"[P]eople acting in a group can accomplish things which no individual acting alone could even hope to bring about." - FDR

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Wednesday, December 08, 2004

Regs Around the Web

• A coalition of conservation and outdoor industry groups has formally asked the Forest Service to withdraw plans to lease over 20,000 acres for oil and gas drilling in Utah's Uinta National Forest. The leasing would allow industrial development in roadless areas along the Wasatch Front that provide valuable opportunities for hiking, fishing, and hunting, as well as habitat for wildlife such as the Bonneville cutthroat trout and northern goshawk.

• The automobile manufacturers are fighting a state policy designed to protect citizens from the effects of global warming: they have filed suit against the California Air Resources Board (CARB) over CARB's rule implementing the state's vehicle global warming law.

• The automakers have also won out with a weak regulation intended to prevent whiplash. NHTSA will require vehicle headrests to be higher and closer to the head by 2008 under a safety standard, but the new rule won't require headrests in the back seat. Some safety advocates and Honda Motor Co. (HMC) wanted back seat headrests to be mandated, but other automakers and seat suppliers were opposed.