Search

Discusses how Rep. W.J. `Billy' Tauzin (D-La.) is sponsoring a bill (HR 3875) that would pay people when government regulations deprive them of the use of their land or even their ability to earn a living. How his bill has led a political backlash against the environmental movement; Growing anger about heavy-handed environmental rules; Private property rights; Unfunded mandates; Risk assessment; Signs of change. INSET: Environmental bills at an impasse..

Discusses the call of the poor and minority communities for environmental justice. Claims on the link between race and environmental policies, particularly in the site of selection and permit process for hazardous waste incinerators; Congressional interest; Support from Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Carol M. Browner and President Bill Clinton.

Discusses how the Clinton administration has changed the rules of engagement for environmental conflict on Capitol Hill, calling for peaceful coexistence among environmental and business groups for the first time in 12 years. Bill Clinton's early actions to protect the environment; Increased power of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); Clinton's environmental edge, with Vice President Al Gore and conservationist Bruce Babbit as Secretary of the Interior; More.

Presents Congress' attempt to keep timber sales from bogging down in the courts by telling the courts to assume that the federal government's logging practices complied with environmental laws. Treading on court's authority to review whether agencies are complying with regulations; Protection of the spotted owl; Unresolved questions; More. INSET: Bush's modest proposal.;The timber bureaucracy..

Focuses on the issue of nuclear waste storage in the United States. Legislation to consolidate a variety of sites into one which is prompting protests, questions about safety, costs, and the role of government; Dispute over the nuclear waste site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada; Statistics on nuclear waste; Environmental opposition to a temporary interim storage facility. INSET: No easy storage solution..

Reports that House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his Republican colleagues are rethinking their agenda on the environment. Aim to repair an image that has been hobbled by their own miscues and relentless Democratic attacks; Speaker-appointed task force on the environment led by Sherwood Boehlert and Richard W. Pombo; Goal to write an environmental plank for the party's presidential platform. INSET: Crafting a `new environmentalism'.

Reports that when the United States Congress tries to overhaul the 1872 Mining Law, it will confront an emotional conflict that President Bill Clinton once vowed he would avoid: the choice between environmental protection and jobs. How the law, originally seen as an incentive to develop the Western frontier, is now lambasted by many as a federal `giveaway' program; Debate about revamping the law; The jobs issue; More. INSETS: The players (those rewriting the law).;Western dilemma (districts most affected)..

Looks at what the next president of the United States must do in the area of the environment. Disputes over finances that were debated at this year's Earth Summit in Brazil; Calls to repeal the Endangered Species Act; Public concern about the environment; Environmental issues that must be dealt with, such as deteriorating national parks, global warming and hazardous waste; Recent achievements in environmental protection; More.

Notes that the Senate on February 19, 1992, overwhelmingly passed a massive energy bill (S 2166) once sponsors abandoned their proposal to open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling. The bill's conservation provisions and its consumer and environmental safeguards; Environmental advocates top priority to force automobile makers to build more fuel-efficient cars; Defeated proposals on the bill's utility regulation section; More. INSET: What got left out..

Announces that some Democrats are demanding that more money be given to clean up the environment, with the biggest question being whether to focus on long-term or near-term projects. Annual defense authorization measure; Energy Department Chairman Sam Nunn's proposal focusing on three long-term payoffs; Environmental activists ambivalent about Nunn's proposal; Near-term results more costly; Provisions of Nunn's package; Four Democratic cosponsors. INSET: Mounting cost estimates..

Reports on legislation that Western lawmakers pushed through the House in the fall of 1997. How measures reflect a new-found moderation on the part of Republicans who live west of the Mississippi River, who often vote together in a bloc; Specifics of the legislation involving grazing policy, environmental issues and zoning; The issue of coalition building in the US Congress. INSET: Hard times ahead in Senate..

Focuses on efforts to overhaul the 1973 Endangered Species Act. Speculation that the Clinton administration is considering supporting a bill that environmentalists vehemently oppose; Background on the so-called Kempthorne bill; Critics who contend that the law does a poor job of protecting species and often tramples on the rights of property owners. INSET: Hot spots in species proposal..

