"NEW TOWN, N.D. — Across western North Dakota, hundreds of fires rise above fields of wheat and sunflowers and bales of hay. At night, they illuminate the prairie skies like giant fireflies."
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.
"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."
"Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Thursday predicted Arctic shipping routes along Russia's northern coast would soon rival the Suez Canal as a quicker trade link from Europe to Asia."
"U.S. EPA plans to enforce smog rules that were put in place under George W. Bush, now that President Obama has asked the agency to wait until 2013 to move on still-stricter air quality standards for ozone, Administrator Lisa Jackson told lawmakers on Capitol Hill [Thursday] morning.
Jackson had spent the past two years reconsidering the limit of 75 parts per billion, which was finalized in 2008, because it was higher than the range of 60 to 70 ppb recommended by the agency's science advisers.
"Free for dinner in Washington? Nineteen groups of architecture students will be serving meals next week at houses they have built in West Potomac Park, adjacent to the National Mall, as part of the Department of Energy’s biennial Solar Decathlon, a kind of “America’s Got Talent” for green architecture."
"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."
"Perry fast-tracked new plants and made Texas even more polluted than it already was."
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"In April 2006, a few days before Earth Day, Texas Gov. Rick Perry joined executives of TXU, the state's largest utility and biggest carbon dioxide emitter, in cheering plans to open a staggering 11 new coal-fired power plants throughout Texas. With rolling blackouts still fresh on many Texans' minds, Perry hailed TXU's rapid expansion as a path to energy security, not to mention a way to create jobs and potentially lower energy costs.
"On the Senate floor and the television airwaves, Senator Mitch McConnell has lambasted the Obama administration over what he has described as its failed efforts to stimulate new jobs through clean-energy projects backed with billions of dollars in federal loans or other assistance." "But Mr. McConnell, of Kentucky, is one of several prominent Republicans who have worked to steer federal money to clean-energy projects in their homes states, Energy Department documents show."
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