"Less than a year after surging waves from a Japanese earthquake battered the California coast, causing $58 million in damage and wrecking the Santa Cruz and Crescent City harbors, the Obama administration is moving to reduce funding for the nation's tsunami warning and preparedness programs."

"Two utility companies announced the closure of 10 aging U.S. power plants Wednesday, a move environmental groups hailed as a major victory even as critics warned it could raise the price of electricity."

Juliet Eilperin reports for the Washington Post February 29, 2012. [7]

SEE ALSO:

"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.'"

"Most of the biggest polluting industrial boilers are in manufacturing states east of the Mississippi River, but 68 dot the West coast states."

"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."

"LOS ANGELES -- The U.S. Forest Service plans to grant free access to nearly all national forest lands, scaling back unpopular recreation fees that have raised the ire of hikers but also sent millions of dollars to Southern California's heavily used forests."

"HARRISBURG, Ill. — A pre-dawn twister flattened entire blocks of homes in a small Illinois town Wednesday as violent storms ravaged the Midwest and South, killing at least 12 people in three states."

"When US President Barack Obama proposed a US$664-million cut in congressional funding for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in his 2013 budget request, he tried to ease the pain by replacing much of it with money from other sources. But only days after the 13 February request, a vote on Capitol Hill made clear just how vulnerable those substitutions are, suggesting that the US public-health agency is on increasingly shaky financial ground."

"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."

"Plugging the leaks in water pipes and building new ones to keep up with a growing population could cost the United States $1 trillion over the next 25 years, according to an industry study released Monday."