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20071130

Business - Government - Politics - 2008 Election - Family - Health - Safety - Environment - Air - Water - Soil - Labor - Animal - Farmers - Energy - Transportation - Automakers - Consumer - History - "Business Lobby Presses Agenda Before ’08 Vote." ... "Business lobbyists, nervously anticipating Democratic gains in next year’s elections, are racing to secure final approval for a wide range of health, safety, labor and economic rules, in the belief that they can get better deals from the [Republican President] Bush administration than from its successor." ... "Hoping to lock in policies backed by a pro-business administration, poultry farmers are seeking an exemption for the smelly fumes produced by tons of chicken manure. Businesses are lobbying the Bush administration to roll back rules that let employees take time off for family needs and medical problems. And electric power companies are pushing the government to relax pollution-control requirements." ... "The Federal Register typically grows fat with regulations churned out in the final weeks of any administration. But the push for such rules has become unusually intense because of the possibility that Democrats in 2009 may consolidate control of the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives for the first time in 14 years." ... "At the Transportation Department, trucking companies are trying to get final approval for a rule increasing the maximum number of hours commercial truck drivers can work. And automakers are trying to persuade officials to set new standards for the strength of car roofs — standards far less stringent than what consumer advocates say is needed to protect riders in a rollover." ... "At the Interior Department, coal companies are lobbying for a regulation that would allow them to dump rock and dirt from mountaintop mining operations into nearby streams and valleys." ... "Some of the biggest battles now involve rules affecting the quality of air, water and soil." (1, 2) -By Robert Pear -NYTimes

20071108

California - Air - Environment - Enforcement - Government - Auto - Makers - Global - Planet - Climate - "California sues EPA over emissions: The state seeks to force the agency to move more quickly on its request to enforce tough regulations." ... "California sued the federal government today, demanding that the [Republican President Bush led] U.S. Environmental Protection Agency act now to give the states the power to enforce tough regulations on automakers in the fight against global warming." ... "The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way last summer for the EPA to approve state regulations to limit emissions of greenhouse gas from automobile tailpipes. But no action has been forthcoming." ... "The EPA has said it will act on the state's request by year's end, but today's move was a major assault on the federal government's perceived lack of action on what many national and world leaders consider the No. 1 threat to the planet." -By Marc Lifsher -LAtimes

20071025

California - Wildfire - Politics - Government - Military - Weather - Winds - "Aircraft sat as California wildfires took hold." ... "As wildfires were charging across Southern California, nearly two dozen water-dropping helicopters and two massive cargo planes sat idly by, grounded by government rules and bureaucracy." ... "How much the aircraft would have helped will never be known, but their inability to provide quick assistance raises troubling questions about California's preparations for a fire season that was widely expected to be among the worst on record." ... "It took as long as a day for Navy, Marine and California National Guard helicopters to get clearance early this week, in part because state rules require all firefighting choppers to be accompanied by state forestry "fire spotters" who coordinate water or retardant drops. By the time those spotters arrived, the powerful Santa Ana winds stoking the fires had made it too dangerous to fly." ... "The National Guard's C-130 cargo planes, among the most powerful aerial firefighting weapons, never were slated to help. The reason: They've yet to be outfitted with tanks needed to carry thousands of gallons of fire retardant, though that was promised four years ago." -AP via -CNN
US - Government - Global - Climate - Politics - Human - Health - Environmental - Science - Food - Water - Air - "Scientists Denounce Global Warming Report 'Edits': Public Health Experts Say Edits Represent Censoring of Science." ... "Environmental and public health experts overwhelmingly denounced editing by the White House of a federal health agency head's testimony to Congress Tuesday. Significant deletions were made from the testimony, concerning global warming and the potential impact on human health." ... "The original, unedited testimony presented to Congress by Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and obtained by ABC News was 14 pages long, but the White House Office of Management and Budget edited the final version down to a mere six pages." ... "Scientists and public health organizations called the move "frustrating," "terrible" and "appalling." The edits essentially deleted all sections that referred to climate change as a public health concern -- including the risks of increased food-borne and waterborne diseases, worsening extreme weather events, worsening air pollution and the effect of heat stress on humans." ... ""Dr. Gerberding is the lead of the premiere public health agency in the U.S.," said Kim Knowlton, a science fellow on global warming and health at the National Resources Defense Council in New York. "It's shocking that she was not allowed to say in a public discussion some of these vital details." ... ""One has to wonder why was this is so threatening to the White House."" (1, 2, 3) -By Raja Jagadeesan, M.D. and Carla Williams -ABCNEWS.com

