National (U.S.)

A new study by scientists from the National Climatic Data Center casts doubt on Anthony Watts' efforts to cast doubt on the U.S. climate record.

"Take a walk, or take a canoe, down the Anacostia River. Here -- in the story of one smelly, trashy and sporadically beautiful stream -- is the unfinished business of the American environmental movement, 40 years after the first Earth Day."

"Radioactive tritium, a carcinogen discovered in potentially dangerous levels in groundwater at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, has now tainted at least 27 of the nation's 104 nuclear reactors — raising concerns about how it is escaping from the aging nuclear plants."

"Why is a child born in northwest Los Angeles four times as likely to be diagnosed with autism as a child born elsewhere in California?"

President Obama's $3.8 trillion fiscal 2011 budget proposal, released Feb. 1, funds private nuclear plants, Great Lakes and Chesapeake cleanup, and acquisition of land for conservation. It cuts Yucca Mountain, fossil subsidies, and EPA. It still hopes to get revenue from cap-and-trade ... and affects the environment in myriad other ways.

"The Obama administration is planning to propose tripling a program that provides loan guarantees to construct nuclear reactors, an administration official said Friday, aiming to reach out to Republican lawmakers in an effort to break a logjam over energy policy."