Friday, 14 Jul 2006

Big Brother Knows Best

House bill would keep states from setting tough toxics rules

House Republicans are pushing legislation that would keep states from setting standards for pesticides and health-threatening industrial chemicals that are more stringent than federal regulations. If passed, the bill could nullify a California ban on brominated fire retardants, for example, and restrictions in San Francisco that limit certain chemicals in baby products. The bill would also require the U.S. EPA to use a cost-benefit standard when determining whether to ban certain toxics, and would impose no timetable for regulation, potentially delaying phaseouts of dangerous chemicals while the agency studies whether regulations are too hard on industry. The legislation was OK'd by one House committee this week, but would still need approval from another before moving to the House floor, and the Senate has yet to take it up at all. The bill is opposed by 12 state attorneys general, the American Nurses Association, and more than 60 environmental and public-health groups.


Picture Las Vegas: the spinning slot machines, the dizzying lights, the white tigers and sequined costumes and ... pick-your-own apples? Yes, it seems that Sin City has a thriving, if underappreciated, local- and sustainable-food movement. From vegan doughnuts to free-range chicken, the notorious oasis is offering residents and tourists a new option in the all-you-can-eat buffet of life. Cathy Huyghe digs into the topic.

Lawn Gone

Homeowners rethink their water-sucking lawns

A "delawning" movement is sprouting up around the U.S., as a handful of homeowners switch from resource-intensive grassy green expanses to drought-tolerant, native, and/or edible gardens. "It's about shifting ideas of what's beautiful," says Fritz Haeg, an L.A. architect whose Edible Estates project transforms front yards into fruit and vegetable gardens. A new report from the Public Policy Institute of California provides more fodder for the anti-lawn set: It asserts that thirsty home landscaping will suck up a troubling amount of water in the state over the next 25 years if the love affair with lawns continues. California is expected to add 11 million new residents by 2030, with at least 50 percent settling in hotter inland regions where single-family homes with lawns are common, according to the report. Some neighbors, however, don't appreciate creative gardening. "What happens in the backyard is their business," said one man who lives near a yard now being used to grow 195 various edibles. "But this doesn't seem to me to be a front yard kind of a deal."


Blake Mycoskie's company, Drivers Ed Direct, was launched just one year ago, but it's already given green-tinged driving lessons to nearly 10,000 teens, and taken a number of them out on the streets in hybrids to practice their starts and stops. In answering reader questions, Mycoskie, this week's InterActivist, chats about how to get better gas mileage, what he sees as the future of eco-fuels, why he gives away shoes, whether he's single, and more.

Varmint Cong

Organic farmers in Colorado ask state to blast rodents out of their holes

They say life imitates art, but until now, life had stubbornly refused to imitate Caddyshack. Behold! Organic farmers in Colorado have asked the state Division of Wildlife to look into controlling prairie dogs and other burrowing critters by ... blowing them up. Why? Because, in the immortal words of Carl Spackler, "a varmint will never quit -- ever." The idea is to flood burrows with explosive gases and then, um, explode them, knocking the critters dead and collapsing the tunnels. "This is a way for [the farmers] to avoid using toxic substances to help them remain certified as organic," says a DOW spokesdetonator. We bet if more people knew that going organic meant you could blow stuff up, there'd be a lot more organic farms.