20070925

Transportation - Auto - Industry - Environmental - Air - Law - Enforcement - Politics - Los Angeles - CA - "E-mails show DOT chief fought state on emissions: Official lobbied against letting California enforce own standard for tailpipe exhaust." ... "U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters, with the knowledge of the [Repuublican President Bush] White House, directed a behind-the-scenes effort to block California's request for its own, more stringent tailpipe emission standard, according to documents released Monday by a congressional committee." ... "A trail of e-mails show Peters prodding her staff this spring to persuade members of Congress and state governors to oppose California's request, now pending with the Environmental Protection Agency, to enforce its own standards. To contact members, DOT staffers used a list of congressional districts with auto facilities provided by the auto industry." ... "Secretary Peters "asked that we develop some ideas A.S.A.P. about facilitating a pushback from governors (esp. D's) and others opposed to piecemeal regulation of emissions, as per CA's waiver petition," Jeff Shane, Peters' undersecretary for policy, told staffers in a May 22 e-mail about the California request. "Esp. D's" meant "especially Democrats."" ... "In another e-mail, a DOT staffer told Peters' chief of staff that Marty Hall, chief of staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, was "OK with (the secretary) making calls" to lobby Congress." ... "The e-mails were released Monday by [California Democratic Representative] Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight Committee. Waxman, a Los Angeles [California] Democrat, said the documents, along with interviews with Hall and other staffers, showed that "the administration is trying to stack the deck against California's efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles" and that "political considerations — not the merits of the issue" — will determine EPA's decision." ... "California is allowed under the Clean Air Act to set its own emissions standards if it secures a waiver from the EPA. At least 11 other states are waiting to adopt the California standard, designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent from new models in 2016, which has made this a major environmental issue." -By Frank Davies -MNG via -MercuryNews

20070914

Weather - Disaster - Texas - Federal - Money - Wind - Land - - Florida - "Humberto claims 1 in East Texas." ... "Hurricane Humberto claimed the life of an Orange County man as the storm blasted East Texas with winds up to to 85 miles an hour this morning." ... "Today, [Texas Republican Governor] Gov. Rick Perry declared Jefferson, Orange and Galveston counties disaster areas, clearing the way for federal funds after Humberto developed from a tropical depression into a Category 1 hurricane in just more than 12 hours." ... "Humberto didn't exist until late Wednesday afternoon, and wasn't even a tropical storm until almost midday, strengthening from a tropical depression with 35-mph winds to a hurricane with 85-mph winds in just 18 hours, senior hurricane specialist James Franklin said at the National Hurricane Center in Miami [Florida]." ... ""To put this development in perspective, no tropical cyclone in the historical record has ever reached this intensity at a faster rate near landfall. It would be nice to know, someday, why this happened,'' Franklin said." -By Kevin Moran and Harvey Rice with contributions by Eric Berger, Carol Christian, Anne Marie Kilday, and Dale Lezon -AP -Chron

20070910

Global - Climate - Science - Air - Water - US- Russia - Alaska - "Scientist Measures an Overlooked Greenhouse Gas." ... "Alaska scientist Katey Walter studies an aspect of climate change that has been largely overlooked: methane emissions." ... "Methane is a greenhouse gas that is 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, which means it is much more efficient at trapping heat. As a result, methane feeds into a loop of global warming." ... "Thawing Yields More Methane." ... "As global temperatures rise, permafrost thaws. Ponds and lakes form in the depressions left behind by melting chunks of ice in the ground. In the bottoms of ponds and lakes, bacteria feed on the carbon that previously had been frozen underground and burp it out as methane." ... "And because methane emissions from lakes haven't been carefully studied, scientists worry that projections for global warming could be far worse than currently estimated." ... "Walter, who teaches at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, says that methane is being released from lakes in the far north — Alaska, Siberia [Russia], elsewhere — at a far greater rate than anyone has estimated." -By Melissa Block with contributions by Art Silverman -NPR/News

