The Senate voted 79-12 Monday night to approve a bipartisan stopgap spending bill that funds some disaster relief from FEMA and and abandons controversial cuts to green energy programs. Democrats said they expected the seven-week funding extension to be approved by the GOP-led House, which is in pro forma session after most members went home.
"EDMONTON -- Environmental groups are hoping to trigger what they call the "largest civil disobedience action in the history of Canada’s climate movement"Monday in Ottawa — a sit-in on Parliament Hill to protest federal government support of Alberta's oilsands."
"MONTREAL - A prominent asbestos merchant is headed to Parliament Hill as part of a broader counter-offensive to salvage the reputation of his beleaguered industry."
"The House Energy and Commerce Committee's GOP leadership inaccurately claimed Thursday that a number of green groups support legislation to delay – perhaps indefinitely – a pair of Environmental Protection Agency power plant pollution regulations."
Evidence to support the idea that human emissions are causing global warming has been piling up for more than three decades. Denial of this demonstrable scientific truth has become a litmus test for Republicans. The reasons for this denial seem to be a massive PR campaign funded by the coal and oil industries combined with a deep-seated and angry cultural strain of American know-nothingism.
"The Obama administration recently pulled the plug on lowering EPA limits. It seems clear, though, that the lower the level, the fewer effects on health."
"In lobbying for a presidential permit to construct a massive oil pipeline stretching from Canada to the Gulf Coast, TransCanada’s Paul Elliott has tried nearly every angle.
"President Obama’s visit to the Solyndra solar panel factory in California last year was choreographed down to the last detail — the 20-by-30-foot American flags, the corporate banners hung just so, the special lighting, even coffee and doughnuts for the Secret Service detail."
"WASHINGTON — The House on Friday passed a new version of a stopgap spending bill about 30 hours after rejecting a nearly identical version of the legislation, intended to keep the government open and to provide assistance to victims of natural disasters."
