Tornado warnings mean life or death -- as recent storms in the Midwest showed. Minutes count, and better staffing and technology can help the National Weather Service save lives with earlier tornado warnings. But the political drive to cut federal agency budgets are hurting the NWS's ability to improve forcasts, a federal employee union says.
Budget pressures -- at least politically perceived ones -- are threatening basic science about the nation's water resources. In recent years the US Geologican Survey has cut back its programs for measuring streamflow and water quality -- which help protect people from flood disasters and drinking unhealthful water.
"NASHUA, N.H. -- With his re-election fate increasingly tied to the price Americans are paying at the gas pump, President Obama asked Congress on Thursday to end $4 billion in subsidies for oil and gas companies and vowed to tackle the country’s long-term energy issues while shunning 'phony election-year promises about lower gas prices.'"
"The war of words between the Obama reelection campaign and billionaire conservative activists Charles and David Koch escalated Wednesday. The president's campaign manager, Jim Messina, sent a letter to Philip Ellender, Koch’s president for government and public affairs, disputing Ellender's claim that an organization partially backed by the brothers represented the interests of thousands of grassroots donors."
"The House approved a bill Wednesday that rewrites two decades of water law in California, wiping out environmental protections and dropping reforms of federal irrigation policy that have long irritated agribusiness in the Central Valley."
"Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) will introduce legislation Thursday mandating that power companies generate a major portion of the country’s electricity from low-carbon energy sources."
"An associate of the Heartland Institute, the thinktank devoted to discrediting climate change, taught a course at a top Canadian university that contained more than 140 false, biased and misleading claims about climate science, an expert audit has found."
"GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.—Chevron Corp. is giving up its experimental oil shale lease in northwest Colorado, saying it wants to free up its resources for other priorities."
"Move over, Solyndra. Conservatives opposed to the Obama administration's spending on clean energy have a new whipping boy.
The electric Chevrolet Volt is the new focus of angry conservative blog posts, testy congressional hearings and joking videos. And Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich have taken shots at the car's puny sales and size, with Gingrich jeering, 'You can't put a gun rack on a Volt.'
"Federal agencies [Monday] released environmental justice strategies, implementation plans and progress reports, outlining steps they will take to protect communities facing serious health and environmental risks, particularly low-income, minority and tribal populations."
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