20070827

China - Environmental - Health - Politics - Air - Land - Water - Coal - Weather - Science - Industrial - History - International - South Korea - Japan - USA - California - Los Angeles - EU - Sports - Children - "As China Roars, Pollution Reaches Deadly Extremes." ... "No country in history has emerged as a major industrial power without creating a legacy of environmental damage that can take decades and big dollops of public wealth to undo." ... "But just as the speed and scale of China’s rise as an economic power have no clear parallel in history, so its pollution problem has shattered all precedents. Environmental degradation is now so severe, with such stark domestic and international repercussions, that pollution poses not only a major long-term burden on the Chinese public but also an acute political challenge to the ruling Communist Party. And it is not clear that China can rein in its own economic juggernaut." ... "Public health is reeling. Pollution has made cancer China’s leading cause of death, the Ministry of Health says. Ambient air pollution alone is blamed for hundreds of thousands of deaths each year. Nearly 500 million people lack access to safe drinking water." ... "Chinese cities often seem wrapped in a toxic gray shroud. Only 1 percent of the country’s 560 million city dwellers breathe air considered safe by the European Union. Beijing [China's capital] is frantically searching for a magic formula, a meteorological deus ex machina, to clear its skies for the 2008 Olympics." ... "Environmental woes that might be considered catastrophic in some countries can seem commonplace in China: industrial cities where people rarely see the sun; children killed or sickened by lead poisoning or other types of local pollution; a coastline so swamped by algal red tides that large sections of the ocean no longer sustain marine life." ... "China is choking on its own success. The economy is on a historic run, posting a succession of double-digit growth rates. But the growth derives, now more than at any time in the recent past, from a staggering expansion of heavy industry and urbanization that requires colossal inputs of energy, almost all from coal, the most readily available, and dirtiest, source." ... "China’s problem has become the world’s problem. Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides spewed by China’s coal-fired power plants fall as acid rain on Seoul, South Korea [capital], and Tokyo [Japan's capital]. Much of the particulate pollution over Los Angeles [California, USA] originates in China, according to the Journal of Geophysical Research." (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) -By Joseph Kahn and Jim Yardley -NYTimes

20070719

Government - Environmental - Health - Science - Politics - Children - Air - Safety - Hurricane Katrina - Emergency - Manufactured - Homes - Construction - Louisiana - California - Lawmakers - "FEMA Suppressed Health Warnings for Workers, Katrina Victims: Agency Rejected Environmental Testing on Formaldehyde Gas Levels." ... "The Federal Emergency Management Agency [run by the Republican President Bush administration] has suppressed warnings from its own Gulf coast field workers since the middle of 2006 about suspected health problems that may be linked to elevated levels of formaldehyde gas released in FEMA-provided trailers, lawmakers said today." ... "Committee Chairman [California Democratic Representative] Henry L. Waxman (D-Calif.) called FEMA's bureaucratic neglect of storm victims "sickening."" ... "Nearly 5,000 pages of documents turned over to the committee "expose an official policy of premeditated ignorance," Waxman charged. "Senior officials in Washington didn't want to know what they already knew, because they didn't want the legal and moral responsibility to do what they knew had to be done."" ... "In May, FEMA said its own tests of 96 new trailers near Baton Rouge [Louisiana] last September and October found formaldehyde at 1.2 parts per million, but levels dropped to 0.3 parts per million after four days of ventilation. FEMA said that is the accepted threshold used by the Department of Housing and Urban Development for its manufactured homes." ... "But Mary C. DeVany, an occupational health and safety engineer advising the Sierra Club, testified that that exposure limit of 0.3 parts per million is 400 times greater than the normal limit for year-round exposure set by the CDC-affiliated Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Register. It is also three times the daily exposure limit recommended by the National Institute on Occupational Safety and Health, she said." ... ""This misapplication and skewing of scientific results is at best unethical and grossly misrepresents and attempt to minimize the adverse health effects being experienced by thousands of travel trailer residents," DeVany said." ... "Formaldehyde is a common wood preservative used in construction materials such as particle board, plywood, glue, curtains, molded plastic and countertops." ... "The chemical can cause vision and respiratory problems. It has been linked to higher rates of asthma, bronchitis and allergies in children with long-term exposure." (1, 2, 3) -By Spencer S. Hsu -WashingtonPost

