Environmental Insider News articles from March 2003

Environmental Insider News archives from March 2003

Is ANYONE Willing To Step into Gregg Cooke's Shoes?
March 7, 2003... President George W. Bush has now been in the White House for 26 months, and former EPA Region 6 Administrator Gregg Cooke has been out of his old office since last December after staying on much longer than he had initially planned or hoped....

TCEQ Information Management Projects.
March 7, 2003... At the March 7 work session, Information Resources Manager Grace Montgomery Faulkner and a host of other Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) staffers reported to the Commissioners on progress and remaining risks in three critical...

Movement on 8-Hour Ozone Standard.
March 7, 2003... As the deadline for filing of EPA's proposed rules that will guide the designation of nonattainment areas under the 8-hour, 85 part per billion National Ambient Air Quality Standard for ground-level ozone, a number of Texas counties have...

Lawmakers Go Wild!
March 7, 2003... As the deadline for filing draws nearer, Texas lawmakers continue to toss bills - some of them very important ones - into the hopper. The latest list includes three separate bills that address the Texas Emissions Reduction Program that was...

Alaska Oil Impacts Report.
March 7, 2003... A new report from the National Research Council, National Academies of Science, says that environmental effects of oil and gas exploration and production on Alaska's North Slope have been accumulating for more than three decades, though they...

Can Toyota Settlement Help Texas?
March 14, 2003... Texas - and the San Antonio area in particular - could be in a position to benefit from the environmental sins of auto industry giant Toyota Motor Corporation, which has agreed to a proposed settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection...

RRC Boasts Over Enforcement Boost.
March 14, 2003... Railroad Commission Chair Michael L. Williams and his colleagues on March 12 began what Williams called "a new era" in the enforcement of RRC rules by ordering a $125,000 penalty against Autry C. Stephens and his successor company, Endeavor...

Lawmakers Go Even Wilder!
March 14, 2003... As the deadline for filing bills without special consent draws near, lawmakers have rolled out an ever increasing number of environment-related bills - though far fewer than during the landmark 77th Legislature in 2001, which featured the TCEQ...

Cherry Blossoms.
March 14, 2003... Climate Change Program Has "Good Start" The U.S. Climate Change Science Program is off to a "good start," according to a report by the National Research Council, but the research plan "lacks a clear vision and does not sufficiently meet...

Bluebonnets.
March 14, 2003... El Paso Gets Serious About Water Conservation El Paso Water Utilities is trying to determine just how high they need to set water rights to meet a request from the El Paso City Council to use pricing as an incentive to conserve water. The...

ASARCO Questions EPA Soil Removal.
March 24, 2003... ASARCO officials on March 19 announced preliminary results of speciation testing of soils from El Paso residential yards. The company says the results prove false an assertion by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that "decades of...

Lawmakers Wind Up Filing Season.
March 24, 2003... The filing deadline has now passed (though a few consolidating bills may be approved under state rules), and once again Texas lawmakers have reached the 5,000-bill milestone - and once again, many of those bills have implications for the...

A Greene Day in Dallas.
March 26, 2003... The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has quietly announced the appointment of five-time Arlington (Texas) Mayor Richard E. Greene as the new Administrator for EPA Region 6. Greene, who will be sworn in on March 31, will leave his post as...

EPA Creates Confusion on Small MS4 Permitting.
March 26, 2003... The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has issued interim guidance on implementation of NPDES regulations for stormwater Phase II for small municipal separate storm sewer systems (MS4's) in response to the recent 9th Circuit decision [see EI...