Friday, 17 Jun 2005

Buenos Vistas

New EPA effort to cut haze in national parks

The U.S. EPA this week released new regulations designed to clean up hazy air in 156 national parks and wilderness areas. The rules aim to eliminate 1 million tons of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide emissions a year by 2014. States must identify the industrial sites smogging up places like Great Smoky Mountains National Park, where air pollution can cut visibility from 90 miles to about 20 miles. Targeted plants will have five years to install the best available emissions-control technology. The EPA estimates costs of $1.5 billion a year to industry, but $8.5 billion to $10 billion a year in public health benefits and $240 million a year in increased tourism. Still, even with this victory -- part of a court settlement between the EPA and Environmental Defense, which sued the agency to enforce the Clean Air Act -- activists aren't exactly breathing a sigh of relief: the new rules exempt some of the worst polluters from scrubbing their stacks.

Can't? Well ...

Senate adds eco-friendly provisions to energy bill

The Senate put a surprisingly green cast on the energy bill yesterday, approving an amendment that would require power companies to generate 10 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020, and another that would direct $14 billion in tax incentives to alternative fuels and energy efficiency. Another green-friendly amendment, from Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), would have established a goal to reduce imports of foreign oil by 40 percent in 20 years, but it lost in a 53 to 47 vote amidst Republican objections that it was just too dang ambitious. Eco-related fights over amendments on global warming, offshore oil drilling, and siting for liquefied-natural-gas terminals will take place in coming days. The unexpected environmental friendliness of the Senate bill is widely seen as a response to the aggressive fossil-fuel friendliness of the House version. "If it comes out in the middle" during House-Senate conference committee negotiations, said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), "it might be all right." Of course, with President Bush largely favoring the House approach, the deck may be stacked against the Senate greens ...

Don't Go Fish

Historic bottom-fishing restrictions adopted for West Coast waters

The Pacific Fishery Management Council this week approved a permanent ban on trawl fishing for nearly 300,000 square miles of federal waters off the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California. The plan -- which will now be forwarded to the National Marine Fisheries Service for final approval; it's expected to go into effect in early 2006 -- prohibits bottom trawling on seafloor area deeper than about 4,200 feet, and also includes dozens of shallower areas considered vital to the survival of groundfish like rockfish, lingcod, and Dover sole. Trawl fishers say that dragging nets willy-nilly across the seafloor has not contributed to the overall decline of West Coast groundfish stocks, but trawling critics think the ban will help protect sensitive habitats like coral beds and kelp forests, vital to fish and other species. However, since much of the area covered by the new plan is already too deep for trawling, it's hard to say whether the ban will contribute to fisheries recovery.


Kids of Latin American descent in the U.S. are 2.5 times more likely to suffer from asthma than non-Latino white kids, according to a report by the League of United Latin American Citizens. And 80 percent of U.S. Latinos live in counties that violate federal air-quality standards, compared to 57 percent of non-Latino white folks. Lots more stats where those came from in our latest Counter Culture.

Make That "Vast, Energy-Sucking Wasteland"

Electricity-hungry widescreen TVs spike home energy use

Jonesing for one of those technolicious, 61-inch, flat-screen, hi-def, make-your-morning-coffee televisions? It's gonna cost you -- right in the utility bill. The Natural Resources Defense Council predicts that if current design standards hold, TVs and related accoutrements (DVD players, etc.) will account for about 10 percent of home electricity use by 2009. TVs alone will suck up about 50 percent more juice by then, for a grand total of 70 billion kilowatt-hours per year in the U.S. That will mean a lot more carbon pumped into the atmosphere just so you can get a good close look at Teri Hatcher's, um, pores. The U.S. EPA, utility company Pacific Gas & Electric, the California Energy Commission, and NRDC will be strategizing later this month about how best to measure a TV's energy use and get manufacturers to create more energy-efficient models. "People keep a TV five to 15 years, so we really need to get started making them as efficient as they can be," said NRDC's Noah Horowitz.