20070706

California - Air- Environment - Legislation - Industry - Global - Climate - "State's global warming fight claims two air-quality officials." ... "The messy departure of the chairman and executive director of California's Air Resources Board, if nothing else, reflects the extremely intense, largely clandestine struggle in the state capitol over how [California Republican Governor] Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's much-ballyhooed anti-global warming crusade is to be implemented." ... "Schwarzenegger says he fired ARB Chairman Robert Sawyer last week because the veteran energy researcher was moving too slowly on cleaning up the San Joaquin Valley's dirty air. But Sawyer and ARB Executive Director Catherine Witherspoon, who resigned Monday, have a far different version, one that rings truer. They contend that Schwarzenegger's chief of staff, Susan Kennedy, and other aides wanted them to slow down on implementing anti-global warming legislation passed last year." ... "On Monday, in an interview with Fresno Bee reporter E.J. Schultz, Witherspoon called the administration's rationale a "cover-up" and added, "The real reason for firing him [Robert Sawyer] . . . was climate change policy." She said, "The day-to-day orders that we receive from the governor's office are to do less, to delay, to not burden industry."" -By Dan Walters -MercuryNews

20070703

California - Air - Environment - Business - Politics - Los Angeles - "Schwarzenegger pressured air-quality board, Democrats charge." ... "[California Democratic] Assembly Speaker Fabian Nu`ñez on Monday called for an investigation into whether the [California Republican Governor Arnold] Schwarzenegger administration has wrongly interfered with the state's air resources board as it begins to develop new air emission standards." ... "Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has traveled around the globe touting the state's unprecedented emissions law, AB 32, which was passed amid worldwide fanfare last year as he sought re-election. But critics now contend that the governor may have pressured the board to slow down implementing the new rules to appease business interests." ... ""The administration is interfering with CARB's [California Air Resources Board] ability to implement the laws of California, and to say I'm troubled is an understatement," said Nu`ñez, a Los Angeles Democrat who co-sponsored the legislation. "We're going to get to the bottom of this. We want to know if CARB was being manipulated by the administration . . . and to what extent those left in charge of the air resources board are committed to fully implementing AB 32 to the letter of the law."" -By Steven Harmon -MercuryNews

20070627

Dick Cheney - Special Report - Government - Terrorism - Torture - Economy - Environment - Air - Water - Food - Animal - Politics - "Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency." ... "Dick Cheney is the most influential and powerful man ever to hold the office of vice president. This series examines Cheney's largely hidden and little-understood role in crafting policies for the War on Terror, the economy and the environment."

Part 1 "Working in the Background: A master of bureaucracy and detail, Cheney exerts most of his influence out of public view."
Part 2 "Wars and Interrogations: Convinced that the "war on terror" required "robust interrogations" of captured suspects, Dick Cheney pressed the Bush administration to carve out exceptions to the Geneva Conventions." ... "Sidebar: Cheney on Presidential Power."
Part 3 "Dominating Budget Decisions: Working behind the scenes, Dick Cheney has made himself the dominant voice on tax and spending policy, outmaneuvering rivals for the president's ear." ... "Sidebar: Expanding Authority for No. 2 Spot." ... "Sidebar: Taking on the Supreme Court Case."
Part 4 "Environmental Policy: Dick Cheney steered some of the Bush administration's most important environmental decisions -- easing air pollution controls, opening public parks to snowmobiles and diverting river water from threatened salmon."

-By Barton Gellman and Jo Becker -WashingtonPost

20070525

New York - Terrorism - Air - Environment - Police - "Health-related Sept. 11 death raises questions, confusion." ... "Police Detective James Zadroga died of respiratory disease at age 34, more than four years after he worked hundreds of hours in the [New York, New York] ground zero cleanup." ... "As family members of ground zero workers who died after breathing in the toxic dust from the collapsed World Trade Center push to have their names included on the official list of victims, Zadroga's father plans to ask the city to review his son's case." ... "A New Jersey medical examiner has ruled his son's 2006 death to be "directly related" to his work at ground zero and exposure to toxic dust from the collapsed World Trade Center." ... "A New York attorney [Felicia Dunn-Jones] who died of lung disease months after the terrorist attack was declared a homicide victim and added to the death toll Wednesday, prompting confusion among Sept. 11 family members about what distinguished this death from the scores of others attributed to the aftermath of the attack." -By Amy Westfeldt -AP via -Newsday.com

