Environment Weekly Columns

5/09/2004

Rationing Water Lack of clean water is perhaps the world's largest humanitarian problem. An estimated 1.1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water and 2.4 billion lack access to basic sanitation. Three billion people a year suffer from a lack of clean water and over 6,000 of them die every day. This chronic sickness, death, and lack of water for producing food reduce the economic prospects for many countries, contributing greatly to continuing poverty.   Read More...

05/25/2003

Protecting Our Forests Conserving our environment is important. Our forests are an important part of both Michigan's and our country's environment. I've been working to address the problems that face America's forests. In the west, catastrophic wildfires have decimated our forests over the last several years destroying both government and private property. The House passed legislation that I cosponsored, to control these fires as well as combat a pest that has been particularly destructive in Michigan.   Read More...

12/08/2002

Biofuels for Energy Independence The U.S. consumes about 20 million barrels of petroleum per day, roughly 1/4 of total world oil production. We import 11 barrels of oil for every 10 barrels produced here. This makes us dependent on a variety of unstable and less than friendly countries in the Middle East and elsewhere. Fortunately, biomass technologies that can turn agricultural products into fuel offer hope that we can satisfy more of our own energy needs. On December 9, I hosted a regional biofuels conference with Rep. Marcy Kaptur (OH-9) to promote greater understanding of the production and use of biofuels.   Read More...

07/07/2002

Is Our Climate Changing? An article in Newsweek on climate change declared that "there are ominous signs that the Earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically," and argued that the longer politicians wait to take action on climate change, "the more difficult will they find it to cope with once the results become grim reality." The article was written in 1975, and was not about global warming, but rather, global cooling.   Read More...

05/12/2002

Cleaner Water, Cleaner Skies Americans recently marked the 22nd anniversary of Earth Day, a day aimed at heightening environmental awareness worldwide. In my Subcommittee on Research, we look for ways to continue to make our environment cleaner for ourselves and for future generations. The key to this process is building on past successes with the best and latest science, research and technology in order to protect the environment with the least negative impact on the economy.   Read More...

11/26/2000

Implementation of Kyoto Not Good for U.S. In 1997, the Clinton-Gore Administration went to Kyoto, Japan wanting a climate change deal in the worst way. Instead, what the Administration got for the American people was a very bad deal.  Read More...

05/14/2000

A Bad Public Policy I voted against H.R. 701, the Conservation and Reinvestment Act (CARA). CARA would establish an off-budget dedicated trust fund in part for buying more government-owned land. An estimated $42 billion of oil royalties over the next 15 years would be used to enable federal and state governments and special-interest groups to purchase land for other environmental uses.   Read More...

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