Union Of Concerned Scientists

As concern over the dangers of global warming grows, the auto industry has an opportunity to take a leading role in fighting it, a prominent environmental group said Thursday. Instead of suing to block state-mandated reductions in carbon dioxide, a primary cause of climate warming, automakers could pull enough existing technology from their parts shelves to cut emissions of the so-called greenhouse gas by 40%, the Union of Concerned Scientists said.

Aging school buses continue to spew harmful diesel across the United States, a new report based on federal and state data says, and major funding is needed to address the problem. The report, released Wednesday by the Union of Concerned Scientists in Berkeley, found that the nation's 505,000 school buses were some of the oldest and dirtiest vehicles on the road.

More than a third of Food and Drug Administration scientists who responded to a survey said agency officials cared more about speeding new drugs and medical devices to market than ensuring the products were safe. Thirty-nine percent said the agency wasn't "acting effectively to protect public health," according to results released Thursday by the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group.

More than 60 leading scientists, including a dozen Nobel laureates, on Wednesday accused the Bush administration of frequently suppressing or distorting scientific analysis from federal agencies when it disagrees with administration policies. The research cited by the Union of Concerned Scientists covered a range of issues, from climate change to HIV/AIDS.

Automakers are generally doing a poor job in lowering emissions that contribute to global warming, despite continued success in reducing pollution that causes smog, an environmental group said Tuesday. Japanese manufacturers again made the cleanest-burning vehicles, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists' biennial report, which focused on the 2003 vehicles from the six largest automakers in the U.S. market in terms of sales. Honda Motor Co.

An environmental group long critical of sport utility vehicles unveiled Tuesday its own design for such a vehicle, saying it could save millions of barrels of oil and thousands of lives at little extra cost to consumers. The Union of Concerned Scientists said its design for an SUV called Guardian, which is based on a Ford Explorer, incorporated fuel efficiency and safety technologies that already are used in some vehicles.