20070524

Rudolph Giuliani - Election 2008 - New York - Emergency - Police - Firefighter - Workers - Air - Health - Terrorism - Families - "Mystique of 'America's Mayor' Tarnished: 9/11 Firefighters, Families Protest Giuliani's Rise." ... "The mystique of "America's mayor" shows signs of fraying." ... "The nation's largest firefighters' union is planning to send out 280,000 videotapes attacking former New York Republican Mayor Rudolph Giuliani [and 2008 election Presidential candidate] and his pre-9/11 record -- including his decision to place New York City's emergency operations center in the World Trade Center before Sept. 11, 2001." ... "In recent months, families of 9/11 victims have planted themselves outside Giuliani fundraisers, and several critical books and documentaries have been released." ... "Reports have emerged sharply questioning Giuliani's response to the 9/11 attacks, with critics portraying a bullying mayor who, in his zeal for a quick cleanup, brushed aside health concerns about the air at ground zero." ... "And Giuliani's former emergency management director, Jerome Hauer, is now a prominent Giuliani critic, questioning the former mayor's handling of the turf wars that divided the police and fire departments before 9/11." ... ""In terms of preparedness, response and leadership, Rudy fell down," said Jeff Zack, a spokesman for the International Association of Fire Fighters, which is preparing the video for distribution to its members." ... ""Rudy has created an image of himself that he likes to expand upon: that he's the hero of 9/11," Zack said. "And it's not true, especially from the point of view of the firefighters who lived through that day and the families of those who died on that day."" (1, 2, 3, 4) -By Rick Klein -ABCNEWS.com
New York - Terrorism - Air - Environment - Police - Firefighters - Workers - Lawsuit - "For the First Time, New York Links a Death to 9/11 Dust." ... "New York City’s chief medical examiner, Dr. Charles S. Hirsch, has for the first time directly linked a death to exposure to dust from the destruction of the World Trade Center." ... "In a letter made public yesterday, Dr. Hirsch said that he was certain “beyond a reasonable doubt” that dust from the twin towers contributed to the death of Felicia Dunn-Jones, 42, a civil rights lawyer who was engulfed on Sept. 11 as she ran from her office a block away from the trade center." ... "She later developed a serious cough and had trouble breathing, and she died five months after the terrorist attack." ... "Her name will be added to the official list of World Trade Center victims, and the official number of people who died as a result of the attack on the twin towers will be increased to 2,750." ... "The medical examiner’s decision also could be cited as supporting evidence in the federal lawsuits filed against the city by thousands of firefighters, police officers and recovery workers who say they were injured by breathing the dust during the 10-month cleanup." -By Anthony DePalma -NYTimes

20070514

Rudolph Giuliani - Election 2008 - Politician - New York - Terrorism - Disaster - Money - Government - Construction - Firefighters - Workers - Air - Environment - Science - Health - Safety - Enforcement - Lawsuit - "Ground Zero Illnesses Clouding Giuliani’s Legacy." ... "[2008 election Republican Presidential candidate and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani] Administration documents and thousands of pages of legal testimony filed in a lawsuit against New York City [New York], along with more than two dozen interviews with people involved in the events of the last four months of Mr. Giuliani’s administration, show that while the city had a safety plan for workers, it never meaningfully enforced federal requirements that those at the site wear respirators [at the World Trade Center cleanup]." ... "At the same time, the administration warned companies working on the pile that they would face penalties or be fired if work slowed. And according to public hearing transcripts and unpublished administration records, officials also on some occasions gave flawed public representations of the nature of the health threat, even as they privately worried about exposure to lawsuits by sickened workers." ... "“The city ran a generally slipshod, haphazard, uncoordinated, unfocused response to environmental concerns,” said David Newman, an industrial hygienist with the New York Committee on Occupational Safety and Health, a labor group." ... "City officials and a range of medical experts are now convinced that the dust and toxic materials in the air around the site were a menace. More than 2,000 New York City firefighters have been treated for serious respiratory problems. Seventy percent of nearly 10,000 recovery workers screened at Mount Sinai Medical Center have trouble breathing. City officials estimate that health care costs related to the air at ground zero have already run into the hundreds of millions of dollars, and no one knows whether other illnesses, like cancers, will emerge." ... "From the beginning, there was no doubt that Mr. Giuliani and his team ruled the hellish disaster site. Officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, all with extensive disaster response experience, arrived almost immediately, only to be placed on the sideline. One Army Corps official said Mr. Giuliani acted like a “benevolent dictator.”" ... "Despite the presence of those federal experts, Mr. Giuliani assigned the ground zero cleanup to a largely unknown city agency, the Department of Design and Construction. Kenneth Holden, the department’s commissioner until January 2004, said in a deposition in the federal lawsuit against the city that he initially expected FEMA or the Army Corps to try to take over the cleanup operation. Mr. Giuliani never let them." ... "Records show that the city was aware of the danger in the ground zero dust from the start. In a federal court deposition, Kelly R. McKinney, associate commissioner at the city’s health department in 2001, said the agency issued an advisory on the night of Sept. 11 stating that asbestos in the air made the site hazardous and that everyone should wear masks." ... "Much has been said and written about Christie Whitman, then the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, and her statement a week after the towers fell that the air in New York was safe. But even then, the air above the debris pile was known to be more dangerous than the air in the rest of Lower Manhattan." ... "Whatever they were saying publicly about the safety of the air, Mr. Giuliani and his staff were privately worried. A memo to Deputy Mayor Robert M. Harding from his assistant in early October said that the city faced as many as 10,000 liability claims connected to 9/11, “including toxic tort cases that might arise in the next few decades.”" ... "The warning did not lead to a crackdown on workers without respirators. Rather, a month later, Mr. Giuliani wrote to members of the city’s Congressional delegation urging passage of a bill that capped the city’s liability at $350 million." (1, 2, 3) -By Anthony DePalma -NYTimes

