The Feds Take On Electronic Trash

Washington, D.C. – Three weeks ago, Sen. John Thune, the South Dakota Republican who in 2004 unseated Senate Minority Leader Thomas Daschle, held his first hearing as chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Superfund and Waste Management. The topic: electronic waste, something Thune confessed he wasn’t too aware of previously.

“I had heard of e-mail and e-commerce,” Thune mused. “I guess it makes sense that we have e-waste.”

For business, what makes sense is that Congress pay more attention to e-waste now. Speaking on behalf of the Consumer Electronics Retailers Coalition, an industry group representing the likes of Circuit City Stores and Target, Michael Vitelli of Best Buy said his group favored “a national solution to the issue of electronic waste.” Vitelli noted that in the first half of 2005, 50 e-waste bills were introduced by 30 state and local legislatures.

The legislative flurry underscores the significance of the problem. A recent report from the Government Accountability Office warned that 100 million computers, monitors and televisions become obsolete each year. In those devices lurks nasty stuff such as lead, mercury and cadmium.

Full story at Forbes.com

Digging Into Natural Resources Stocks

A value manager for 31 years, Andrew Pilara has piled up an impressive record in natural resources investing. Since its launch in 1995, his no-load fund, RS Global Natural Resources, has beaten the S&P 500’s 9% return by three percentage points.

RS Global Natural Resources (RSNRX), with $1.1 billion in assets, also gets good performance grades from FORBES: B and A+, respectively, for up and down markets. So what’s Pilara’s take on natural resources these days? Bullish. “For the rest of the decade,” he says, “this is the place to be.”

Bold words, given the frothy prices for many commodities and the stocks of companies doing business in them. But Pilara, a self-proclaimed contrarian, waves off talk of a commodities bubble. “If you look at the resources stocks we’re invested in,” he says, “they sell at single-digit multiples.”

Full story at Forbes.com

Revving Up Fuel Cells

On a drizzly day in Washington last week, tourists lining up for a visit to the Capitol could catch a glimpse of something else they probably don’t see every day: a bunch of cars powered by fuel cells. Parked just outside the U.S. Botanic Garden, the three vehicles had company reps hovering nearby to pop the hood, answer questions and even take gawkers out for a spin.

The cars–from General Motors, DaimlerChrysler and Nissan Motor –were part of a technology showcase sponsored by the U.S. Fuel Cell Council, an industry group. Fuel cells, in case you’re wondering, are devices that use a chemical reaction, not combustion, to generate power. It’s basically the reverse of your grade-school electrolysis experiment–instead of separating hydrogen and oxygen with electricity, hydrogen and oxygen are combined in the fuel cell to produce electricity and water.

Up the Hill in the Cannon House office building, the U.S. Fuel Cell Council had also pulled together a mini trade convention for the benefit primarily of members of Congress and staff. In a large conference room, dozens more company reps–from the likes of General Electric, Delphi, and Ballard Power Systems –showed off their employers’ fuel cell wares.

Full story at Forbes.com

Cradle To Cradle To Washington

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Last month’s U.S. election results elicited the predictable laments from the enviro crowd. “The re-election of President George W. Bush means that polluters will enjoy four more years of lax enforcement,” moaned the Natural Resources Defense Council.

But the political winds don’t seem to ruffle one prominent environmentalist: William McDonough, a 53-year-old architect and man dubbed a “hero for the planet” by Time magazine in 1999. “We don’t focus on politics, because they come and go,” McDonough said in a phone interview last week, adding, “Republicans are very attracted to what we do.”

Indeed, last January, McDonough was back at the White House, where he had previously accepted an environmental award from President Bill Clinton, expounding his ideas on ecologically sustainable design to a meeting of government officials arranged by Bush’s Office of Management and Budget. “We’ve met with many of the departments and agencies many times since,” McDonough says.

The subject of those meetings is what McDonough calls “Eco-effectiveness” and “Cradle to Cradle Design.” In short, it’s an effort to refashion architecture and industry so that they emulate the ecosystems found in the natural world.

Full story at Forbes.com

Greenhouse Gas Soft Sell

WASHINGTON, D.C. – When the Bush Administration unveiled its plan to address global climate change in February 2002, a key component was a program called “Climate Leaders.” True to the administration’s bottom-up approach to business regulation, Climate Leaders invited big manufacturers and others to work with the Environmental Protection Agency to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases–such as carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and others thought to contribute to global warming.

The tally so far: 48 companies have signed on as “Partners” in the Climate Leaders program. Twelve of those have agreed to set reduction goals for their greenhouse gas emissions. “We’re pretty happy with those numbers,” says Kathleen Hogan, director of the EPA’s Climate Protection Partnerships division. But the program is just starting its climb up the mountain–Hogan says the goal, eventually, is to have hundreds of Climate Leaders participating.

To be sure, the list already includes some big hitters. General Motors pledged to reduce its greenhouse gases at North American plants by 10% by 2005, while Pfizer chose to reduce its emissions by 35% per revenue dollar from 2000 to 2007. Other notables that have set goals include Cinergy, IBM, and Johnson & Johnson.

Still, the overall tally of 48 participants suffers by comparison to other voluntary programs set up by the Bush Administration in recent years. As noted here a month ago, the U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection’s initiative has signed up 4,300 companies in just over two years for its supply chain security initiative.

Hogan brushes off the comparison. For one, she notes EPA’s track record with its other voluntary programs. Energy Star, a program encouraging companies to label and promote energy efficiency products (air conditioners, office equipment and so on), has more than 7,000 partners after 11 years. Of course Energy Star is a marketing plus for companies making efficient appliances, since consumers can see from the label how much they’ll save.

Full story at Forbes.com

Stock Focus: Water Product, Services Companies

NEW YORK – A recent report published by the National Intelligence Council, a division of the Central Intelligence Agency, estimates that by 2015 nearly half the world’s population will live in countries that are water-stressed. In China, for example, the report notes that the water tables under the country’s core grain-producing areas are falling at a rate of five feet per year.

The challenge isn’t limited to emerging economies. “The issue of purifying water cuts right across the board,” says John Hermance, professor of environmental geophysics and hydrology at Brown University. “You not only have entire communities and cities which will need increasing levels of treatment for their water supplies, but also private homeowners and small businesses who face the problem of installing filtering for their water systems.”

Such problems are creating opportunities for companies like Meriden, Conn.-based Cuno (nasdaq: CUNO – news – people). The company designs and manufactures filtration products to purify fluids and gases. Its Aqua-Pure and Water Factory Systems units offer water filtration treatment products for residential and commercial use.

Full story at Forbes.com