budget
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Minor threat: Our lame response to climate change
A new article compares U.S. resources spent against perceived threats like international terrorism, economic crisis, and climate change. Can you guess which one gets shortchanged?
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GOP introduces slash-and-burn budget for the environment
The Tea Party bill includes major funding cuts for climate protection and axes protections for air, water, and land.
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Severe weather costs us $485 billion per year
According to estimates from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the baseline cost of extreme weather (which has always been with us, but which is steadily getting worse due to climate change) in the United States is $485 billion a year -- 3.4 percent of the country's GDP.
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House Republicans aim pitchfork at food-system reform
U.S. ag policy isn't totally geared to Big Ag -- but it will be if the House gets its way, writes Tom Philpott.
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Republicans’ latest defunding target: food safety
Lately it seems like every time Congress passes good legislation, it then defunds the agencies responsible for implementing those policies. The latest example: Back in December, Congress reformed the food safety system to deal with problems similar to, oh, that E. coli outbreak that's sickening thousands of people over in Europe. But on Tuesday, House […]
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Bombshell: High and rising price for carbon pollution emerges as credible deficit reduction strategy
The Peter G. Peterson Foundation funded six groups from across the political spectrum to put forward plans addressing our nation’s fiscal challenges. All the plans are here. The Center for American Progress (CAP) plan, “Budgeting for Growth and Prosperity” [PDF], brings the deficit below 2 percent of GDP within six years and fully balances by […]
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Let’s balance the budget by charging for CO2
The Center for American Progress has released a plan that could balance the budget by 2030, lower some people’s income taxes, and cut carbon emissions 83 percent below 2005 levels by 2050. This isn’t just a Holy Grail, it’s an entire Holy Place Setting. The CAP plan proposes to eliminate the deficit mainly through taxes […]
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The coming decline of accurate hurricane forecasts
NOAA put out this summer's hurricane forecast late last week, and it looks like it's going to be another doozy of a storm season. And that’s probably all we’re going to get in terms of forecasting. NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco took the opportunity to point out that, in the last round of budget cuts, Congress […]
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The U.S. budget slashes information-gathering on energy
In times of rising gas prices and uncertainty about the nation's overall energy future, it would seem that obtaining information on energy would be a top priority for our government. But not so. The Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the Department of Energy, is facing a 14 percent cut in the 2011 spending […]