"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."
As the public's demand for practical information on climate change grows, Congressional Republicans have killed a no-cost measure that would help the public get that information.
"At least 45 people have been confirmed dead after a furious storm that has reportedly spawned over 100 tornadoes during the past week tore through the Midwest and moved on to southern states...." Meanwhile, budget cuts in the stopgap 2011 spending bill will diminish the National Weather Service's ability to predict weather that may harm people, property, or businesses.
"In negotiating the budget deal that averted a government shutdown, Democrats and the White House claimed a big victory in preventing Republicans from blocking a set of environmental regulations. But as details of the compromise became known Tuesday, it was clear Republicans had won deep reductions in spending at the Environmental Protection Agency."
"With a startling report that some researchers call more spin than science, the government said Wednesday that the mess made by the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is mostly gone already."
"The Obama administration is proposing a grant program that could start zoning marine areas for offshore projects."
The Obama White House, faced with serious and mounting problems in the oceans, is creating a National Ocean Council that excludes the key agency responsible for most oceans programs, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrtion.
