aggressive campaign" to pressure the European Union (EU) into watering down its comprehensive reform efforts ... MORE AT:
http://bushgreenwatch.org
EPA to Reduce Monitoring of Smokestack Emissions
Democrats.com
KRT: "The Bush administration on Thursday issued a new federal rule that limits pollution testing and will likely make it harder for state and federal regulators to monitor pollution from some industrial smokestacks. Fewer air polluters are likely to be caught if government agencies measure emissions from smokestacks less often, which critics say will happen under the new rule limiting a tool used by environmental cops... 'This regulatory rollback would make oversight and enforcement by states, the EPA and citizens extremely difficult, if not virtually impossible,' Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts and Vermont said in a formal objection to a court settlement preceding the rule... A Knight Ridder database analysis of 15 years of enforcement records at the EPA found that the Bush administration has cut enforcement of air pollution rules nearly in half."
EPA to reduce monitoring of smokestack emissions
BY SETH BORENSTEIN, Knight Ridder Newspapers, Jan. 22, 2004
WASHINGTON - (KRT) - The Bush administration on Thursday issued a new federal rule that limits pollution testing and will likely make it harder for state and federal regulators to monitor pollution from some industrial smokestacks. Fewer air polluters are likely to be caught if government agencies measure emissions from smokestacks less often, which critics say will happen under the new rule limiting a tool used by environmental cops. Under the new rule, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will limit how often federal and state environmental police can monitor some stacks. The rule applies to hundreds of companies whose smokestack emissions aren't monitored under specific EPA rules aimed at curbing such problems as acid rain from power plants and smog in cities with heavy air pollution ... MORE AT:
http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/nation/7773738.htm
Bush-Norton Implement Plan to Open Alaska to More Oil, Gas Development
AP: "Interior Secretary Gale Norton signed off on a plan Thursday for opening most of an 8.8 million-acre swath of Alaska's North Slope to oil and gas development. Some of the drilling could occur in areas important for migratory birds, whales and wildlife... [Oil Company-subsidized???] Geologists think the reserve may contain 6 billion to 13 billion barrels of oil... Environmentalists said the management plan threatens the health of Arctic tundra, ponds and lakes that are home to wildlife and migratory birds and provide a vital subsistence hunting and fishing ground for native Alaskans. 'It makes no sense to industrialize this incomparable wilderness area when there's only about six month's worth of economically recoverable oil Oe and it would take at least 10 years to get it to market,' said Charles Clusen, director of the Alaska lands project for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group."
Plan to open Alaska to more oil, gas development finished
By JOHN HEILPRIN Associated Press, January 23, 2004
WASHINGTON - Interior Secretary Gale Norton signed off on a plan Thursday for opening most of an 8.8 million-acre swath of Alaska's North Slope to oil and gas development. Some of the drilling could occur in areas important for migratory birds, whales and wildlife. The Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management will use the plan to manage a northwest portion of the government's 23.5 million-acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. Geologists think the reserve may contain 6 billion to 13 billion barrels of oil. It is located just west of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, where President Bush wants to open a 1.5 million-acre coastal plain to drilling as one of his top energy priorities. The Senate, in debating a massive energy bill, has rejected drilling there. Environmentalists said the management plan threatens the health of Arctic tundra, ponds and lakes that are home to wildlife and migratory birds and provide a vital subsistence hunting and fishing ground for native Alaskans... MORE AT:
http://www.myinky.com/ecp/news/article/0,1626,ECP_734_2598213,00.html
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