The Opinion Blog

Better Living Through Chemistry

Thursday’s editorial praises U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham’s compromise proposal on climate-change and energy-independence legislation.

Three years ago, when U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham announced his support for a bipartisan immigration compromise to increase border security, reform the visa system and crack down on employers who hire illegal immigrants, hard-core immigration opponents seized on the bill's path to citizenship for undocumented workers already in the U.S. as “amnesty” and managed to derail the entire effort.

Undaunted, Graham has returned to the fray, announcing this month his support for a “tripartisan” energy reform framework with Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.). The framework has two broad arms – curbing carbon pollution while creating new energy sources – that should provide a pathway to compromise.

Treading Troubled Waters

Saturday’s editorial exhorts the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council to strike a sensible balance between badly-overdue new fishing rules and the fragile state of the economy.

The proposal has a draconian ring: Close vast swaths of the Atlantic Ocean to bottom fishing, thus immediately halting the catch of red snapper and several grouper species.

Stimulus For State Longleaf

Sunday's editorial recognizes the restoration of local pines lost in April's wildfires through federal stimulus money.

Lewis Ocean Bay Heritage Preserve longleaf pine trees lost to the devastating April wildfire will be replaced with some of the money in a $1.74 million federal stimulus grant to the S.C. Forestry Commission.

Hitting the Books and the Bins

Tuesday's second editorial praises this year's increased push for recycling at Coastal Carolina University:

If Coastal Carolina University freshmen haven't already learned about recycling in high school, they will be receiving an appropriate introduction in their dormitories to it this year.

The Dirty South?

Saturday's editorial shines light on the methodology of a recent report critical of our beaches, and suggests it's telling us nothing new.

This week, the National Resources Defense Council released its annual beach rankings, praising the four-star beaches of North Carolina and Georgia but giving only one demeaning star to Myrtle Beach. Are we really the chili dog beach spoiling a caviar coastline?

Slash through wildlife refuge with storm escape road?

Today's editorial notes that the incoming Atlantic storms could give us a quick answer on whether the proposed Southern Evacuation Life Line road is really needed:

Is it really a good idea to build a South Strand evacuation route from S.C. 707 to S.C. 22, straight across the Waccamaw National Wildlife Refuge? We may get an answer to that question sooner than some local folks would like.

Those pesky critters get in the way of progress

Ripped from the wires ... The Miami Herald reacted Wednesday to the Bush administration's proposal to gut the Endangered Species Act:

The Bush administration continued its assault on the Endangered Species Act this week with a last-minute proposal that would speed up approval of construction projects that could cause harm to endangered plants and animals. Maybe it comes out of desperation, but whatever the motivation for the change, the administration misses the mark and should reconsider. If it doesn't and the change is approved, whoever is in the White House next year should immediately rescind the new rule.

Clean energy offers a much faster payoff

From the afternoon e-mail ... Here the rationale of the National Wildlife Federation (hardly an enviro wacko fringe group) against increased domestic oil drilling:

DON'T BE FOOLED BY BIG OIL
More Drilling Does Nothing for Prices at the Pump-
Clean Energy Saves Four Times More Oil

Don't be fooled by oil companies who want you to believe that America can drill its way out of higher gasoline prices and the administration's failed energy policy.

Bush had a shot at a lasting legacy -- and blew it

Ripped from the wires ... Tom Friedman notes that our president wasted his first shot at a lasting energy legacy, 9/11, and is about to waste his second, 4/11:

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

[President] Bush is about to waste a second crisis, this one on energy addiction.

I am reliably told by a Bush administration official that there is an old saying in Texas that goes like this: "If all you ever do is all you've ever done, then all you'll ever get is all you ever got.''

Expanding offshore drilling would be 'terrible mistake'

Ripped from the wires ... Dianne Feinstein presents her counterargument to proponents of lifting the current federal ban on offshore energy exploration:

By Dianne Feinstein

There is no quick fix to $4.50-a-gallon gas, no way to provide instant relief to consumers we know are hurting. Yet President Bush and others continue to push the false promise of offshore oil drilling.

Just this week, the president lifted the executive order banning drilling that George H.W. Bush put in place in 1990. And he's asked Congress to lift its own moratorium on oil exploration on the outer continental shelf -- which includes coastal waters as close as three miles from shore.