20070508

Kansas - Greensburg - Tornado - Vehicles - Police - "Kansas Tornado Death Toll Rises: 11 Deaths Now Reported After Injured Police Officer Taken Off Life Support." ... "Search and rescue operations continued Tuesday in Greensburg [Kansas], where emergency responders have struggled to determined if any of its 1,600 residents are missing because many are staying with friends or relatives rather than in shelters." ... "The 1.7-mile-wide, Category F-5 enhanced tornado, with wind estimated at 205 mph, destroyed about 95 percent of this farming town Friday." ... "The government's response to the disaster was undermined by ongoing National Guard deployments to the Middle East, [Kansas Democratic Governor] Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said." ... ""I don't think there is any question if you are missing trucks, Humvees and helicopters that the response is going to be slower," Sebelius said. "The real victims here will be the residents of Greensburg, because the recovery will be at a slower pace."" -AP via -CBSNews

20070507

Kansas - Tornado - Disaster - US - National Guard - Iraq - "Deadly Kansas Tornado; Town Wiped Out." ... "The plains states are recovering after a weekend of violent weather. Tornadoes left 10 people dead in Kansas, 9 of those from a twister Friday that nearly destroyed the entire town of Greensburg [Kansas]." ... "[Kansas Democratic] Governor Sebelius says that the situation is being made even harder by the absence of Kansas National Guard soldiers and equipment due to the war in Iraq." ... ""Not having the the National Guard equipment which used to be positioned in various parts of the state to bring immediately is really going to handicap this effort to rebuild."" -KTTC.com

20060831

California - Air - Law - Climate - Politics- LA - "Calif Legislature passes bill to cut greenhouse gases." ... "The California Assembly on Thursday approved, as expected, a bill to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the state to 1990 levels by 2020." ... "The state Senate earlier in the day approved the measure, which was forged by a compromise reached Wednesday between the legislature's Democratic Party leadership and Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger." ... "Only one Republican assemblymember, Shirley Horton of San Diego, voted for the measure, which passed 46-31. Not one Republican in the state Senate voted for Assembly Bill 32, which was sponsored by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles." -By Mark Golden -MarketWatch

20060815

Mississippi - Hurricane Katrina - Homeowner - Disaster - Business - Wind - Water -Weather - "Katrina storm surge damage not covered by homeowners insurance, judge rules." ... "A federal judge ruled Tuesday that an insurance company's policies do not cover damage from wind-driven water in a decision that could affect hundreds of upcoming cases related to property damage from Hurricane Katrina." ... "U.S. District Judge L.T. Senter Jr. ruled that a Mississippi Gulf Coast couple cannot collect damages from storm surge caused by Katrina because Nationwide Mutual Insurance's policies do not cover wind-driven water damage." ... "Senter Jr. said Paul and Julie Leonard of Pascagoula could be compensated for damage that they could prove was caused by high winds." ... ""This reading of the policy would mean that an insured whose dwelling lost its roof in high winds and at the same time suffered an incursion of even an inch of water could recover nothing under his Nationwide policy," he wrote." -AP via -USATODAY

