Today’s Greenlines – Green(washed) Cuisine + Out with Lobbyists, In with Federal Regs

Georgetown "gifts" photo by M.V. Jantzen via the DCist

The DCist today takes on George Will’s climatological gaff and announces that Giant supermarkets will be giving away free reusable shopping bags come Jan. 1, when city law starts requiring retailers to charge 5 cents for each one of those old-school un-reusable bags.

The Washington Post blows the lid off falsely advertised “green” cuisine at Founding Farmers and discusses the fudge factor, so to speak, at other eateries that claim to serve sustainable fare.

Frozen Topics posts that the popular H Street Shuttle – which carries art, food and entertainment lovers between H Street NE and the Atlas District –  is shutting down due to a lack of funding.

In Maryland, environmental groups want the federal government to crack down on state environmental regulators, accusing them of going easy on water polluters.

On the “sustainability” front, the Urban Architect at Barry Farm (Re)Mixed has a sobering post about how her condo is “underwater” thanks to the real estate bust. Compounding the bad news, she also learned the city plans to one day redevelop her neighborhood and take her home by eminent domain, which means the government would “fairly” compensate her and her neighbors for their properties. The question she’d like answered is: “who decides what is ‘fair’?”

The Green Miles, AKA Miles Grant, was up early this morning to join Obama administration officials, pols and school kids at Washington-Lee High School in Arlington for the White House Clean Energy Economy Forum. He live-blogged from the event for the Daily Kos.

Sounds like a good idea – “A sweeping new White House policy aimed at ousting special interests from federal advisory panels might sweep registered lobbyists off some U.S. EPA advisory panels,” according to this story.

Speaking of the EPA, the agency is preparing new regulations that would require 600+ coal plants to clean up and possibly eliminate waste discharges into lakes, rivers and other waterbodies. Among the substances the EPA is concerned about is the nutrient selenium that can be harmful in too great a quantity.

Their loss, our gain? While victims of the horrendous 1984 industrial accident in Bhopal, India are still struggling to recover, force a cleanup and win reparations, the incident had a positive impact half a world away: it led to better regulation of industrial hazards in the United States, according to this story.