But soon it dawns on Kate that intelligence-gathering is not the point: she is now involved in a deniable dirty war operating outside US borders, the objective of which, however violent, may not simply be to wipe out drug dealers.
Environmental advocates say the 1977 loophole — which allowed facilities built before 1978 to run without new controls until they retired or did construction that triggered New Source Review — has been misused, letting dirtier plants operate longer at the expense of public health.
Though clearer heads seem to have devised "Tyco restructuring: part deux," keeping a lid on acquisitive growth means Tyco has to get down and dirty to cut operating costs.
Or that these two deals would give this new power to corporations currently fracking on our public lands, drilling for oil off our shores, and operating dirty pipelines across the country, undermining fights against fossil fuels from coast to coast?
So even where it is a relatively small component of the energy mix, solar relieves stress on our electrical grid, making brownouts and blackouts less likely, and reducing the need for dirty generators that operate at times of peak demand.
In an article in Friday's paper, I described how some companies that operate dirty coal-fired power plants are playing chicken as they face a decision on whether to retire them or install expensive scrubbers and filters.
"It was supposed to open clean and stay clean, but now it will have to operate dirty.
Few of us want to get our hands dirty messing with the operating system in our cellphones, but sometimes it's nice to know you could if the need arose.
WAKE-UP CALL The Clinton Administration and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are treating the Asian currency crisis the way Civil War doctors treated wounded soldiers: operating with dirty, infection-spreading instruments.
