Displaying 1801 - 1824 of 7921
The Trouble With Farm Offsets
The New Republic, Bradford Plumer Excerpt: The Environmental Working Group recently analyzed the House climate bill and noted that the legislation allows farmers to earn credits under the cap-and...
EWG and Allies Urge Congress Not to Weaken Requirements for Renewable Biofuels
Including indirect land-use change emissions in the life-cycle assessment of greenhouse gases from biofuels is critical to protecting forests and native ecosystems from the consequences of increased...
Loopholes in Climate Bill “Offset” Provisions
The agriculture provisions of the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) open two loopholes that threaten to let coal-fired power plants and other big climate polluters off the hook and slow...
A Disaster Waiting to Happen
The concentrated, predictable, repetitive nature of agricultural disaster aid among a few states with perennially poor growing conditions raises the question of whether the time has come for states to...
The Unintended Environmental Impacts of the Renewable Fuels Standard
U.S. farmers are planting fence-row-to-fence-row to produce enough corn to supply ethanol plants and at the same time meet burgeoning demand for food and feed crops. The intensification of corn...
Bonus Subsidy
A new EWG analysis identifies more than 1.2 million prospective recipients of a proposed $1.5 billion crop subsidy bonus contained in HR 4939, The Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense...
After Two Decades of Agricultural Disaster Aid A Chronic Dependency Takes Root
This year millions of dollars of emergency agricultural disaster aid will go to the very same farmers and ranchers who have collected it every other year, or more frequently, for decades.
Cotton and Accountability
What if the United States does not comply with the WTO's broad rulings and fails to reform its multi-billion dollar cotton subsidy programs to Brazil's satisfaction? What retaliatory trade measures...
Nitrate Contamination of Drinking Water
An Environmental Working Group review of nearly 200,000 water sampling records found that over two million people -- including approximately 15,000 infants under the age of four months -- drank water...
Taking From the Taxpayers
The Bush administration is paying some of the biggest and richest agribusinesses in America $17 million for cutbacks in their taxpayer-subsidized water supply. But an EWG investigation found that...
Soaking Uncle Sam
Courtesy of U.S. taxpayers, a few hundred California farms in Fresno and Kings counties annually get enough water to supply every household in Los Angeles, at pennies on the dollar of the price paid...
Senators Push for Action on Disease Clusters Bill
Two years ago, Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) introduced the Strengthening Protections for Children and...
Do you filter your tapwater? Should you?
When people ask what kind of water filter to use for their tapwater, we reply, "It depends on what contaminants are present in your tap water, since different filters are effective at removing...
International Ag Policy Experts Talk Farm Subsidy Reform
Mexico and the United States have a lot more in common than a border. Their agricultural and rural policies have strikingly similar flaws–and present parallel opportunities for reform and...
"We've Made the Unhealthy Choice the Rational Choice"
A big reason that food products derived from corn are so pervasive in America's diet today is that for decades taxpayers have given corn growers incentives to grow as much as possible through the...
Taxpayers Fuel Rise of the Mega (Family) Farm
Discussions in Congress on reforming America's broken food and farm policy in the next farm bill have already begun. Lots of voices are chiming in from the pro-food and sustainable agriculture circles...
Chef Ann Cooper's School Salad Bar Salvo
In the months since we spoke with Chef Ann Cooper about her school lunch project, she's been crafting a new plan to get healthy foods into the mouths of America's kids.
Biomass Power Can't Get Its Story Straight
As AgMag noted the other day, Massachusetts has decided to rewrite its rules for renewable energy to exclude electric-only power plants that would burn biomass, often in the form of whole trees. Ian A...
Massachusetts Sees the Light on Biomass Power
In a sharp about-face, Massachusetts officials have decided that biomass-fueled, electric-only power plants do not qualify as renewable energy sources because of the growing awareness that these...
Huge Taxpayer Investment in Ethanol Yields Paltry Payoff
Between 2005 and 2009, U.S. taxpayers spent a whopping $17 billion to subsidize corn-ethanol blends in gasoline. What did they get in return? A reduction in overall oil consumption equal to an...
Peterson Sends Positive Signals on Farm Bill
For years the Environmental Working Group has advocated for a more rational farm policy that would provide a better safety net for more American farmers. We've done this while also seeking to promote...
Will Farm Subsidies be the Tea Partiers' Achilles' Heel?
It's too early to tell what the Tea Party movement's impact will be on the November elections, but there's no doubt that their noisy anti-big government message has barged into the nation's political...
Bacon, Cheese and Chicken, Please – Hold the Bun.
If you've ever wished that one day there would be a place where you could grab a bacon and cheese pileup with no veggies, smashed between slabs of fried chicken instead of buns, here's good news.
EWG To Monitor San Francisco Sludge Policy, Criticizes Unfounded Accusations Aimed At Vietor, Waters
The Environmental Working Group will join other watchdog groups in monitoring the San Francisco Public Utility Commission's (SFPUC) controversial management of sewage sludge. EWG President Ken Cook...
