Articles by Lisa Hymas

Clear Skies takes a fat whack

Bush's Clear Skies Act is on life support after a vote today in the Senate
Environment and Public Works Committee failed to draw enough support to push the measure to the Senate floor. The committee had been deadlocked 9-9 on the bill for weeks, and James Inhofe (R-Okla.), committee chair, was unsuccessful in his arm-twisting attempts to sway at least one more senator to his side. (Barack Obama [D-Ill.] had been thought a potential swing vote, but he held his ground. Phew.)

As AP's John Heilprin writes, "The committee vote doesn't preclude Republican leaders from bringing the bill to the full Senate for action" -- though they'd have to do it through unconventional methods. "But it also arms opponents with several parliamentary tactics that they can use to defeat it on the Senate floor." Whatever that means.  

Inhofe knew just who to blame: "This bill has been killed by the environmental extremists who care more about continuing the litigation-friendly status quo and making a political statement on CO2 than they do about reducing air pollution."

Inhofe tries to intimidate clean-air officials

John Paul, a regional air pollution officer from Dayton, Ohio, dared to argue in congressional testimony last month that the Clear Skies Act was "simply not protective enough" and "far too lenient" on polluters.

For that sin, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), chair of the Senate Environment Committee, is going to make Paul and his cohorts pay.  

It’s too late to stop climate change

"At the core of the global warming dilemma is a fact neither side of the debate likes to talk about: It is already too late to prevent global warming and the climate change it sets off," writes environmental author and advocate Mark Hertsgaard in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Well, at least she’s a feminist

Interior Secretary Gale Norton is reviled by many enviro activists for pushing energy development at the expense of environmental protection. But as Elizabeth R. Washburn argues in an op-ed in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, she's to be commended for "helping women break through the glass ceiling in a federal bureaucracy known for its good old boy leanings."

In her four years at the helm of the Interior Deparment, Norton has filled key management positions with women, including Lynn Scarlett, Rebecca Watson, Kathleen Clarke, Johnnie Burton, Fran Mainella, Sue Ellen Wooldridge, and Teresa Chambers (though things went a bit awry in Chambers' case). "This is the first time that such a large group of women has been assembled to make decisions that affect land, minerals, water and the general environment of the United States," writes Washburn.

That's impressive. But personally -- even as a progressive who cares about equal representation -- I'm far more interested in policy outcomes than in who's behind them. Give me a stale old white guy who cares about multilateralism and opposes "preemptive war" over Condoleezza Rice any day.