Great Lakes Echo (http://greatlakesecho.org/tag/obama/)
A new EPA Administrator and a new Secretary of State are key positions that will affect the Great Lakes region.
Those appointments may say a lot about the future of climate change policy.
Combine them with post fiscal cliff funding battles and 2013 is shaping up to be yet another crossroads for federal policy regrading the Great Lakes.
The Obama administration’s Asian carp response team updated the public on how it’s stopping the voracious fish that threaten the Great Lakes.
It was a dull party for a meeting at ground zero of the carp crisis.
The White House’s recently accelerated a plan to permanently protect the Great Lakes from Asian carp. But many environmentalists are less than impressed.
By Sarah Coefield
coefield@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
Sept. 15, 2009
A run on guns and ammo in the wake of President Barack Obama’s election last year may be a boon to Great Lakes wildlife. A federal tax on the manufacture and import of firearms, ammunition, bows and arrows is distributed to states for wildlife conservation and hunter education programs.
And those tax collections are climbing fast. Background checks for gun purchases hit record levels in November and corresponded with significant gun and ammunition sales. Gun enthusiasts say they’re stocking up because they fear interference in gun rights by the Obama administration.
By Allison Bush, bushalli@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
Aug. 14, 2009
Great Lakes officials are anxious for the Obama Administration to appoint the region’s top Environmental Protection Agency administrator. “The appointment is always important, but for (the Great Lakes states), right now it’s absolutely critical,” said Andy Buchsbaum, executive director of the National Wildlife Federation’s Great Lakes region. “For the first time in history, we could get millions and millions of dollars from Congress, and the administrator is important to making sure the money is spent well.”
The Chicago-based Region 5 administrator is responsible for the Great Lakes program under the Clean Water Act. Region 5 includes Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin.
By David Poulson
poulsondavid@gmail.com
Great Lakes Echo
Aug. 7, 2009
I attended a Great Lakes public hearing this week that really wasn’t. The event at Michigan State University was one of the EPA-sponsored meetings held to solicit feedback for the Obama Administration’s proposed $475 million investment in environmental restoration. And while the meeting was open to the public, not much of the public was represented. Instead, this was mostly a Great Lakes love-in.
(NY) New York Times – The Obama administration said Thursday that it would toughen standards for mountaintop-removal coal mining but would not end the practice as some environmental groups had hoped. Officials from four agencies said they had agreed to order a more rigorous legal and environmental review of pending and future applications for mountaintop mining in Appalachia. The technique involves blasting the tops off mountains and dumping the rubble into valleys and streams. The practice has buried hundreds of miles of streams and has polluted water throughout the region. More
(NY) The New York Times – The House Energy and Commerce Committee, splitting largely along party lines, approved on Thursday the most ambitious energy and global warming legislation ever debated in Congress. The bill’s passage, on a 33-to-25 vote, served as a bookend to a week that began with President Obama’s announcing a deal with auto manufacturers to impose tough new mileage and emissions standards for all cars and trucks sold in the United States starting in 2012. More
(NY) The New York Times – The nationwide automobile mileage and emissions standards announced by President Obama on Tuesday represent a huge step forward in the effort to limit greenhouse gases and reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil. They also represent a departure from the Bush administration’s indifference on these issues and an important down payment on Mr. Obama’s pledge to fashion an aggressive and imaginative energy policy. The standards, forged after weeks of negotiations orchestrated by Carol Browner, the White House coordinator on energy and environmental matters, may also mark the end of decades of wearying, unproductive legal and political combat between the automobile industry and environmentalists. More