Focuses on debate over the 104th Congress' record, which is being fought out by election-year spinmeisters and in campaign commercials. Environmentalists and their Democratic allies that are pushing a stinging critique; House Republicans who are circulating a list of accomplishments; Why assessing the 104th Congress is a subjective exercise; Business community which has delivered a mixed assessment of the track record; Unfinished business.

Discusses the environmental policy of the United States during 1996 and what needs to be changed in that policy. Attitudes of the population; Bills under debate in Congress; Necessity of overhauling the superfund program; Possible revision of the endangered species law; Impact of the 1976 Federal Land Policy Management Act; Status of national parks. INSETS: Seeking middle ground on divisive issues;Questions for the president.

Focuses on efforts of the 104th Congress to curtail the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA's trials which have become a lesson in the power of Congress and in the limits which lawmakers face when dealing with a politically potent symbol such as the environment; Republican efforts to cut red tape and the expense of regulatory compliance; How the EPA became a focus of the political battle between President Bill Clinton and Congress.

States that the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on October 5, 1993 approved legislation (S 21) that would protect 6.4 million acres of California's desert. Defeated amendments that would have speeded up government purchases of private desert property and allowed hunting in parts of the bill's proposed Majave National Park; Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) sponsor of the bill; Compensation of landowners; Lobby by the National Rifle Association.

Reveals that the Clinton administration has struck a tentative agreement with key democrats to boost grazing fees and impose tougher environmental standards on federal rangelands. Attempt to break a logjam that has stalled the fiscal 1994 Interior appropriations bill; The compromise; Background of the grazing fee; Other items still to be ironed out by conferees. INSET: The grazing fee plan..

Details ten environmental issues that the 103rd Congress faces in the area of water pollution, drinking water, toxic waste dumps, solid and hazardous waste, ancient forests, endangered species, vehicle fuel economy standards, pesticides, the Department of the Environment and mining laws.

Presents the text of United States President George Bush's formal remarks made at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on June 12, 1992.

Discusses the Agriculture Subcommittee on Forests, Family Farms and Energy and the Interior Subcommittee on National Parks and Public Lands's approval of separate versions of a bill (HR 4899) that would preserve millions of acres of federal forests in the nation's northwest. Efforts to save the threatened northern spotted owl and other declining forest species; Fund to help timber-dependent towns evolve into more diversified economies; Loss of timber jobs; Timber sales; More.

Reports on the actions of two House committees, who approved new restrictions on energy production on April 6, 1992. The environmental mark placed by the House Interior and Insular Affairs Committee on the evolving House energy bill (HR 776); Restrictions on toxics to the nuclear power industry and offshore oil and gas drilling; The Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee's ban on offshore drilling; Complaints by Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colo.) on the inferior Interior package; More.

Discusses a summit on global warming to take place in Kyoto, Japan in December 1997. Legislators from the United States who will be attending; Key policies and prospects that will be addressed; Taxation of fossil fuels; Market-based incentives to curb emissions; Fuel efficiency; Tax breaks for companies that reduce greenhouse gases; Administrative actions. INSET: Environmental terms..

Reports that congressional negotiators have tentatively agreed with the White House on the purchase of two environmentally sensitive properties. Debate over the New World Mine in Montana and the Headwaters forest in California; Brief details on the agreement.

Reports on the May 1997 decision by the US Agriculture Department to enroll 16.1 million acres of land into the Conservation Reserve Program, which pays farmers to idle environmentally sensitive land. The move as removing the impetus for a bill (HR 1342) passed by the House on April 29; Complaints that the department is not enrolling enough land in the program.

Reports that leading House Republicans are taking aim at Clinton administration plans to use land exchanges in the West to preserve two environmentally sensitive properties. Concerns of Representatives Robert L. Livingston and Ralph Regula; Background on deals involving the New World Mine site and an area of the Northern California forest known as the Headwaters.

