Tuesday, 07 Jan 2003

Homeland Defense

The newly right-leaning U.S. Congress reconvenes today, and the environmental movement is ready: Since voters turned the national government over to Republican lawmakers nine weeks ago, many of the country's most powerful green groups have been working together to prepare an action plan to counter legislative and administrative attacks on the environment. Never in U.S. history have environmental organizations faced such a formidable political challenge -- but some of the country's most prominent enviros say the crisis may present a unique opportunity to reinvigorate the movement. Keith Schneider reports on the environmental counterattack, only on the Grist Magazine website.

Job None

Following the collapse of the Northwest timber industry in the 1990s, thousands of workers lost their jobs. The conventional wisdom has been that these workers were absorbed by a boom in the region's high-tech industry -- but a new study of a decade's worth of employment records questions that conclusion. True, the region's economy as a whole grew during the '90s, but former timber industry workers didn't benefit. More than half of the 60,000 people in Oregon working in the industry at the beginning of the 1990s left their jobs by 1998. Of those, only 18,000 found other jobs in Oregon -- and half of the jobs they found paid lower wages than their previous positions. The environmental movement wasn't solely responsible for the shift; the increasing automation of sawmills and the depressed timber market contributed to the loss of jobs. Still, the study, coauthored by the economic consulting firm ECONorthwest and economists at Oregon State University and the Oregon Employment Department, may be the first significant attempt to understand how environmentally motivated economic changes affect workers.

Yurok Me Like a Hurricane

The Bush administration is to blame for last fall's die-off of 33,000 salmon along the Klamath River in Northern California, biologists from the state's Department of Fish and Game have determined. They say the fish kill -- the largest ever recorded in the West -- was the result of the administration's decision to divert water from the river to farming interests, a move that was heavily protested by environmentalists, tribes, and some in the fishing industry, who predicted that salmon would suffer as a result. At the time of the die-off, the Bush administration said not enough science was available to determine its cause; now, California biologists say they've done the necessary research and the conclusion is clear. They also noted a "substantial risk" of more kills if the government continues to divert water from the river. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declined to take a stand on the California findings, saying it would conduct its own investigation. But Troy Fletcher, executive director of the Klamath-based Yurok Tribe, suggested that there was no need for further studies: "It's not rocket science: Fish need water."

Smokin', Joe

Despite inevitable resistance from the Bush administration and fellow Congress members, Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) plan to unveil a proposal this week that would force all U.S. industries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The legislation would require all industries to limit their emissions to 2000 levels by 2010 and 1990 levels by 2016. McCain has scheduled a hearing on the matter for tomorrow and plans to send a proposal to the Senate floor later this year, according to his aides. That proposal is bound to face stiff opposition from President Bush and from Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), new chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, both of whom favor voluntary approaches and market incentives over government regulation of industry.