Monday, 02 Feb 2004

InterActivate!

We here at Grist are happy to introduce a new feature on our ever-growing, ever-improving, can't-believe-it's-not-butter website: Say hello to InterActivist, a forum where Grist editors and readers collaborate to interrogate. Let us explain: On Monday of every week, a leader or activist in the environmental community will answer a set of questions proffered by Grist editors. Grist readers will read the results; you will laugh; you will cry; you will find it superior to Cats. Inspired, you will send questions of your own, and on Friday of every week, we will post the InterActivist's answers to those. Grist editors will read the results; we will laugh ... and so on. It's gonna be greentastic! Anyhoo ... this week we introduce our debut InterActivist: Hank Dittmar, president and CEO of Reconnecting America, which works to improve transportation systems and create more livable and economically sustainable communities -- only on the Grist Magazine website.

Cap 'n' Trade Cut 'n' Paste

If new rules proposed by the Bush administration to cut power-plant mercury emissions sound like they were written by industry lobbyists, it's only because, well, they kinda were. The proposal, released by the U.S. EPA on Friday for a 60-day public comment period, contains at least 12 paragraphs lifted almost verbatim from memorandums sent to the EPA by Latham & Watkins, a top Washington corporate environmental law firm. EPA spokespersons dismissed the plagiarism as an innocent interagency mix-up; the writer of the L&W memos called it "gratifying." Enviros criticized the EPA proposal, which would put in place a cap-and-trade system that would let plants buy and sell mercury pollution credits and would not require plants to use the best available technology to clean up their emissions. The EPA claims the new program will reduce mercury emissions by nearly 70 percent by 2018; until then, you best hope you live near plants that are selling rather than buying the right to pollute.

State of the Art

One hundred years ago, progressives believed that states were laboratories of democracy, small-scale testing grounds for innovative policies. While the civil-rights struggle cast that view into disfavor, it may be on its way to a renaissance, led by forward-thinking state leaders concerned about the environment. Spurred by the federal government's failure to tackle many environmental problems in a timely fashion (or at all), state legislatures from California to New Mexico to Maryland are pushing funding for renewable energy and passing restrictions on pollution from power plants and heavy trucks. These moves take place in the context of a larger political shift that is seeing Republicans -- traditionally states' rights advocates -- push for concentrated federal power, while Democrats -- since the 1930s, advocates of federal standards -- back states' rights in policy areas as diverse as medical marijuana, education, gay marriage, and energy efficiency.

Sore Like an Eagle

The greatest threat to the bald eagle is no longer pesticides, but development and suburban sprawl, say environmental scientists. The bald eagle has starred in one of the most successful species-restoration stories in U.S. history; thanks to the banning of DDT in 1972 and the careful efforts of environmental advocates, the eagle has soared back from the brink of extinction. Still, bald eagle populations have generally risen fastest in states with the lowest rates of population growth. The growth in numbers of vacation and second homes has put pressure on the birds throughout the Northeast. "Loss of habitat is the biggest threat facing eagles right now," said Karen Steenhof, a biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey and an eagle-survey coordinator.