Reports that on January 21, 1997, Senate Republicans unveiled their latest legislative proposal to revamp the superfund hazardous waste cleanup program. How they immediately were accused by Democrats and environmentalists of shutting them out of the bill-drafting process; Measure introduced by Environment and Public Works Chairman John H. Chafee; Details of the bill (S 8).

Presents a listing of environmental legislation that was considered by the 104th Congress. Rewrite of clean water act; Timber-salvage provision of the fiscal 1995 rescissions bill; Overhaul of the Endangered Species Act; Rewrite of the superfund hazardous waste law; Others.

Considers why the rewrite of the United States drinking water law seemed destined to come to a vote in the Republican controlled 104th Congress. Earlier Republican moves that were viewed as anti-environmental; Lack of ideological divisions in drinking water reform that undercut other environmental bills; Immediacy of the issue to voters; That Democrats also supported reform; Problems of the 1974 Safe Drinking Water Act.

Focuses on the $12.3 billion Interior Appropriations section of the US Congress' omnibus bill (HR 3019). Endangered species; Alaska's Tongass National Forest; Timber salvage; Mojave National Preserve; Mount Graham (Arizona); Funding highlights for several key programs under the conference report on HR 3019.

Reports on a message delivered by Vice President Al Gore to Congress. His warning that unless Congress dropped certain environmental provisions, it would risk a presidential veto of the omnibus appropriations bill and another government shutdown; Ramifications of environmental issues for President Bill Clinton and the Democrats; Tussle over the Mojave National Preserve; Other environmental issues.

Reports that as a battle that pits the threatened northern spotted owl against timber jobs in the Pacific Northwest continues to slog through federal court, Congress is content for now to leave the issue outside the political arena. Key Pacific Northwest lawmakers eager to resolve the dispute through legislation who say they lack political support to do so; Significant opposition they face from the Clinton administration and environmentalists; Proposals.

Reports that the Senate on May 10, 1994 passed a bill (S 2100) to continue ecosystem management programs in national forests and other public lands operated by the Agriculture Department's Forest Service. Bill's sponsor Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.); What legislation would do; Testing of ways to improve wildlife habitats, watershed, fisheries and more.

Reports that Congress may have the desire to overhaul the `superfund' toxic waste law in 1994, but it lacks a consensus on the details necessary to proceed. Result which may mean no action until 1995, when key elements of the current law expire; Postponement of a markup on the Clinton administration's bill (HR 3800, S 1834) because major players have been unable to agree on all the specifics; Plan unveiled by Carol M. Browner of the Environmental Protection Agency; Liability issues.

States the Indian Environmental General Assistance Program (S 654 - S Rept 103-87), which allows the Environmental Protection Agency to provide omnibus grants to Indian tribes to administer environmental law, cleared Congress on Nov. 10, 1993. Other actions on Indian issues: HR 2366 (Jena Band of Choctaw Indians, Louisiana; HR 878 (Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, Indiana and Michigan); HR 2376 (Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians and Little River band of Ottawa Indians, Michigan).

Reports on a plan unveiled by the Clinton administration on October 19, 1993 that urges industries to comply voluntarily with new initiatives to help cut back on the emission of gases such as carbon dioxide. Reaction by environmentalists; Hearings set in the Senate Environment and Public Works and the Energy and Natural Resources committees the week of October 25, 1993; Absent is an increase in the fuel efficiency standard for vehicles.

Reveals that the Clinton administration and environmental groups have reached agreement on October 7, 1993 to allow some timber harvesting in old-growth Pacific Northwest forests. Long-term solution is sought to a dispute over protection of the threatened northern spotted owl; Agreement must be approved by United States District Judge William Dwyer; Amount of timber that could be harvested under the agreement.

Focuses on a bill (S 21) in the United States Senate that would protect more than 6.6 million acres of California desert. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) chief sponsor; Opponents' concerns about provisions that would allow privately owned land in the desert area to be swapped for unspecified federal parcels; What the bill would do; Land now managed by the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management; Possible cost to the government of up to $1 billion.

