GOP lawmakers and conservative groups said yesterday that enviros had overplayed their hand in trying to defeat the nomination. Whitman, who has had some modest environmental successes as New Jersey governor, was approved 99-0. Qatar officials say they will permit demonstrations during the WTO meeting, but activists are dubious. The Qatari capital, Doha, where the meeting will occur, currently doesn't have enough hotel beds to accommodate the thousands of delegates, journalists, and WTO officials expected to attend, let alone protesters. Well, listen up.
Experts recommend spending now to fix the situation, rather than waiting for problems to grow worse.
Environmental groups and a commercial fishers group in the Northwest sued the U.S. EPA yesterday to protect salmon from small amounts of pesticides often found in rivers. The plaintiffs want the agency to review how pesticides might be harming the fish and to place tougher restrictions on pesticide use until the review is complete. Studies by the U.S. Geological Survey have detected low levels of pesticides in many of the region's rivers, and the National Marine Fisheries Service recently found that minute amounts of common pesticides can disturb the nervous system of salmon, jeopardizing their survival. If You Don't Nearly 500 dams in the U.S. have been taken down over the past 15 years, opening up fish runs and flushing out rivers. Campaigns to remove large-scale dams in the West garner most of the media attention, but Steve Higgs of American Rivers says more progress is being made knocking down smaller dams in the East that are either defunct or no longer generate a significant amount of electricity.