WASHINGTON - August 22 - Today, representatives from 104 conservation and scientific organizations representing millions of American's submitted a letter to Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne and Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez calling for increased transparency and opportunities for public participation on a new rule proposal. The rule, published by the Bush administration in the federal register last week, would radically weaken the Endangered Species Act. The administration is only accepting public comment for 30 days.

OTTAWA - August 21 - The Council of Canadians is blasting the Federal government for suppressing an Environment Canada report that warns of increased water shortages across the country. The Council of Canadians is calling on the Government of Canada to implement a comprehensive National Water Policy, as there is currently no national strategy to address urgent water issues and no federal leadership to conserve and protect our water. The Federal Water Policy is over 20 years old and badly outdated.

WASHINGTON - August 21 - "Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced it will allow fresh spinach and iceberg lettuce to be treated with ionizing radiation. Nearly two years after a major E. coli outbreak was linked to California spinach, it is unbelievable that the FDA's first action on is this issue is to turn to irradiation rather than focus on how to prevent contamination of these crops. This just illustrates once again how misplaced this agency's priorities really are.

WASHINGTON - August 21 - On Wednesday, Food & Water Watch joined St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay in providing 5,000 reusable drinking water bottles to City employees, banning the purchase of bottled water by city departments, and issuing a call for a federal trust fund for water infrastructure. The actions marked the City's leadership in a nationwide effort to provide safe and affordable drinking water through increased federal funding of public water systems.

UNITED STATES - August 21 - What: Celebrated animator Mark Fiore and Greenpeace have teamed up to create a short animation to parody the release of Kleenex boxes featuring the popular character Wall*E.  The piece highlights the biting irony of the world's largest maker of disposable tissues, Kimberly-Clark, using a children's movie with a strong environmental message to sell a product made of "virgin" fiber clearcut from ancient forests and containing no recycled content.