20060622

Fuel - Air - Health - Environment - Law - "EPA: Special Fuels Not to Blame for Costs: EPA Report Concludes 'Boutique' Fuels Not Culprit in Climbing Gas Prices As Bush Has Suggested." ... "Facing growing public outrage over soaring gasoline prices, Bush ordered the study on April 25 in a speech in which he attributed high gas prices in part to the growth of special fuels." ... "But the task force found otherwise, according to its report to be released possibly as early as Friday." ... "According to a late draft, obtained Thursday by The Associated Press, the task force concludes that suggestions of a connection between boutique fuels and supply or price concerns cannot be supported." ... "The state-required fuels "have served an important role" in helping states meet federal air quality standards, the report said, and will be equally important in meeting future clean air requirements." (1, 2) -By H. Josef Hebert -AP via -ABCNEWS.com

20060428

Emergency - Air - West Virginia - Labor - "Mine blast survivor says some men's air packs didn't work." ... "The sole survivor of the Sago Mine explosion says some of the emergency air packs his fellow miners carried didn't work." ... "In his most detailed account of the Jan. 2 blast, Randy McCloy describes in a letter how four miners sought to share emergency air supplies with others trapped in the mine when it appeared theirs malfunctioned." ... "In the letter, McCloy refers to the emergency air packs, called self-contained self-rescue devices, as "rescuers."" ... "Federal and state officials said the air packs, which were tested after the blast, were functional." -By Emily Bazar -USATODAY

20060424

New York - Air - Environment - Science - Government - Terrorism - Law Enforcement - "Official: 9/11 Health 'Warning'." ... "The government's point man on Sept. 11 health programs said he is worried that an autopsy linking a retired detective's death to recovery work at ground zero may be a warning sign of other life-threatening cases." ... "Dr. John Howard also said it will take time to determine whether there is a scientific link between deaths and exposure to toxic dust. Some epidemiologists have said it will take 20 years or more to prove such a link." -AP-CBSNews

20060403

James Inhofe - Corporate - Government - Environmental - Science - Politics - Okla - US - Global - Planet - Climate - Air - Legislation - "Senator Inhofe's Climate Of Confrontation." ... "The Reverend Richard Cizik is an evangelical Christian and a die-hard Reaganite. So he was surprised that a closed-door meeting called late last year by conservative [Oklahoma Republican] Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla. [Republican-Oklahoma]) was all about Cizik's evil deeds. Inhofe called Cizik, government affairs chief at the National Association of Evangelicals, a liberal wolf in sheep's clothing. "I sat there with my mouth open," recalls a meeting participant." ... "Cizik's sin? He believes that climate change is a growing problem, and that Christians have a duty to protect the planet by cutting emissions of greenhouse gases. In contrast, Inhofe, the chairman of the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee, has famously derided global warming as a "hoax." He has been on the offensive against those he considers heretics. That has left business in doubt about the regulatory environment." ... "Seeking Tax Records:" ... "Last year, Inhofe demanded six years of tax and membership records from two groups of state and local air-pollution control officials after they testified that his proposed clean air legislation was too weak. On [February] Feb. 7, the day before evangelicals kicked off a campaign for carbon controls, Inhofe sent a preemptive letter to senators asserting "there is, in fact, no movement in that direction" among evangelicals. Now he is requesting information on all employees and projects at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Inhofe is "using the power of government and the power of office to threaten," says Donald Kennedy, editor-in-chief of Science." - By John Carey -BusinessWeek

20060319

Government - Climate - Fuel - Air - Ice - Environment- Science - Politics - "Rewriting The Science." ... "As a government scientist, James Hansen is taking a risk. He says there are things the White House doesn't want you to hear but he's going to say them anyway." ... "Hansen is arguably the world's leading researcher on global warming. He's the head of NASA's top institute studying the climate. But this imminent scientist tells correspondent Scott Pelley that the Bush administration is restricting who he can talk to and editing what he can say. Politicians, he says, are rewriting the science." ... "Asked if he believes the administration is censoring what he can say to the public, Hansen says: "Or they're censoring whether or not I can say it. I mean, I say what I believe if I'm allowed to say it."" ... "What James Hansen believes is that global warming is accelerating. He points to the melting arctic and to Antarctica, where new data show massive losses of ice to the sea." ... "Those human changes, he says, are driven by burning fossil fuels that pump out greenhouse gases like CO2, carbon dioxide. Hansen says his research shows that man has just 10 years to reduce greenhouse gases before global warming reaches what he calls a tipping point and becomes unstoppable. He says the White House is blocking that message." (1, 2, 3) -Produced By Catherine Herrick and Bill Owens -60 Minutes -CBSNews

20060227

US - Iraq - Emergencies -