Reveals that a federal appeals court ruled September 24, 1993 that the Clinton administration does not have to prepare an analysis of the environmental effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Why the ruling was a blow to environmental groups; House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt's (D-Mo.) declaration that NAFTA is `deeply flawed' and will vote against it; Use of Chrysler Corp. Chairman Lee A. Iacocca (supporter) to counter Ross Perot (opposes the bill).

Reports that President Bill Clinton announced on April 21, 1993 that the US will sign the international biodiversity treaty aimed at protecting rare and endangered species. US commitment to specific targets to cut the emission of gases believed to cause global warming; Support of environmental groups; More.

Presents a summary of President Bill Clinton's spending proposals for environmental and natural resources programs in fiscal 1994. Increased spending for the Interior Department and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); Reduction in federal land acquisition spending; Decreases in conservation and land management spending; Revival of the Wetlands Reserve Program; Spending on pollution control initiatives; Grazing fees on federal lands; More.

Mentions the key players on environmental legislation and the seven committees that are likely to be the battlegrounds for the most contentious environmental fights. Members of House Energy and Commerce, House Public Works and Transportation, Senate Environment and Public Works, Senate Energy and Natural Resources, House Merchant Marine and Fisheries, House Natural Resources and Senate Commerce.

Reports that a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on July 22, 1992 approved a bill to establish a US Commission on the Environment and Development which would be charged with determining how to implement the objectives spelled out at the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992.

Follows the efforts of House leaders to forge together a comprehensive floor bill (HR 776) on energy policy which was drafted by Energy and Commerce and amended by eight committees in April 1992. The jurisdictional disputes in the varying versions of the energy bill; Rewriting the licensing rules for nuclear power plants; Ways and Means' approval of a `green' tax package to encourage conservation and renewable energy; More.

Reports that the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on April 30, 1992 approved a biennial authorization bill (unnumbered) for nearly two dozen US Army Corps of Engineers water projects stretching from Florida to Alaska. The bill would authorize 22 projects to improve commercial navigation, dredge waterways and provide flood control. Approved amendments of Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and George J. Mitchell (D-Maine); Details.

Applauds the Senate's approval of a non-binding resolution (H con Res 292) calling on President George Bush to take a leadership role in the upcoming U.N. Conference on Environment and Development to be held in Brazil on June 3-14, 1992. The House bill (HR 4750) that mandates the reduction in air pollution levels thought to contribute to the greenhouse effect; Criticism over Bush's preoccupation with foreign affairs; Issues to be discussed at the conference; More.

Discusses the legislative proposal of House Interior and Insular Affairs Committee Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.) to draft an ancient-forest bill in 1992 which would hew closely to the strictures of the Endangered Species Act (PL 93-205) and allow smaller timber harvests in old-growth forests. Hopes the bill will protect northern spotted owl; Area's watershed area; Timber-dependent communities; Steady harvest level; Details.

Reports on the Transportation and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee's voice vote approval of a measure (HR 3554) on April 2, 1992 which would reduce the amount of lead in the environment by banning the import or manufacture of products, including most lead-laden paints and inks, that contain any but the smallest (0.06 percent) amount of lead. Damaging effects caused by the exposure of lead; Details.

Notes that the House Science, Space and Technology Subcommittee on the Environment gave voice vote approval to legislation (HR 3953) on March 26, 1992 that would establish a national research program to determine what, if any, adverse health effects might be associated with radiation from electromagnetic fields. What other studies have found; Details.

Discusses the Senate overwhelming approval on March 10, 1992 of a bill (S 792, S Rept 102-201) that would reauthorize for three years programs aimed at reducing radon contamination. The authorization of $19.5 million annually for fiscal 1993-95 for programs established by the 1988 Indoor Radon Abatement Act (PL 100-551); Creation of regional centers to inform the public on the dangers of radon; The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) radon control standards for construction.

Notes that the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Human Rights and International Organizations has approved by voice vote a non-binding resolution (H Con Res 266) urging President George Bush to attend the upcoming U.N. conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Western Hemisphere Subcommittee's similar resolution; The Foreign Affairs panel's resolution (H Con Res 272) aimed at strengthening an international ban on the trade of endangered animals.